Hi Alan
Memories: 14 March 1965, My first Satellite QSO. OSCAR III went up on March 9 1965 and the battery lasted 18 days. After two year of designing and building for this day I made my first satellite QSO (CW) 1965 was a much different time for 2 meters and all that went along with that frequency There was three of us on 2 meters locally in those days, Frank (W0EMS), Omaha, NE , Sid (K0DOM), Lincoln, NE and myself, Joe (K0VTY) , Ithaca , NE. Sid was working for Hygain and Frank only worked 2 meter cw. Sid and I had been bitten by the satillite bug and Frank just wanted to watch. Evening gab fests on 2 kept us all on track. My 2 meter preamp design using a pair of 7077's ceramic tubes and a pair of 11 element HB yagi's made up the Oscar III LEO receiving station. A 6360 electron tube transmitting converter (28 to 144) for SSB and CW ( Halicrafter HT-37 driver) worked FB. Antennas were at 40 feet fully AZ and EL hand controlled. In those days there were no computer to do the things done today. The second pass that evening went over Utah. On 144.108, at 0839z K0DOM responded to my CQ. We lost the bird as it passed over Alaska I recorded the audio so we could play it back to Frank and Sid after each pass whether we made contact or not just to listen to the other guys trying to work the bird. Those were the good old days when the only tracking method was using half a Globe sitting on a board so it would pivot and align the Longitude on the globe to a mark on the board where longitude equator crossing times could be used as published for OSCAR III. Amateur satillite activity progressed rapidly with DX being the driver using HEO birds. When the cold war found need for a right now communications need between Washington and Moscow the Molniya orbit was developed so satellite communication could be provided. If it worked for that it likewise would work for Hams on a HEO bird, 63.4 inclination. It took a while to get there but it was a great run of amateur radio enjoyment. Lots of Amsat membership, many inovation all the time. Publication for satellite DX monthly with Satellite Orital elements to use for tracking One Publication , Oscar Satellite Report , a commercial pubication made Satellite DX prime. AO-40 was to be the cream of the crop, and it surely was in design. At my age I no doubt have seen my last HEO DX QSO . Especailly those QSO's that come after you already have over 200 intities comfirmed and those left out there are the entties that lie near the horizon at 8000 plus miles away and the hole in the tree has to line up just at the right time on that orbit for a few moments.
I have rambled on but that is what you get by providing old memories of OSCAR III
Thanks Alan and 73's
Joe K0VTY ======================== On Tue, 2 Jun 2009 15:24:30 -0500 "Alan P. Biddle" APBIDDLE@UNITED.NET writes:
A good discussion of OSCAR III here:
http://projectoscar.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/o3_translator.pdf
Alan WA4SCA
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