[amsat-bb] Re: Sat antenna fixed elevation -- how many degrees is the best?

[Auke de Jong]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dave Guimont" <dguimon1 at san.rr.com>
To: "Bill Dzurilla" <billdz.geo at yahoo.com>
Cc: <amsat-bb at amsat.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2008 12:48 PM
Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: Sat antenna fixed elevation -- how many degrees is 
the best?
>...
>I use home brew quadrifilars, rotate with a
>little TV rotor, 2M and 70 cm on the same mast.
>By experiment, I determined the beamwidth ~65°, so I fixed EL at 30°.
>
>And if the satellite downlink is strong enough to
>be heard at all I get the entire pass....

My observations mirror yours exactly, except that I find directly overhead 
to be fairly hard to hear(no pre-amp) so I avoid direct-overhead passes, or 
wait untill it's gone past to start talking.  Since I am controlling the 
radio and rad-shack rotor manually, doppler and azimuth are too fast going 
overhead for me to track anyways.  I also happen to use a little less 
elevation, which doesn't help the overhead part one bit!  I think it's a 
nice compromise untill I can afford a new rotor system.

73's
Auke
VE6PWN