[amsat-bb] AO92 L/V mode??

[Patrick STODDARD (WD9EWK/VA7EWK)]

Hi!

I had asked this question on Twitter when the tweet announcing that
AO-92 would remain in U/V mode appeared, just over a week ago. Not
seeing an answer from the AMSAT Twitter account, I'll post the
question here, expanding on what I wrote in my tweet.

When AO-92 was switched into L/V mode on the evening of 8 December, the
@AMSAT Twitter account posted the announcement of the mode change, along
with a mention that L/V mode will not be available the following weekend
(14-15 December) due to the N4T expedition to EL84:

https://twitter.com/AMSAT/status/1071609972902060032

"AO-92 placed in L/v mode at 0330UTC and will revert to U/v in 24 hours.
No L/v next weekend by request of EL84 N4T expedition."

I asked a question, and saw no response on Twitter from the @AMSAT account.

Back in October, a request was made of AMSAT by Tom N5HYP not to activate
AO-92's L/V mode during the Jamboree on the Air weekend, so the satellite
could remain in the normal U/V mode. Drew KO4MA posted a reply that
explained his answer, here on the AMSAT-BB list:

http://amsat.org/pipermail/amsat-bb/2018-October/069962.html

"Tom,

In a private email response sent to you just prior to your email to the
-bb, I inquired whether you had SSB capabilities. I know many other JOTA
stations do get on the transponder satellites as well, and I think we can
agree this would be a better presentation of our part of the hobby. I'm
not inclined to alter the schedule when there are so many other satellites
available, both FM and SSB/CW, but only one L-band uplink available one
day a week. Of course AO-92 will still be available in U/v for the first
half of JOTA.

73, Drew KO4MA
AMSAT VP Operations"

I was surprised to see this response, but it seemed reasonable given the
fact we currently have a lot of satellites that support voice QSOs in FM
and SSB. I heard JOTA stations working FM satellites that weekend, and I
worked one of them on AO-91 during a Saturday afternoon pass. It is always
fun to work the Scouts during JOTA.

Fast forward to the AMSAT tweet on the 8th...  Given this response from
October, and seeing that something different was going to be done with
AO-92 for what could be characterized as a family camping trip to the
Florida Keys, I asked:

What changed?

The situation now mirrors how things were during JOTA in October. We still
have a lot of satellites supporting FM and SSB/CW. AO-92 remains the only
satellite currently capable of working with an L-band uplink (until the
L/V repeater on the ESEO satellite is made available to us). And AO-92
would be available in U/V mode for 3 of the 4 days of this family camping
trip, had the normal Saturday evening switch to L/V mode happened.

JOTA is a worldwide event involving radio and Scouts. N4T is (was) not a
worldwide event, at least on satellites. The grid EL84 has been active on
satellites at least twice in the last six months. Yet AMSAT accomodated
a request to not activate AO-92's L/V mode for an event that won't have
worldwide participation via satellite, after not making the same
accomodation for a worldwide event. This is the reason for my question.

73.





Patrick Stoddard, WD9EWK/VA7EWK
http://www.wd9ewk.net/
Twitter: @WD9EWK or http://twitter.com/WD9EWK



On Sun, Dec 16, 2018 at 1:52 PM Andrew Glasbrenner <
glasbrenner at mindspring.com> wrote:

> We deferred L/v this week at the request of the N4T kids expedition to the
> Dry Tortugas. This was announced with the mode change announcement on
> Twitter last week: https://twitter.com/AMSAT/status/1071609972902060032
>
> I apologize for not sending a reminder to the -bb. I was engaged at a
> Christmas event for my kids last night. I hope you understand.
>
> 73, Drew KO4MA
> AMSAT VP Operations
>
>
>