Hi!
Robert - you sounded great here in DM13-land (Riverside, CA). Patrick is further east than I am ... how far did you communniate???
I don't know exactly where Robert was in Honolulu. I was in my favorite Phoenix city park on the DM33xp/DM43ap grid boundary - 33 degrees 38.903 minutes North, 112 degrees West exactly - where I operate from whenever I say I am in DM33 and DM43:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=33+38.903+N+112...
I held my antenna as high as I could hold it and pointed it westward, since there is a freeway wall not far from that spot. I had a maximum of 15 degrees elevation for the pass, and Robert mentioned in an e-mail earlier this afternoon he was only going to have a maximum of 4 degrees elevation on that pass. He was most likely working hard for every bit of the satellite he could hear. Thanks for picking me up, Robert!
Based on estimates for Honolulu (grid BL11cg) and using my location as mapped in the link above, it appears we covered a path of just over 2900 miles (almost 4700km) with that brief contact. My only other satellite QSO with the Hawaiian islands was with WH6FC on the "big island" of Hawaii (grid BK29) back in December 2005. That QSO spanned about 2850 miles/4500km from Phoenix, and Honolulu will be further away from me than anywhere on the island of Hawaii.
73!
Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK http://www.wd9ewk.net/