It is unpredictable, but I suspect that LituanicaSat-1, LO 78 will be on for the morning decending (NW to SE passes on Satruday morning 7-26. In EM 12 I have a 26 degree pass starting at 1229Z. LO-78 was up for these morning passes on Wednesday and Thursday mornings but not up on any passes on Thursday late night (US time) or the Friday 124X Z pass for me this morning but was on for my 0442Z here on the 26th. On Wednesday and Thursday the only station besides myself was K8YSE/7. We never quite made it on Wednesday but completed a QSO on Thursday morning. No one else was on the bird. My 07-26 0442 pass saw no one else on the bird but myself.
My observations as a purely handheld (Sometimes tripod) operator are these. The satellite is a challenge to work but provides quite nice audio when you can. As it decays, the pass times continue to shorten. They are now only 7 minutes. For us handheld guys, maybe 5 minutes of usable pass. Mid pass it really trucks across the sky. Doppler shift is quite fast as well on the 435 downlink. Published downlink is 435.1755. I start at 435.1755 so I start at 435.185 and down. 67 Hz PL and Narrow FM at 145.95 or else keep your modulation quite to avoid over-deviating. Doing so will cause the PL receive on the satellite to squelch out. Again low modulation bandwidth or talk quietly. Repeater on board has a tail so if you hit it you will hear the tone after you unkey. There is even a voice and CW ID so that makes it interesting. Satellite has hefty spin fades so that adds to the challenges.
Hope to see a few additional folks to try this before it goes away.
Tom Schuessler 2713 Lake Gardens Drive Irving, Texas 75060 972-986-7456 214-403-1464 (Cell) [email protected]