I dismantled my satellite station at FM29PE in Ocean View NJ today. I worked one more AO07 pass to make my last contacts with my Oscar class station at FM29PE. I operated the sats continuously from this location since 1997. It was a great 17 years. I just went through my sat contacts. 16,386 contacts, 82 countries( I should of got up in the middle of the night more often for the rare DX that was on AO40, I'm sure I would of got sat DXCC), I'm not sure how many grids, but it's a lot J , made two way contacts on over 16 different satellites, and space to earth voice contacts on three different orbiting stations, not to mention all the wonderful time I had working all the PACSATS. Well one moves on, I plan on living in Florida near the beach in the winter and Ocean City NJ almost on the beach in the summer, locations that aren't compatible with large high gain antennas on any band.
The final disposition of my sat antenna system was to give the large beams away to a good home, and keep some components to build a portable station with the Cushcraft AOP-1 antenna set that I purchased several years ago 'new in the box', that I kept squirreled away. I also saved the rotor, pre-amps, 2.4 gig stuff, a 1.2gig 70 watt amp, IC-9100,and some hardline to hook it up. So I will be back on the birds sort of serious in the near future. The station I'm going to put together will be portable enough to be taken down and moved in my Honda Pilot from NJ to FL while we snowbird it, without upsetting my wife too much J.
I want to mention that the last three stations I worked from my FM29PE location today were..
F4EJW, it was good to work just one more DX station.
KC9ELU, Good to work you again Mike, we will be back shortly.
K3SZH, It was very fitting to work Joe, everyone's favorite AO07 op as the last contact, thanks Joe.
We will be on some SO-50 passes, and of course I will keep the ISS digi up that is located at my other home we're keeping in NJ. And I plan on working the AMSAT booth in Orlando, and Dayton this year, see you guys there.
73 Jeff kb2m