Hi All I have now finalized the site for the WR attempt which is in the Meelup Regional Reserve from a car park which has an excellent view over water to Moonrise. Of interest is that „Meelup“ is a native aboriginal word that means „Place of the Moon Rising“ so the local aboriginal people must have had EME in mind. It is the only place in Western Australia that has a take-off over water for any useful distance to Moon rise and happens to be one of the few areas where it is possible to exceed the existing WR. More details of the park are at: http://www.meeluppark.com/ The distance to Jim's proposed site is 18950 km compared to the present WR of 18337 km. One important issue in working to MR when there is only a short common window is that I must get a good Az bearing so I am on the Moon as soon as it rises, as it may well be obscurred by cloud (rain is forecast for the day of the attempt but only 10% probablity a the time of the attempt). As it will be dark the only option I could think of was a rock, called Castle Rock (Photo at the end of this email), about a km away and for Keith to walk there in the dark through the bush and shine a torch on a temporary white marker. Keith did not seem too keen about climbing rocks in the dark so this morning I did a Azimuth fix on the Sun as it rose and referenced that to a marker on a bush about 30 metres away which we will use as the Azimuth reference on the night of the attempt. To maintain accuracy I have carefully marked the holes where the tripod was located so it can go back in exactly the same place. I have also visited the local Council who manage the Park and the lady who I spoke to gave me a good hearing and said she did not see any problems but she would pass my phone no to the rangers in case they had more questions. As long as I don't get a phone call I must be in the clear.
The Moon sked data is below with details of the site from Google Earth further below: The spreading is reasonably low at 34 Hz and the Lunar degradation not too bad at 0.8 dB.
Rex
_________________ Life above 50,000 MHz 73! Stanisław Kłodzko JO80IK IC-7300 + IC-9700 + (2m - 9el + 250W), (70cm - 21 el + 250W), (23cm - 55 el + 150W)
