I actually made most of our (W9CCU) contacts on FO-29 this year, with AO-7 and VO-52 close behind.
REALLY disappointed at the number of stations making multiple contacts on the FM birds... what these people don't seem to realize is that every extra contact they make deprives another station of the opportunity to make their one FD contact.
George, KA3HSW
----- Original Message ----- From: "Greg D." ko6th_greg@hotmail.com To: morsesat@optonline.net; amsat-bb@amsat.org Sent: Sunday, June 26, 2011 2:13 PM Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: Field Day Dual-Hop!
Actually, the later (North-heading) pass of AO-51 was remarkably sane. I made my 100 point contact with AA5PK, and then sat back to listen. Towards the end of the pass it was pretty quiet, so I answered W6YX who was actually having to call CQ for some attention.
But AO-7 literally sounds like 20 meters. I've never heard it so busy. The Old Girl is holding up extremely well, and I had much better luck there than with FO-29, which seemed to be suffering from the onslaught. AO-27 was super busy too, so I decided to wait for the mid-Pacific 3-degree pass. Almost snagged the NH7 station... Sorry, just couldn't pull out the call sign as the bird set. Time to buy a better preamp and get it mounted directly on the antenna boom (instead of 10' and a cable splice away).
Greg KO6TH