Good points Mike. I agree that not everyone on a satellite pass is interested in working the 'rare' grid.
However if someone goes to the trouble of setting up a portable station for the benefit of others to grab a new grid, I think those users who aren't interested in chasing grids should standby while the others attempt to make contact with that station. After all, with the short pass on the LEO birds, there isn't much time to do anything else; unless you get on during the early morning hours, or during the middle of the day when the activity isn't as high as on the weekends and you can actually have a 10 minute QSO with someone. As far as the linear birds are concerned, I have a Yaesu FT-847 that's dedicated for satellites. It's interesting that most of the time I get on the satellites, is on the FM birds! Unfortunately, that's because most of the time I get on the linear birds, there's either no one on there, or perhaps just one other station. It's funny that many times when I do make a contact on a linear bird, the other station wants to just follow the FM procedure of exchanging grids, and not much else, even though they still have a lot of time left in the footprint. I personally like to chew the rag on a linear bird (and on HF), but that doesn't happen very often on the satellites. While we can all continue to hope for a HEO, and try to encourage those who do have the gear to get on the linear birds; the fact is the FM birds are a victim of their own success. 73 de Sebastian, W4AS On Oct 3, 2011, at 10:58 AM, Michael Schulz wrote: > Hi, > > While I do agree with the below, one thing we should keep in mind though is > that there's a difference > between a pile-up on HF and on an FM sat. Not everybody on the sat may be > actually interested in > working that particular station so we also have to give those some room (in > that 10 minute pass). On > HF the time it takes to work the pile-up is usually a lot longer than that. > > The other problem is that before the madness starts, there are always other > stations already working > contacts before the "rare grid" station comes into the footprint. > > Of course the best solution would be to get on the linear birds, we all win > the lottery so that we can launch > another Phase III sat or two and it would'nt be a problem anymore. (Ok, ok .. > just teasing). > > 73 Mike K5TRI _______________________________________________ Sent via [email protected]. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
