[amsat-bb] LilacSat-2 over Central US 2340z

[Dave Swanson]

All,

I just worked several stations on XW-2E, and all sounded nice and 
strong. Well done to the CAMSAT team.

I ALSO on a whim swapped over to the Lilac-Sat2 frequencies around 2340z 
to see what I could hear. To my surprise I heard what sounded like a 
good ol' fashion rag chew going on with S7 reception levels. I keyed up 
and tried to get in to no avail at first, but after tweaking with 
polarity and doppler.. and cranking the power to 40W, I was able to 
break thru and hear myself on the downlink. I called CQ a few times, but 
as soon as I would let up on the key, the old men and their rag chew 
came back clear as a bell, and I didn't hear any other satellite 
operators. I was only able to capture the bird for a few minutes, before 
it sunk low enough in the sky I could no longer overwhelm the other 
transmitters with my low power.

Good news is the downlink was exceptionally strong.. I've only ever had 
the pleasure of working SO50 on FM, so I was quite surprised at how 
clear and strong the downlink was. Bad news is I fear with the lack of 
PL tone, interference will be extreme from other hams using the 
144.30-144.50 section of the 'New OSCAR subband' section of 2 meters as 
their personal rag chewing frequencies. Also the downlink seemed to be a 
little lower in doppler than I figured it would be, published downlink 
is 437.225 (+/-) but by the end of the pass I was all the way down to 
437.190 for clear reception, which seemed a smidge extreme.

The next pass for me is only 8° but I may run up on a mountain and give 
it another shot. West coast operators should definitely try and hear 
what they can hear.

73!

-Dave, KG5CCI