[amsat-bb] KD8KSN/M & a question

[Zachary Beougher]

Hi All,

Thanks for the QSO during my few mobile ops the past couple days – and for your patience.  We had three small road trips planned for various reasons Wednesday-Friday, so it provided a great opportunity to try the mobile equipment out, find out what combinations work better than others, etc., etc., so I can perhaps get on the air a little more while mobile during vacations and such.  I will be uploading all QSOs to LoTW within a day or so, and if anyone wants a card just email me the QSO details.  I did have a question:

One consistent issue I found while operating is that I could just barely hear a bird from AOS-TCA, but from TCA-LOS I could hear fine, even down to 10-5 degrees.  I am not understanding why I can’t hear one side of the pass, but I can hear the other fine – almost full quieting with the preamp.  I should also mention that I experienced this issue on AO27 and SO50, not AO51.  I would thinnk it would be a polarization issue, but that still doesn’t make sense to me.  My main setup consisted of:

Uplink:  TH-D7A (7w plugged into 12VDC), Comet CA-2x4SR mag for uplink.

Downlink:  FTM-350AR, ARR SP432VDG preamp on battery or 12v, Arrow duplexer (440 side hooked up which solved my desense issues so I could work full duplex), and a 19” quarter wave mag.

I had posted here about a month or so ago wondering if intermod would be an issue using a preamp while mobile.  I monitored about 7-8 passes over the past three days while mobile and intermod was never an issue.  I did have a little bit of alternator whine on the FTM-350AR’s receive, but it was very minimal.  That could be solved by running the cables directly to the battery.  Since we were in the family vehicle I just used the cig lighter (I know that’s not a good idea, but it was only for a couple days).

73!

Zack
KD8KSN