On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 10:57 AM, n3tl@bellsouth.net wrote:
Hey everyone,
My thanks to K8YSE, who heard my faint CQ on AO-7 at 13:16 UTC this morning and called me. We had a contact that lasted about a minute with a few exchanges, which is really a thrill here because I was transmitting a half-watt out on a Yaesu FT-817ND.
As I suspected from the "test run" the other night, my setup here requires that AO-7 reach roughly 50 degrees elevation before I can hear myself at all on this lowest-of-all power settings for my SSB/CW satellite station. I also suspect I can lower that elevation some by working CW instead of SSB, and I intend to find out on the next really high pass over me.
This is an interesting experiment. It is worth pointing out to those who might not be familiar with this bird that 50 degrees as a minimum elevation on AO-7 is much more practical than for lower elevation birds, such as AO-51. I suspect the time that AO-7 is above 50 degrees on some passes is about the same amount of time that VO-52 is above the horizon! Moreover, because of the greater footprint, when you transmit to AO-7 overhead, you might still reach a different continent or other excitingly distant stations.
Another consideration regarding Tim's experimental approach is that it is ideal for situations in which a low-gain antenna is being used for reception. It is better for everyone if in these circumstances we do not increase our transmission power until we can hear ourselves (especially on AO-7, which FMs quite a bit). Keeping the xmit power low and waiting until it can be heard is a good way to experiment without causing problems.
73, Bruce VE9QRP