WB4OMG - Buddy - Lake Parker Park - January 18, 2025 - Microwave Amateur Radio - Ham Radio

To start out the ARRL January 2025 VHF Contest, Buddy Morgan, WB4OMG, setup a microwave station at Lake Parker Park in Lakeland, Florida. Equipment used is an Icom IC-905 operating on 5.760 and 10 GHz.
Microwave operations in Amateur Radio is very exciting. It's great to have an opportunity to watch the radio amateurs who enjoy the microwave communications aspect of ham radio.
Buddy sent out the following information regarding his ops: I took my IC 905 and the 5760/10GHz, Two Foot, dual band dish to Lake Parker, a few miles, South of me, on Saturday. The goal was to make contact with Don, WA3RGQ, 41 miles to the South East of me. Don's 5 and 10 Gig stations are for EME. His dishes have a clear shot at the moon, but not necessarily at the horizon. I had a clear shot across the Lake for 2~3 miles. Don did not have a clear shot at me. We were not sure that we would be able to complete contacts, over this path.
We set up on 10368.170 MHz, Q65-15A and easily made contact. Signals were good. We also tried 15B, 15C and 30D. We did not notice any differences between the modes.
We then tried FT8. The signal did not sound bad. The signal did not look bad, on the waterfall. But, just like every other time, I have tried FT8, on 10 GHz, over anything other than a LOS path, t would not decode. Due to multi-pathing, in the Troposphere, the signal frequency spreads. As you go up in frequency and with longer paths, the spreading gets worse. The narrow tone spacing of the FT8 modulation scheme just doesn't work well with significant frequency spreading.
We went to SSB. Don was running a little more power than me. I gave him a 5X5. Don said I was not ragchew quality copy, on SSB.
We went to 5760 and completed a contact, there using Q65. BTW: FT8 usually works on 5760.
It was a beautiful day, at The City of Lakeland's Lake Parker Park. Lots of people asked what we were doing.