[amsat-bb] Polarization

[Doug Andrews]

I too have wondered about this.
I have not had much trouble hitting SO-50 and some success on AO-85 with a 5 watt handheld and arrow antenna without turning it. Worth a try.
DougKG7UNU



Sent from my Sprint Samsung Galaxy® Note 4.

-------- Original message --------
From: Ken Alexander <k.alexander at rogers.com>
Date: 5/30/16  4:41 PM  (GMT-08:00)
To: amsat-bb at amsat.org
Subject: [amsat-bb] Polarization

I clipped this from another message because I didn't want to drag the
discussion off course.  It's a question I've been wondering about since
getting into this a few short weeks ago.

I've also read (but haven't tried yet) about the trick of rotating
the antenna 90 degrees on transmit, once you've established the best
receive orientation.

73 de Bill, KG5FQX

So far, with SO-20 I have rotated my Arrow antenna for best reception of
the downlink and don't think I've had too much trouble being heard. At
the same time I have wondered whether I should twist the antenna when
transmitting to orient the 2m elements to give the same polarization as
in receive. I don't know if this is a good idea or not, and frankly I
have enough trouble remembering calls and grids, tracking the satellite,
adjusting frequency and switching back to the correct VFO to worry about
one more thing.

I've seen that some commercial OSCAR antennas use circular polarization.
The antennas I see in the photos of satellites we work are whips. Is the
polarization becoming "circularized" as it re-enters earth's atmosphere
or something?

Comments and observations would be most welcome!

73,

Ken Alexander
VE3HLS, FN03

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