Because of pass times, low elevations of some passes, mountainous terrain and travel schedule, I have decided to split up the passes for DN00/10 over two days. Basically, Saturday will be for the western half of the US because the eastern passes appear too low for the terrain here. (If I get out there early enough, I may listen and see if I can't get in on at least part of the eastern passes over the mountains on Saturday.) Then Sunday will be a mid-US pass and reach the east a bit better. Normally, I would just wait until Sunday and work everyone, but I think there will be better chances to work as many as possible if there are two passes, especially since it's a weekend.
On Saturday, there is another wrinkle... SO-50 overlaps the end of FO-29 on the western pass by seven minutes. SO, I will work the FO-29 pass starting at 1945z UNTIL callers are exhausted or SO-50 is up to a copy-able elevation and then I will switch over as quickly as possible. I will then work any callers on SO-50 until the end of the pass or until any other traffic becomes insurmountable. THIS WILL BE IT FOR SATURDAY. If you can work linear sats, I suggest you work me on FO-29 as early in the pass as possible. Barring that, by all means try me on SO-50, but again, as early in the pass as possible. If Saturday and Sunday passes are both open to you, please consider working me on Saturday and leave the Sunday passes open for the eastern stations that will have lower elevations and shorter windows.
Sunday, will be one SO-50 pass starting at 1842z and then one FO-29 pass at 1851z... Yet again, there is an overlap in pass times, but it is only 3 minutes and highly likely that I will lose copy on SO-50 before FO-29 gets very readable. After that, I need to go directly back to the motel to pack up and head out. (At the very most, I MIGHT try AO-7 if someone gets missed, but I am not planning on it) I will definitely not work the western SO-50 or FO-29 passes on Sunday. And I will probably not get to doing Sunday's logs until later that night, or maybe even the next day.
We will be staying in DN21 on Sunday night. If all works out, I will try getting on one of the XW birds as they will be passing over around 0100-0200z (technically Monday UTC time). But this is tentative at best. Then AFTER SUNDAY, I will not be working ANY passes for several days. My daughter has been very accommodating in regards to satellite ops throughout the first two weeks of our trip, but Monday begins a section of our travels that involves my daughter's well being and interests and I plan to devote all my time and attention to that. Perhaps later in the week, there may be time for a few more grids on our way home. My thanks for understanding...
Hope to see you all on the birds one more time from Nevada... it's been a great trip so far and the rover ops have been a blast! 73, Kevin