On 4 Aug 2009 at 16:14, John Papay wrote:
Some General Guidelines to Working the Birds with Omni Antennas: (My opinion for what it's worth; others may disagree.)
A lot of people are using omni antennas. Some use preamps and some do not. The important thing to remember when using omni antennas is that you will be getting into the bird much better than you can hear it, if you can hear it at all. A preamp will really help.
With marginal receiving set up on SSB transponder sat there is a tendency to often use a lot of power to be able to hear their downlink signal. It's often the case on CW as it is a more effective mode it is not unusual to see the passband signals moving at the CW speed high power station.
I try to answer back a station on FO-29 using about 5W (O power setting on the Yaesu 847) the station who was calling CQ in SSB never get back to me until i increased my TX power to 50W on a 14 element cross yagi and he gave me a 55 report with a weak signal comment... I was receiving his signal near S9 here...
Another way to evaluate your receiving system is to be able to copy the satellite beacon. If you hear your downlink and not the beacon it is an indication that you "could be using too much power on the uplink"
A transponder satellite is a kind of sharing system a lot stations can use it at the same time providing they all use the lowest power. It takes only one station to scap the whole passband signals. I personally contact the "offending" station to advised him about the facts some times it works but there is still some who seems to never cares as i always see them returning to their high power habits.
On AO-40 LEILA was there to watch the offenders it was not perfect but it helps controlling the uplink powers. I try to find out my old recording of the LEILA siren but i only found the beacon signal if someone still has a recording on his web page just let us know it will at least makes us remember the HEO era. "-"
Luc Leblanc VE2DWE Skype VE2DWE www.qsl.net/ve2dwe WAC BASIC CW PHONE SATELLITE