Re: [amsat-bb] Re: AO-40 FD

[Margaret Leber <maggie@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jesse Morris wrote on AMSAT-BB:

> It was pretty easy to tell the experienced operators from those who got
> on for FD.

Yes, it certainly was, and not just on AO-40. :-)

The Phil-Mont Mobile Radio Club was running our traditional Field Day 
station W3EM, from the heavily wooded top of Militia Hill in Ft. 
Washington State Park just north of Philadelphia.

While this is an excellent location for HF work, the heavy leaf canopy 
"leaves" something to be desired for satellite work. Nonetheless, this 
year (my second as satellite "band captain") we were blessed with good 
equipment, including beautiful VHF and UHF CP yagis provided by our 
hard-working field day chairman, Steve WU3I. Steve recently purchased 
them used at the BRATS Timonium hamfest, and soon they'll be mounted on 
the roof of his home, and we'll be seeing Steve active on the birds.

For our first pass, FO-20 on orbit 57965 at 2120 UTC, we stationed Gwen 
NG3P outside the satellite station tent wearing headphones on a long 
cable, so she could hear the effects of her armstrong rotoring on 
downlink signal over the noise of the generators. I crewed the tracking 
computer and radio inside the tent, and Gwen kept one earcup lifted to 
hear my shouts of AZ/EL tracking data  ("141, up 28!").

It wasn't too long before FO-20 lifted above the treeline and we got a 
*strong* signal from VE1FO; when he finished his QSO, I swooped my signal 
down in to his and got a response to my first call as soon as I was 
properly on his frequency...his exchange was recived at 2A Maritime 
(which we initially took to mean maritime mobile and were duly impressed, 
until someone pointed out that VE1 was in the Maritime Provinces). With 
the QSO complete, the entire camp knew we'd hit ARRL 100 point paydirt by 
Gwen's warwhoop cry of success. First pass, first call, contact made. Not 
too shabby, and some compensation for hours of rain-soaked frustration 
last year.

But I was responding to the "exeperienced operators at FD" comment...:-)

Later, on Sunday, Steve K3PHL came by the satellite tent with a tale to 
tell. He'd been operating our 15-meter station and heard a station 
frantically calling a 1x1 special-event call...drifting quite a bit in 
frequency. So Steve gave him a call, logged the exchange, and only at the 
end of the QSO did the other station thank him profusely for being their 
FD satellite contact....apparently he'd heard their 15m downlink, and 
they heard him come back directly on 15m and thought he was working 
through the bird too.

So should the other station get 50 ARRL FD points for half a satellite 
QSO? :-)

   73 de Maggie K3XS

-- 
-----/___.   _)   Margaret Stephanie Leber    / "The art of progress  /
----/(, /|  /| http://voicenet.com/~maggie   / consists of preserving/
---/   / | / |  _   _   _    `  _AOPA 925383/ order amid change and /
--/ ) /  |/  |_(_(_(_/_(_/__(__(/_  FN20hd / change amid order."   /
-/ (_/   '  K3XS  .-/ .-/    ARRL 39280   /___ --A.N.Whitehead ___/
/____ICQ 7161096_(_/_(_/__AMSAT 32844____/ <maggie@voicenet.com>


----
Via the amsat-bb mailing list at AMSAT.ORG courtesy of AMSAT-NA.
To unsubscribe, send "unsubscribe amsat-bb" to Majordomo@amsat.org