[amsat-bb] Re: Satellite choices on Field Day

[Philip Jenkins]

Thanks, Drew. I didn't realize AO-27's status, and I wasn't really looking
forward to getting up in the middle of the night anyway :-) (although SO-50
has an excellent pass around 330 am :-) )

I did play around with AO-27 and SO-50 most of the day Wednesday, but yeah,
I haven't really been active on the sats since a 1993 AO-13 DXpedition to
VP2M.

The reason I'm planning on using the HT and Arrow is to show them the
(nearly) minimum equipment that can be used to work a sat - that they don't
have to have a fancy radio (IC 910, IC-9100, TS-2000) and a big antenna
array to work the birds. (I do have switchable CP yagis on 2M and 440 at
home, with an az/el rotor, but transporting all that would be too much
logistically AND I thought it would be overkill and too intimidating for an
audience whom you're trying to attract into ham radio.) But yeah, I'd much
rather have full-duplex like I did on AO-13.

Philip

On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 10:36 PM, Andrew Glasbrenner <
glasbrenner at mindspring.com> wrote:

>
>
>
> -
> >I'm leaning towards AO-27 for listen only, as I know the bird will be jam
> >packed with ops that weekend (although I do have a decent pass at 230 am
> >local Sunday, and an even better one at 4 am) and actually trying to make
> a
> >contact on SO-50, although I'm sure it will be busy too.
>
> Let me save you some sleep. AO-27 is only on for the ascending passes in
> the afternoon, and only for 7 minutes starting at about 30 degrees
> latitude. This means the first several minutes of the afternoon pass will
> be silent from your QTH, and all of the overnight passes.
>
> >  Definitely AO-7 for my linear choice, as I know the linear birds won't
> be
> >as busy as the FM ones. FO-29 is my next choice.
>
> FO-29 and VO-52 will work better on FD, as AO-7 tends to get overloaded
> easily.
>
> >
> >I'm planning on using the Arrow antenna with my VX5-R for the FM birds,
> and
> >I have an M-Squared 2M/440 (same boom, but offset 90 degrees) with an
> >"armstrong" az/el control for the linear ones with my TS-2000X.
>
> Why give up full duplex and the TS-2000 to use the VX5 on FM? Half-duplex
> is a poor choice for satellite on normal days, let alone Field Day. If it's
> because of the birdie, use the TS2000 as the transmitter and the VX5 for
> receive only.
>
> Good luck. If you aren't a regular satellite user, try some passes outside
> of Field Day to improve your chances of success.
>
> 73, Drew KO4MA
>
>
>