[amsat-bb] Re: AO-27/SO-50

[Richard Grabotin]

Thank you everyone for your help. I had my first successful contact on SO-50. 

AO-27 appears to be on hiatus, since the website is also down. 

My next endeavor is learning the linear transponder birds. I have been trying to receive AO-7. I never heard a beacon on either mode A or B. (Daytime pass) I tuned around the downlink and I might have heard some very faint stations. I guess I need bigger antennas? Perhaps some phasing cables will help. (it's in the mail)

Thank you KB5WIA for the contact this evening. 


Richard 
K7LWV


On Oct 24, 2011, at 6:31 AM, David Palmer KB5WIA <kb5wia at amsat.org> wrote:

> Hi Richard,
> 
>> . I am using a yeasu g-5500 rotator with the AMSAT controller and ham radio deluxe. Kenwood ts-2000 for the rig and a 8 element 440 and a 4 element 2 meter antenna. The antennas are currently linear polarized since my phasing cables still have not arrived from the manufacturer.
> 
> Good setup!
> 
>> 
>> My questions are, is AO-27 difficult to work? Is it on a schedule? Any ideas why I could not raise or hear it?
> 
> Yes, it's on a schedule -- check the status page on www.amsat.org to
> see when it comes on and off. It comes on at mid-latitudes by a timer,
> so for an overhead pass in your area you *should* have heard it ....
> other things to check would be that the keps are current, and that
> there weren't any glitches during that particular pass (ie. maybe
> radios briefly stopped tuning).  Try again, it's a nice loud sat.
> 
>> 
>> As for SO-50: Should I be listening 5khz down? Ham radio deluxe is controlling the radio frequencies and I made a custom entry for 5khz down and corrected for Doppler. This still did not seem to help.
> 
> I've found SO-50 about 5kHz-8kHz down, so listen down a little.
> Remember the tone on the uplink too.  Also, I've seen quite a few
> posts that the TS-2000 has a birdie right at the high end of SO-50's
> downlink, so you may have a better chance hearing it later in the pass
> as doppler moves the downlink away from the birdie.
> 
>> 
>> 
>> Richard
>> K7LWV
> 
> Good luck on the sats!!!!
> 
> 73 de Dave KB5WIA