I don't know what's happened to all the eastern stations
recently. When I was trying to work grids for VUCC,
I had a lot more in the east than in the west. There were lots of
W1, 2, 3, 4, etc. on the birds.
Because it was more fun pointing east and working Europeans at 3 deg with
no one else in the footprint. :-)
Seriously, having tried to work Merv on several occasions, a MA-CA QSO
on a LEO requires a central US pass with the entire continent in the
footprint, and a 3 or 5 degree
look for him and I. It requires a good set-up, a low horizon, and the bulk
of the US satellite ops to
pause long enough to allow us to make the QSO (which, in my mind, is
exchanging grids both ways).
And the AO-27 timer kicks in way too early (and for that reason, btw, is
non-usable for NE to Europe... I miss AO-51)
Case in point: my "almost" QSO with San Diego from metro Boston hand-held
(listen to the last 10 secs):
http://www.papays.com/sat/AO-27_14Jul2011_191720z.mp3
Bill W1PA
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