Hi!
After my demonstration for a local radio club last Monday evening, when I operated from grid DM33, I received a request from Carl KA4H asking if I could go back to DM33 again. Since the DM33/DM43 grid boundary, 112 degrees West, is only a few miles west of my house, I suggested that I could go over there on Saturday (21 November) morning. After identifying a couple of passes that were good on both ends, I made the plan to go to the Phoenix city park that straddles the grid boundary. For those who have been on the satellites for the past several years, I used to operate from this park (grids DM33xp and DM43ap) regularly between 2007 and 2011.
The park is about 15 miles from my house, not a long drive. After making a stop for breakfast on my way to the park, I made it there with almost an hour to spare. I went to the west edge of the park, where I could park and be on the DM33/DM43 line, took the obligatory photos to establish my location. After I had set up my two FT-817NDs, I decided to put one 817 away, and use the SDRplay SDR receiver and my 8-inch Windows tablet for the downlink receiver. Then I waited for AO-73 to come up, just after 1600 UTC. Once I heard the satellite, I did not call CQ. I made directed calls for KA4H, and after a couple of transmissions I heard Carl. We made the quick QSO, and then I proceeded to work two other stations before LOS.
Almost as soon as AO-73 went away, there was an AO-85 pass moving across my northwest. I set up my IC-2820H mobile radio, SDRplay SDR receiver, and 8- inch Windows tablet to work that pass. This pass went up to a maximum elevation of 23 degrees. I was able to work a couple of stations on that pass, heard another station IDing and giving his grid locator, but not responding to me. I hope his downlink receiver was working, as his uplink signals were decent. I made an RF recording with my tablet that captured 51 frames, which I uploaded to the AMSAT server later in the day.
A shallow (5-degree) SO-50 pass just after 1700 UTC was a nice surprise. I was able to work 5 stations in about 5 minutes, despite the satellite barely clearing the mountains to the northeast. I used only the IC-2820H on this, and a later SO-50 pass, without the SDR receiver for the downlink.
Then another AO-73 pass at 1738 UTC, and a better SO-50 pass an hour later, to put more QSOs in the log. These 5 passes put a total of 26 QSOs in the log, for almost 3 hours of activity. Not bad for not advertising my plan to operate from the DM33/DM43 grid boundary. All QSOs have been uploaded to Logbook of the World, and I have seen a few QSLs already. I posted audio and RF recordings of the AO-73 and AO-85 passes (the passes where I used my SDRplay receiver and Windows tablet as my downlink receiver) to my Dropbox space at http://dropbox.wd9ewk.net/ if anyone is curious. Look for the folders with names starting with 20151121, and containing the two grids DM33 and DM43 at the end of the folder names.
If anyone needs a QSO with grid DM33, or a few other grids around the metro Phoenix area (DM32, DM34, DM42, DM44), I can usually make a trip to these locations on a weekend. They are about an hour away from my house, give or take. If I'm doing this on a schedule with another ham, I might not post any advance public notice of my intentions, but will certainly post my presence at these locations on Twitter and/or this list once I completed my main objective for the quick road trip. On other occasions, I will gladly give advance notice of my plans for a trip to these locations, on this list and via Twitter, and hope to work lots of stations. :-)
73!
Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK http://www.wd9ewk.net/ Twitter: @WD9EWK