Hi!
Just like with any of the other bands used for Field Day, ARRL's Field Day rules provide for 3 modes for use with the "Satellite" band - CW, Digital, and Phone. There is no separation in the Phone category for SSB vs. FM, nor is there any separation in the Digital category between packet, RTTY, PSK31, FT8, or any of the other digital modes. Where AMSAT's Field Day rules allow me to work a station across different satellites, and possibly even different modes on the same satellite (CW vs. SSB, or packet vs. PSK31 for NO-84), ARRL's rules don't go to that detail.
I know that I will not be able to count several of my satellite contacts for the ARRL Field Day submission. For example, I worked KB6LTY on AO-91 in FM, CAS-4B in SSB, and NO-84 in packet. For ARRL's rules, one of the non-packet QSOs is a dupe, since there is only a "phone" mode for satellites - just like there is only a "phone" mode for each HF band.
Again, this is something I've dealt with for many years, including not scoring contacts that exceed the one-QSO-per-FM-satellite rule, or contacts that are considered dupes under one set of Field Day rules (usually the ARRL's rules). It really isn't hard to deal with, but there are differences between the two rulesets that have to be addressed - if you plan on making an entry for your Field Day effort.
73!
Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK http://www.wd9ewk.net/ Twitter: @WD9EWK or http://twitter.com/WD9EWK
On Mon, Jun 25, 2018 at 8:32 PM, Scott McDonald via AMSAT-BB < amsat-bb@amsat.org> wrote:
Not sure which is the point of confusion here, but when I queried the ARRL last week before Field Day I was told that “Satellite” was a band and that Mode was irrelevant ( because I wanted to see if I could work a station on both SSB and Cw.)