Hi,
I made five QSOs on this 47 degree pass from FM05. I was using my Kenwood TM-V71 radio at 50 watts and an Alaskan Arrow II antenna with the last third boom section removed.
I didn't hear the bird for the first couple minutes of the pass and couldn't get it to come on myself. Eventually it came on and I heard Clayton W5PFG not long after that so I assume he turned the transponder on. In the first half of the pass it was difficult to get a solid signal into the sat. Other stations had the same problems. Audio was sometimes really low, great other times, and distorted at times as well.
The last part of the pass was not bad though. I was able to consistently get a signal into the bird, even at 10 or 5 watts. I had a conversation with Roy K3RLD about this as we were both having the same good luck. This reminded me of past AO-85 behavior where it is easier to get in in the last part of the pass. I was actually on top of a landfill park in my town so I had a perfect view of the horizon and was able to get in all the way to LOS, albeit with some picket fencing effects on the downlink.
Stations contacted:
W5PFG W5HRH N9XCO * N0RC K3RLD Also heard ???PML
* This was Richard N9XCO's first sat QSO. He just finished setting up a IC-9700/G-5500/SatPC32 station
One odd thing I noticed is at the end of the pass I believe I was at 145.970 MHz, 10 KHz down from the center frequency of 145.980. It looked so weird I did a double take and doubted I was really at that frequency. I don't know if the bird was off frequency or if it was something on my end.
My audio recording is here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/j1xduj3had9gicm/2019-06-16_0028_UTC_AO-85_KG4AKV_F...
73, John Brier KG4AKV