[amsat-bb] Re: The "Good Ole Days" are now

Wed Sep 18 19:23:42 PDT 2013

Contrarily... I believe if we had more "hard" sats that would present more of a challenge to many. If it were easy, everyone would be doing it. The difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes a little longer! 
73 Bob W7LRD 

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kevin Muenzler, WB5RUE" <kevin at eaglecreekobservatory.org> 
To: amsat-bb at amsat.org 
Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2013 2:48:19 PM 
Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: The "Good Ole Days" are now 

I've been working sats off and on for many years. I must admit that I 
haven't done much since RS-12/13 and RS-15 went silent. I believe that if 
we had more "easy sats" with Mode VHF up and HF down they might be more 
popular. Tuning and alignment weren't as critical. 

Just my two cents or so. 

Kevin Muenzler, WB5RUE 
Grid EL09uf 
Eagle Creek Observatory 
http://www.eaglecreekobservatory.org 
I've stopped asking "How stupid can you be?" Some people are taking it as a 
challenge. 

-----Original Message----- 
From: amsat-bb-bounces at amsat.org [mailto:amsat-bb-bounces at amsat.org] On 
Behalf Of Les Rayburn 
Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2013 3:32 PM 
To: amsat-bb at amsat.org 
Subject: [amsat-bb] The "Good Ole Days" are now 

Like many hams (I suspect), I dreamed of working satellites for decades. 
Followed them with at least a passing interest but always seemed to put them 
off till "someday". Even during the craze of the "work satellites with your 
handheld", I was distracted by other priorities. When I got involved in 
VHF/UHF a few years ago, and purchased an Icom IC-910H, I kept thinking I'd 
finally pull the trigger. But years passed without anything other than 
weak-signal contacts being made on that rig. 

A few months ago, I finally decided to give it a try. Downloaded SATPC32, 
and updated my keps. FO-29 was the next satellite coming my way, so when I 
was inside the footprint, I tuned around a bit, and found some stations 
coming in. Cool! I was actually hearing hams on satellite---next up was 
answering a CQ...nervously I pushed the PTT on the mic. 

82 grids and a few hundred contacts later, I'm having a ball! 

I don't miss the birds that came before, but just enjoy what we have now. My 
only complaint might be that more folks are not active on F0-29 and VO-52. 
Even SO-50 can be nearly empty after midnight. 

My understanding is that within the next year we'll have 2 or 3 more linear 
LEO satellites, and possibly another FM bird, right? While we may not work a 
lot of DX on those, we should get to the point where no one has to wait long 
for "something" to be overhead. That's exciting to me! 

AMSAT is staffed with wonderful volunteers, and seems to be doing great 
work. I'm thrilled to be a member, even if it is #38965. 

The good ole days are now. Get on the birds and make some contacts. I need 
your grid! (ha, ha) 

-- 
-- 
73, 

Les Rayburn, N1LF 
121 Mayfair Park 
Maylene, AL 35114 
EM63nf 

6M VUCC #1712 
AMSAT #38965 
Grid Bandits #222 
Southeastern VHF Society 
Central States VHF Society Life Member 
Six Club #2484 

Active on 6 Meters thru 1296, 10GHz & Light 

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