[amsat-bb] Re: Newbie Question on AO-51

[Jonny 290]

/handheld almost always guarantees a pileup in my experience. Good fun.

We've had some really nice passes lately on 51. I'm enjoying it a ton - it's
easy to hit, easy to hear.

I work the 'weird passes' - overnight ones mainly - and weekends. Hope to
work ya, Terry!

On Jan 19, 2008 10:51 PM, Andrew Glasbrenner <glasbrenner at mindspring.com>
wrote:

> Hi Terry,
>
> AO-51 has a number of different transmitter and receivers that can be
> tuned
> or cross connected in various ways, as opposed to most of the other
> satellites currently operational. The QRP mode has been run in the past as
> a
> second independent repeater with the QRP restriction in response to
> complaints about crowding on the main repeater. Unfortunately it never saw
> more than occasional use when active, which has led us to run it much less
> often.
>
> Up until the beginning of last year, a 67 hz PL tone was used to only gate
> the audio on the main repeater. In theory this is a good system to limit
> the
> satellite to repeating amateur communications. In practice we found it
> creates significant problems when many users try to access the satellite
> at
> once. It also masks the ever worsening problem of non-amateur users on our
> uplinks, as well as out of band terrestrial amateur users, populating the
> uplink with things like IRLP and Echolink nodes.
>
> When we do run the QRP repeater, 10 watts to an omni or a handheld antenna
> was the criteria. That being said, if there isn't a lot of competition,
> 500mw and less can be used on the regular 435.300 repeater. Signing /QRP
> or
> /handheld will usually garner some extra attention too.
>
> The best source of current information on the modes on AO-51 can be found
> at
> this part of the website : http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/echo/CTNews.php
>
> 73, Drew KO4MA
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Terry Dillard" <tdillard at gmail.com>
> To: <AMSAT-BB at amsat.org>
> Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2008 10:36 PM
> Subject: [amsat-bb] Newbie Question on AO-51
>
>
> >I am a relatively new Tech learning to work the LEOs, and have a question
> > specific to AO-51. On AO-51's status page at AmSat.org, it lists a Mode
> > V/U
> > (J) "QRP" frequency with no PL tone, and a Mode V/U (J) frequency with a
> > PL
> > tone of 67.0 Hz.
> >
> > What's considered the maximum wattage to operate on QRP? Also, since
> I've
> > never operated on the "PL" frequency, is it even active? Do "non-QRPers"
> > use
> > it, is it available?
> >
> > Thanks for the help!
> >
> > --
> > Terry Dillard, KI4YZI
> > www.ki4yzi.com
> > "Veritas Vos Liberabit"
> > _______________________________________________
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