I've been running an FT857 as TX and FT817 for my RX with the Elk and a splitter cable from the 817's external audio to feed my headset and a digital recorder. The audio from the 817 failed in between passes yesterday, so I've had to swap the two rigs; the 817 is now the TX. Its lower power output did fine getting me into the satellites (even AO-91!), but I lost a noticeable amount on the front and back end of each pass, especially RS-44 which has always been a problem for me anyway. But I'm still on the air which is the main thing. I had just repaired the hand PTT switch in the headset yesterday, so the score was one win and one loss on the day!
Today's grids were DK34 on the midday AO-91 pass which I wasn't expecting to make. I got on from DK25 on the late afternoon and early evening passes, and we crossed into DK15 in time for one XW-2A pass.
Tomorrow at midday, we'll be hitting another quad grid point about the time of the AO-91 pass that'll start here around 1850Z when we'll be in one of these four: DK05, DK06, CK95, or CK96. Of course, we could cross into a second grid during the pass. The ship's GPS output is recorded minute by minute, plus I have my own handheld Garmin GPS, so I'll keep a close watch on our location for that pass in particular. Late afternoon and early evening will have me on from CK96. We should cross into CK86 around 26/0200Z; our local time is currently GMT -7, so there should be two or three passes available for that grid. 73/Jim, ND9M