Amen, I second that motion...
Third word hams who do not have 70cm rigs can work the sats more easily
(70cm FM gear is very rare here, not to mention SSB)
The 2m uplink is workable with transverters and HF multimode CAT capable
rigs are almost ubiquitous for the 10m downlink
73
El 18/09/13 17:48, Kevin Muenzler, WB5RUE escribió:
I've been working sats off and on for many years. I must admit that I
haven't done much since RS-12/13 and RS-15 went silent. I believe that if
we had more "easy sats" with Mode VHF up and HF down they might be more
popular. Tuning and alignment weren't as critical.
Just my two cents or so.
Kevin Muenzler, WB5RUE
Grid EL09uf
Eagle Creek Observatory
http://www.eaglecreekobservatory.org
I've stopped asking "How stupid can you be?" Some people are taking it as a
challenge.
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of Les Rayburn
Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2013 3:32 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [amsat-bb] The "Good Ole Days" are now
Like many hams (I suspect), I dreamed of working satellites for decades.
Followed them with at least a passing interest but always seemed to put them
off till "someday". Even during the craze of the "work satellites with your
handheld", I was distracted by other priorities. When I got involved in
VHF/UHF a few years ago, and purchased an Icom IC-910H, I kept thinking I'd
finally pull the trigger. But years passed without anything other than
weak-signal contacts being made on that rig.
A few months ago, I finally decided to give it a try. Downloaded SATPC32,
and updated my keps. FO-29 was the next satellite coming my way, so when I
was inside the footprint, I tuned around a bit, and found some stations
coming in. Cool! I was actually hearing hams on satellite---next up was
answering a CQ...nervously I pushed the PTT on the mic.
82 grids and a few hundred contacts later, I'm having a ball!
I don't miss the birds that came before, but just enjoy what we have now. My
only complaint might be that more folks are not active on F0-29 and VO-52.
Even SO-50 can be nearly empty after midnight.
My understanding is that within the next year we'll have 2 or 3 more linear
LEO satellites, and possibly another FM bird, right? While we may not work a
lot of DX on those, we should get to the point where no one has to wait long
for "something" to be overhead. That's exciting to me!
AMSAT is staffed with wonderful volunteers, and seems to be doing great
work. I'm thrilled to be a member, even if it is #38965.
The good ole days are now. Get on the birds and make some contacts. I need
your grid! (ha, ha)
_______________________________________________
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
