[amsat-bb] It's about time! FO-29 successfully worked!

[Paul Stoetzer]

Congratulations! As far as the weak signals - what type of coax are you
using and how long is it? Most find that the 857 or 817 don't really need a
preamp to work FO-29 horizon to horizon, at least in a clear location. Coax
is cheaper than a preamp, so you might want to try it. I use 6' LMR-240
jumpers myself.

>From what I know of JA satellite operation, CW is definitely more popular
than SSB. The two 73 on 73 Award applications I've received from Japan have
shown a large majority of the QSOs on CW.

73,

Paul, N8HM

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 7:33 AM, J. Boyd, JR2TTS/AB3UR <
the2belo at msd.biglobe.ne.jp> wrote:

> I finally made it into FO-29 this afternoon from PM85il, working stations
> JA3RVS and JA3FWT. I also heard JR8LWY calling me, but wasn't able to
> return the call. Oh well -- my first-ever QSOs on a SSB satellite!
>
> The recording:
> https://soundcloud.com/minus2c/fo-29-pass-jan-11-2016-1426jst (My QSOs
> are at about 4 minutes into the recording.)
>
> At this point I must make a confession: I did what I should have done in
> the first place, and bought another FT857D. At US$650 new there was really
> no way I could resist. It was also borne out of a bit of frustration -- I
> tested the IC-706 up, down, and sideways and it appears to be working
> fine... but it seemed to not play nice with SATPC32 a lot of the time, it
> was kind of hard to control during hectic SSB sat passes, and it just
> wasn't making it into the bird.
>
> So I splurged. Screw it. The 706 will probably end up being a dedicated 2m
> SSB and 6m rig. I needed one for the shack anyway (my FTDX1200 can't do 2
> meters, and my HTs are FM only of course).
>
> Anyway, now armed with two of the same rig that are going to finally
> cooperate, I went out to the usual spot and set up. The above recording is
> the result.
> The first thing I realized was, the signal is way down in the noise even
> at the top of the pass (27 degrees this time around) with the Arrow aimed
> in the right place. I was correcting for polarization and everything but
> this was as good as I managed to get.
>
> Take-aways from this:
>
> 1. I think I need a preamp. FO-29 is at pretty high altitude for a LEO sat
> so if I want the real prize (QSOs with Alaska and Hawaii) I'm going to need
> a way to bring the signal in when the bird is near the horizon. I would
> welcome recommendations.
>
> 2. I still don't have SATPC32 figured out. I'm supposed to set the uplink
> frequency offset so it will always be dead on when the bird comes up, but I
> haven't really found the time to do that because I would have to waste a
> pass sitting there figuring out how many Hz it was off. Until today, the
> goal was "get a contact" so I ended up turning the laptop off and just
> tuning manually. I will spend the time to properly configure the software
> next time around.
>
> 3. I need a field-use CW paddle. The code was coming in much clearer than
> the phone, and there seemed to be many more CW ops on the bird than
> anything.
>
> All in all a good start I think. A learning experience.
>
> --
> J. Boyd, JR2TTS/NI3B
> the2belo at msd.biglobe.ne.jp
> www.qrz.com/db/jr2tts
>
> TypeAppより送信
>
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