[amsat-bb] Re: AO-51 Signal Strength Post Flip

[B J]

--- On Tue, 2/9/10, Auke de Jong, VE6PWN <sparkycivic at shaw.ca> wrote:

> From: Auke de Jong, VE6PWN <sparkycivic at shaw.ca>
> Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: AO-51 Signal Strength Post Flip
> To: amsat-bb at amsat.org
> Received: Tuesday, February 9, 2010, 9:42 PM
>     Another observation
> from DO33 (yo Bernhardt),

Greetings.  It's nice to hear from a fellow Edmontonian.

  I've always had trouble 
> hearing this bird well enough to work from my home station,
> as I have my 
> antennas at fixed elevation, and manually-rotated via
> channelmaster... AO-51 
> has been consistently easier to hear AFTER it has passed
> overhead on 
> ascending passes.  Between AOS and peak-elevation,
> it's always just above my 
> noise.  I don't have any observations about descending
> passes because I'm 
> not up early enough to try those;) .      I
> also can't say how that compares 
> to pre-flip, as I never heard it well enough to work,
> except on very low 
> passes, and didn't keep notes.

I live beside one of the biggest shopping centres in the city and I've got no obstructions from due N to nearly due NW for lower elevation passes.  At much higher angles, I can follow it from nearly directly overhead to SSW.

In the past, I could tell when AO-51 was within view because the background noise would drop significantly.  Since I'm operating a portable station, I use that to track it.  Lately, it hasn't been as easy.

>     I actually had the bird all to myself a few
> weeks ago, while everyone 
> from the USA already had LOS, and I had almost
> full-quieting for many 
> minutes in a row that time, until my LOS.  This is
> what struck me as being a 
> significant observation!

I've noticed that it's been rather quiet during later morning passes (say, after 1500 UTC).

<snip>

BTW, were you at the flea market at the Yellowhead Inn this past Saturday?  I've been to each one since I got my callsign 5 years ago and I'm sure that this one had the most people.  I was looking for a manual HF + 6 m tuner but couldn't fine one, but there were lots of other items that I bought that I could use.

It was a good opportunity to meet hams in person that I'd spoken to by radio, including some from local nets.  It was certainly a good way to spend two hours.


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