We did get your request, sorry if we didn't reply. As Ib has already indicated there is no squelch on the receiver on L band. The power and antenna you describe should be good enough to access the satellite on FM, especially at time of closest approach. The Doppler tuning is very important!
I'll see if the -modes group is amenable to running a few days of the L/U mode at the end of the month with a SSB uplink. If so, I'll let the -bb know, and of course change the text schedule on the webpage. Be sure to check the -text- schedule, as I do not believe the graphic one has a L SSB option.
73, Drew KO4MA
----- Original Message ----- From: "Henk, PA3GUO" hamoen@iae.nl To: amsat-bb@amsat.org Cc: pa3guo@amsat.org Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2008 1:36 AM Subject: [amsat-bb] AO51 mode: 23cm SSB up / 70cm FM down ?
Dear all,
I was considering to submit the following mode to the AO51 command team. (I did this already a while ago but my emails seems to bounce)
Objective: provide a means for stations with small ERP to test their 23cm uplink channel into AO51.
Uplink 23cm SSB (!) Downlink 70cm FM (preferably 435.300)
With 23cm FM uplink I seem not to have enough ERP to get over the sat. That is, I never made it through the squelch level of the AO51 receiver (using Kenwood TS2000X/10W, and a small cubicle quad antenna only).
In SSB mode with the squelch open I could try even CW to see how weak my uplink is. Maybe just below squelch level, maybe far down in the noise. And: with SSB we can even have multiple stations testing their links at the same time !
Any thoughts of anyone else before I submit this request ?
Henk, PA3GUO (... and I have a 33 elements beam now)
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