Reston Town Center Cross Band Operation

The 2 Meter to 440 MHz Cross Band Operation was decided upon on Thursday, August 24, 2000. Art - KD4CSO provided his equipment and was on site on top the southwest parking garage roof by about 6:30 AM.

His station was equipped with a dual band vertical with a pair of 5/8-wave elements in a collinear configuration. Art had completed testing with out stations on Saturday morning and it was successful; however, the cross band feature was not check. On Sunday morning we experienced the 2 Meter output desensitizing the 440 MHz receiver. Gene - N3EV and Art tried several times to configure the antennas and eventually installed Gene's dual band rig to solve this problem. However, this older radio had a wide front end and was very susceptible to out of band signals; the consequent was much spurious noise was retransmitted on the 440 MHz link. The 2 Meter signal was heard well through Loudoun County. Kay - KA2IJU reported it "5 and 9 plus 20" on the breakfast room scanner all day long on Canby Road. And Bill - WB4ACC reported good copy near Berryville while driving back from Berkley Spring. The Cross Band Operation was taken down at 1645 hours after it was determine that the out stations had closed because of the approaching storm.