Hi Sebastian,
On 9/19/08, Sebastian w4as@bellsouth.net wrote:
I gotta hand it to the guys who do it with a handheld, and an arrow antenna. I hear them all the time, they have good signals. They are standing up, figuring out where to point the antenna, when and where to turn it, up and down, sideways, and keep up with doppler, and log the signals and somehow also talk; I don't know how they do it!
I'm one of these guys :-) Even if lately I'm not much active on the birds, since is still a good period for weak signal work. After some practice you learn how to use all your four hands and do things correctly HI. By far the worst problem working birds this way is when someone wants to chat (when in facts you can only exchange quick contacts with this setup) and tells you that your doppler tuning isn't perfect. Signals on birds are quite strong even with 4 elements on V and 8 on U since you can always find the best polarization quickly and easily. By the way, logging is easy with a recorder, I just record some time marks at the start of the pass then I rewind at the end of the pass and transfer all contacts on paper or whatever with the correct time.
73 Francesco IZ8DWF (alway worked /P also as IZ5DWF and IS0FKQ).