Great work Patrick!
De Tim, K4SHF
-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Patrick STODDARD (WD9EWK/VA7EWK) Sent: Monday, January 15, 2007 4:47 PM To: amsat-bb Subject: [amsat-bb] W7W via satellite, "Westfest" hamfest in Glendale AZ,13 January 2007
After my first time working at an AMSAT hamfest table last month, I was looking forward to this hamfest on the west side of the Phoenix area. Gerry VE4GTB/KD7MDB and I took care of the table, and we answered lots of questions and had 4 passes (2 on SO-50, 2 on AO-51) for demonstrations that attracted the interest of the hamfest crowd. We had a good time despite the bitter cold and small turnout, and also sold a fair amount of AMSAT items to hams looking to try the satellites themselves.
The hamfest organizers, the Thunderbird Amateur Radio Club (W7TBC):
had requested the special callsign W7W for use by their HF special-event station. Gerry had asked them if we could also use the W7W call during our satellite demonstrations, and we were told, "Sure." I posted an announcement on the AMSAT-BB mailing list and on a few other lists of the upcoming satellite activity, and we were ready to go.
Saturday morning started early... I arrived at the hamfest site at 0530 local (1230 UTC), and Gerry was already there. We were told by the organizers to set up next to their HF station, and one of the Thunderbird club members made sure we had a covered spot in case of rain. We set up our tables with the AMSAT merchandise and my equipment (IC-2720H mobile radio, 12V/20Ah gel-cell batteries, Arrow Antennas handheld Yagi, Sony digital voice recorder, external speaker, laptop with Nova running during the demonstrations to show where the satellites were). Our first pass was on SO-50 at 1317 UTC, and we were ready for that.
The first SO-50 pass went from south to east, and since it was an early pass we were not sure there would be many stations showing up. We made 2 contacts during the pass, with Angelo N5UXT as our first satellite contact as W7W (thanks for being up early, Angelo!). One other contact before the end of the pass with a VE3, and then back to answering questions until 1500-1520 UTC and an SO-50 pass followed immediately by an AO-51 pass.
The SO-50 pass around 1500 UTC went to the west, and being early for those in western North America I did not expect much activity. We were happy to make 3 contacts, two Mexican stations plus Zach KM7I in Seattle before we moved over to AO-51. We heard the announcements from Gould WA4SXM that there was testing in progress, so we kept listening and hoping the satellite would be available for part of the pass since it would cover most of North America. The testing ended, leaving a couple of minutes to make 2 quick contacts before the satellite went out of range.
The final AO-51 pass, around 1647-1702 UTC, started out with a surprise. The crowd and I heard a couple of hams chatting on 435.310 MHz, which was where I ready to hear AO-51 at the start of the pass. I quickly went onto that frequency and asked those hams to move to another frequency, which they did, and then we made 10 contacts with stations in the western USA, Alaska, and Mexico to conclude our satellite demonstrations. Larry WA6DIR in California was the last station in the W7W satellite log.
At the end of the morning, we had a total of 17 contacts in our satellite log. We made 12 contacts on AO-51 and 5 on SO-50 with stations in 8 US states (Alaska, Arizona, California, Louisiana, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, and Washington state), one Canadian province (Ontario), and two Mexican states (Baja California and Zacatecas). The hamfest organizers now have a copy of the satellite log, to combine with their HF log for their records and to be able to answer any QSL requests from the satellite demonstrations.
Gerry and I will have the AMSAT table at the next Phoenix-area hamfest, the Scottsdale Amateur Radio Club's "Springfest" on 10 March. I will come back to the Thunderbird Amateur Radio Club for their meeting on 15 March, to do a presentation on amateur satellites and AMSAT. Thanks to everyone who stopped by our table, and for those we made contact with on the satellites.
73!
Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK http://www.wd9ewk.net/ _______________________________________________ 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