Since the changes made to AO-51 the other day, it appears I am having more difficulty in copying the bird than others on this list server. Tonight during the 22:22UTC pass which was at an maximum elevation of 60 degress I was not able to hear the bird as well as I have in the past. The signals had more fade and were about 1/3 of what they use to be. Again, my present antennas have a lot to be desired as I am using a 2 meter homebrew ground plane for the 435.300 reception. Before the changes, this worked reasonable well, now it appears I'll need to do something different and improve the reception antenna. I am assuming the downlink power is still reasonable.
Just a report of how I seem to fair (or not) with the recent orientation changes of AO-51.
Reid, W4UPD