Thanks for pointing out some things for consideration, Patrick and others. There is, naturally, a long list of pros/cons for any day we might choose. I seem to have good memories about AO-51 (a LEO) experimenter's nights--and it seems like it was usually a Tuesday night event? Anyhow, no matter when we schedule, we'll have conflicts. What we'll do is run an experiment, on Experimenter's night! Effective this week, we'll switch AO-92 L/v operations from Sat/Sun to Tues/Wed, and run it that way for a few months. Then we'll reevaluate to see if it makes sense to keep it on Tues/Wed or switch to another night.
Hopefully this will change it up enough that some who could NOT attempt L-band on our usual schedule due to conflicts, might now be able to give it a shot!
73,
Mark N8MH
On Sun, Sep 22, 2019 at 10:23 PM Patrick STODDARD (WD9EWK/VA7EWK) via AMSAT-BB amsat-bb@amsat.org wrote:
(The following is my personal opinion on the subject, and I am not speaking on behalf of any organization with this message)
Hi!
I understand there may be interest in moving the AO-92 L-band period from the current Sunday (UTC time - starting on Saturday evenings in North America). The past "Experimenter's Wednesdays" worked well with AO-10 or AO-13, where the length of passes was measured in hours. With AO-92's passes around 10 minutes each, and factoring in a weekday where those working or in school aren't probably going to work the morning passes, it cuts down on the available time for trying this mode on a given day. For weeknights, the pass times for those working or in school may be too late, so there could be weeks where someone isn't able to work even one AO-92 L/V pass, based on the time of the best available weeknight pass for that location.
This came up last year around JOTA, and AMSAT's decision not to accomodate JOTA by leaving AO-92 in the normal U/V mode. Drew Glasbrenner KO4MA, AMSAT's Vice President of Operations, made the case for not accomodating JOTA at that time:
https://amsat.org/pipermail/amsat-bb/2018-October/069962.html
Since then, AMSAT has accomodated a trip to the Florida Keys and this weekend's trip by AD0DX and N7AGF to DM02 by not switching AO-92 to L/V mode. If these accomodations are more of the "exception" rather than the "rule", I think leaving the current schedule of AO-92 L/V on a weekend would be better. Otherwise, it makes little sense to have this mode available on an AMSAT satellite, and make it difficult for many to use it. We still have a few other satellites for the FM crowd, and many more for those capable of working SSB and CW, in addition to AO-92.
If a reason for considering the shift of the AO-92 L/V schedule is availability of a command station to make the mode change, maybe Fernando KF7R is right - the Operations group needs more command stations. Maybe adding one in the western USA, at least, so there is some geographic diversity in the locations of these stations.
There are new stations trying AO-92 L/V all the time. It's not a huge number, but I hear new call signs regularly. Many have started out with an HT and either a cheap Chinese Yagi or some homebrew antenna, or just bought an IC-9700 with the 1.2 GHz band included with an appropriate antenna. AO-92 gives them an opportunity to do more than just U/V or V/U satellites. I think AMSAT should make an effort to ensure the availability of this mode, where operators will consider obtaining the equipment needed to try it for themselves.
Thanks, and 73!
Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK http://www.wd9ewk.net/ Twitter: @WD9EWK or http://twitter.com/WD9EWK
On Sun, Sep 22, 2019 at 10:41 PM Mark L. Hammond via AMSAT-BB < amsat-bb@amsat.org> wrote:
Hi, rest assured it was an oversight from command stations. Sometimes we get busy with other things (real life) and miss an email. We’ll try to
do
better. And by “we” I mean the whole command team. KO4MA and me ;)
Hopefully users will cooperate on Tuesday night so we can put into L/v at that time. I’ve been pondering and suggesting a long term swap to Tuesday/utc Wednesday, like we did for many years as Experimenter’s
night.
There are so many grid events and activations on weekends—seems like a
good
move to change our schedule so we can have our cake and eat it too!
73, Mark N8MH
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