I thank Allen, N5AFV, for the inspiration to try this. Allen lives about 5 or 6 miles south of me so he had at least 5 seconds longer windows than I did :-) The mutual windows Luis and I had were about 40 seconds, but the ground gain on VHF at the horizon helps a lot and made these below-1-degree contacts possible.
I don't think we could stretch it any more given the geography and inclination of AO-7, but somebody living further to the East and North (LA, MS, GA, NFL) might have a window that would allow Luis to reach and beat the world record on AO-7. If you have a good 2m setup and can put 100 W ERP on 432 MHz, give it a try. He is patient, as it took us about 6 attempts to get it right (and I got a 70 cm amp up in the attic). 73, Jerry, K5OE
----original message--- I TNX Jerry (K5EO) for 2 QSOs on CW on AO7 Mode B, done July 28, at 23.23Z (Orbit 67958) and July 30, at 23.16Z (Orbit 67983). We get covered 7650 km between both QTHs, EL29GR - - FF66TQ. It is my actual longest distance QSO on AO7 (still almost 200 km below the world record). I find vy challenging this type of QSOs and I still hope to receive some proposals for others DX attempts (also QRV on Mode A). Best 73 to all the satellite dxers and all enthusiastic hams that keep the”Birds” alive !!!
--luis LU6QI