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

[Patrick STODDARD (WD9EWK/VA7EWK)]

(The following is my personal opinion on the subject, and I am not
speaking on behalf of any organization with this message)


Hi!

I understand there may be interest in moving the AO-92 L-band period
from the current Sunday (UTC time - starting on Saturday evenings in
North America). The past "Experimenter's Wednesdays" worked well with
AO-10 or AO-13, where the length of passes was measured in hours.
With AO-92's passes around 10 minutes each, and factoring in a weekday
where those working or in school aren't probably going to work the
morning passes, it cuts down on the available time for trying this
mode on a given day. For weeknights, the pass times for those working
or in school may be too late, so there could be weeks where someone
isn't able to work even one AO-92 L/V pass, based on the time of the
best available weeknight pass for that location.

This came up last year around JOTA, and AMSAT's decision not to
accomodate JOTA by leaving AO-92 in the normal U/V mode. Drew
Glasbrenner KO4MA, AMSAT's Vice President of Operations, made the case
for not accomodating JOTA at that time:

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

Since then, AMSAT has accomodated a trip to the Florida Keys and this
weekend's trip by AD0DX and N7AGF to DM02 by not switching AO-92 to
L/V mode. If these accomodations are more of the "exception" rather
than the "rule", I think leaving the current schedule of AO-92 L/V
on a weekend would be better. Otherwise, it makes little sense to have
this mode available on an AMSAT satellite, and make it difficult for
many to use it. We still have a few other satellites for the FM crowd,
and many more for those capable of working SSB and CW, in addition to
AO-92.

If a reason for considering the shift of the AO-92 L/V schedule is
availability of a command station to make the mode change, maybe
Fernando KF7R is right - the Operations group needs more command
stations. Maybe adding one in the western USA, at least, so there is
some geographic diversity in the locations of these stations.

There are new stations trying AO-92 L/V all the time. It's not a huge
number, but I hear new call signs regularly. Many have started out with
an HT and either a cheap Chinese Yagi or some homebrew antenna, or just
bought an IC-9700 with the 1.2 GHz band included with an appropriate
antenna. AO-92 gives them an opportunity to do more than just U/V or
V/U satellites. I think AMSAT should make an effort to ensure the
availability of this mode, where operators will consider obtaining the
equipment needed to try it for themselves.

Thanks, and 73!






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


On Sun, Sep 22, 2019 at 10:41 PM Mark L. Hammond via AMSAT-BB <
amsat-bb at amsat.org> wrote:

> Hi, rest assured it was an oversight from command stations. Sometimes we
> get busy with other things (real life) and miss an email.  We’ll try to do
> better. And by “we” I mean the whole command team. KO4MA and me ;)
>
> Hopefully users will cooperate on Tuesday night so we can put into L/v at
> that time.  I’ve been pondering and suggesting a long term swap to
> Tuesday/utc Wednesday, like we did for many years as Experimenter’s night.
> There are so many grid events and activations on weekends—seems like a good
> move to change our schedule so we can have our cake and eat it too!
>
> 73,
> Mark N8MH
>
>
>