I tried working AO-51 the last couple of days on !.2Ghz, but no luck. I thought I heard myself a couple of times but sure. There was more activity than I expected to hear and I noticed that although the transponder signal was good as usual, the signals coming through were lower from those I have heard using the UHF uplink when on. I was using the usual 435.300 downlink as I do not have my stuff for 2.3Ghz put together yet.
My attempts to work AO-51 was an experiment which I really didn't expect to work as I have about 50 feet of 9913 which is actually in three sections to allow it to reach the rig (IC-910) with each section being spliced with a "N" barrel connector. Each of those induces a fair amount of lose, especially at 1.2ghz. Next, I had that running to a general purpose MFJ discone that runs from 50mhz - 1.3Ghz. So as I figure it, I probably had about .5 watts ERP to AO-51 at best, hi!
I plan on building a reasonable 1.2Ghz, maybe the loop one shown in the books as they appear to work well. I may look at getting or making a 100 watt (2C39) amplifier. However, I did hear a couple of portables on the pass, so I suspect a reasonable antenna will work wonders. Not sure but I do not think the sat antennas will not do much good without considerable modifications. By the time you do that you might as well make one from scratch. They're not that difficult to make. Since I'm new to the 1.2Ghz operation, you might want to solicit from others that have more to contribute than I do.
Reid, W4UPD
Jack Barbera wrote:
Thanks everyone for your input on adding a UX910 1200mhz band to my IC 910. Santa came early.will be using LMR-600 as the run is under 100 ' and I have it. Next will be looking for an antenna.Have a number of sat T.V antennas and looking into possibly using the reflector and looking for a kit. Does this make sense or should I just go for a complete antenna? ThanksJack WA1ZDV _______________________________________________ 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
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