What a wonderful opportunity for British Hams.
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Sunday, September 4, 2016
Thursday, September 1, 2016
AO-85
I was fortunate enough to participate in the 1943-1955 UTC pass of AO-85 over northern Idaho today and made 5 contacts: K7JA, W7QL, AC0WN (who was activating a national park- does operating from a repeater in space count??), AA5PK, and N6NUG. Thank you the contacts!!
Reports from the internet suggested that AO-85 was a bit deaf, and that 100w is often necessary to quiet the repeater. I am happy to report that 5w and an arrow antenna did just fine!!
Now I just need to fine tune the operation as it really requires too many hands- hold the antenna, hold the radio and it's microphone/speaker, hold the notebook and pen and be able to write the call signs and times down while keeping the antenna pointed and rotated in the best orientation and remembering to advance the preprogrammed doppler memories as I go. It is a bit of a cat herding exercise.
DX engineering tells my my IC-9100 should be arriving back next week sometime so hopefully I can resume using the SSB birds as well. Fun stuff!
I'm thinking of doing a SOTA expedition tomorrow and am wondering if I should try to catch a satellite pass while doing so. The HT arrow antenna package is light and would be a trivial addition to the HF rig. HT is a VX-8GR.
For more information on AO-85 see: AMSAT AO-85
For more information on SOTA see: Summits On The Air (SOTA)
AO-85 in all it's glory
73
de AD7QQ
Reports from the internet suggested that AO-85 was a bit deaf, and that 100w is often necessary to quiet the repeater. I am happy to report that 5w and an arrow antenna did just fine!!
Now I just need to fine tune the operation as it really requires too many hands- hold the antenna, hold the radio and it's microphone/speaker, hold the notebook and pen and be able to write the call signs and times down while keeping the antenna pointed and rotated in the best orientation and remembering to advance the preprogrammed doppler memories as I go. It is a bit of a cat herding exercise.
DX engineering tells my my IC-9100 should be arriving back next week sometime so hopefully I can resume using the SSB birds as well. Fun stuff!
I'm thinking of doing a SOTA expedition tomorrow and am wondering if I should try to catch a satellite pass while doing so. The HT arrow antenna package is light and would be a trivial addition to the HF rig. HT is a VX-8GR.
For more information on AO-85 see: AMSAT AO-85
For more information on SOTA see: Summits On The Air (SOTA)
AO-85 in all it's glory
73
de AD7QQ
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