Hi!
After seeing several people at my demonstration in Goodyear AZ last week used their HTs with standard duckie antennas to hear AO-85 as it passed by, and seeing many positive comments on how easy it is to hear this downlink, I decided to try it for myself. On my way to the office this morning, I stopped at a shopping center parking lot for the AO-85 pass around 1438 UTC to hear this pass. AO-85 went up to a maximum elevation of 41 degrees, which would have been a nice pass to work if I had my Elk log periodic in the car.
After about 3 minutes into the pass, I could hear the round- table conversation taking place. Using my Wouxun KG-UV9D HT and a Nagoya NA-701 2m/70cm duckie antenna that is about 8.5 inches/22cm long, and with the squelch open, I was able to listen to the downlink. I had to move the HT around while listening to the downlink, but I was hearing it. I had the HT in narrow FM, as I described in my report on working stations via AO-85 using this HT and my Elk log periodic antenna I sent to the -BB yesterday. I had to adjust the frequency down from 145.980 MHz through 145.9775 MHz to 145.975 MHz near the end of the pass, using one of the HT's VFOs.
While I was listening to this pass, I used my mobile phone to make a short video clip of what I was doing. The 4-minute clip I recorded around the middle of the pass is now on YouTube at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZDpRZHd2FE
There is a point in this video clip where I was not hearing the downlink, as I dropped the radio into my car. Once I picked it up and held it outside the car again, I was able to continue hearing the downlink. This is not a professional- grade video (it was recorded in 720p, but I'm not a movie producer), but it shows that we don't need much to hear AO-85.
During this pass, I heard several stations, and the video clip has most of them. I was hearing WA6DIR in California, KC7MG in Arizona, AA5PK in Texas, W7SXM in Washington state, and late in the pass I heard KC9ELU in Indiana. If I had planned this out better, I would have tried to record more of the pass, and made sure I didn't drop the radio during the recording.
Happy Thanksgiving, and 73!
Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK http://www.wd9ewk.net/ Twitter: @WD9EWK