It has been a while since we have had usable ARRISat-1 passes over the US. We are now starting to get daylight passes in the early evening so it's time to start having some fun with this bird again.
Last evening around 2203UTC, ARRISat-1 had a great pass over the south and eastern US. After listening to the voice and copying a SSTV picture, I switched to the linear transponder. My downlink was stronger than I have ever heard before and it stayed in there for the rest of the pass. Unfortunately there was no one to work. It's amazing that this bird can hear anything on UHF with virtually no antenna.
If you haven't worked much ssb or cw on ARRISat-1, now is the time to start trying again. We won't have this opportunity forever.
73, John K8YSE