Since the AO-27 website is down at this time, your best bet for tracking the operating schedule is the Java AO-27 schedule lister that my son wrote for me. You can download it at http://sites.google.com/site/ao27satellitescheduler. Make sure you download the current data files (EPOCH.TXT and TOPR.TXT) from the site also, and drop them into whatever folder you unzip the scheduler files to (replace the files included in the ZIP). It's always accurate to within 2 minutes of the actual operating schedule (due to drift in the satellite's clock).
George, KA3HSW
----- Original Message ----
From: Richard Grabotin hans_2@yahoo.com To: "amsat-bb@amsat.org" amsat-bb@amsat.org Sent: Sun, October 23, 2011 11:37:50 PM Subject: [amsat-bb] AO-27/SO-50
I am new to satellites as of this weekend. I have worked AO-51 three times with much success. SO-50 I can hear off and on, but I am having trouble raising it. As for AO-27, I had a nice daytime direct overhead pass and heard nothing. I am using a yeasu g-5500 rotator with the AMSAT controller and ham radio deluxe. Kenwood ts-2000 for the rig and a 8 element 440 and a 4 element 2 meter antenna. The antennas are currently linear polarized since my phasing cables still have not arrived from the manufacturer.
My questions are, is AO-27 difficult to work? Is it on a schedule? Any ideas why I could not raise or hear it?
As for SO-50: Should I be listening 5khz down? Ham radio deluxe is controlling the radio frequencies and I made a custom entry for 5khz down and corrected for Doppler. This still did not seem to help.
Richard K7LWV