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

[Rob]

I miss RS-6 and RS-8 .... sniff ....


On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 2:58 AM, Pavel Milanes Costa <co7wt at frcuba.co.cu>wrote:

> Amen, I second that motion...
>
> Third word hams who do not have 70cm rigs can work the sats more easily
> (70cm FM gear is very rare here, not to mention SSB)
>
> The 2m uplink is workable with transverters and HF multimode CAT capable
> rigs are almost ubiquitous for the 10m downlink
>
> 73
>
> El 18/09/13 17:48, Kevin Muenzler, WB5RUE escribió:
>
>> 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<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@**amsat.org<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)
>>
>>
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