Hi Philip,
I would recommend FO29 since it has a wide passband, a good downlink signal, and is in mode J so the doppler shift is less on it. Very easy to use satellite. Call CQ near the center of the passband and I am sure you will make some QSOs. It is also a little higher up than some of the newer satellites so it has a larger footprint of stations to work.
AO73 and the Chinese satellites have great downlink signals, but being in Mode B, they doppler shift is much greater so you have to tune your uplink signal much more often.
Remember that all of these linear satellites are inverting, so you want to transmit on LSB so you can receive on USB.
73 John AF5CC
On Wed, May 18, 2016 at 12:47 PM, Philip Jenkins n4hf.philip@gmail.com wrote:
I should have stated which equipment I have - that would make answering my question easier. :-)
I have a Kenwood TS2000X (purchased new in 2007, llight usage, and the ceramic filters were replaced a few years ago). Yaesu G5500 az-el rotor, and LVB tracker. Also M^2 2M-440XP-SS (in storage. but would only take about 10 minutes to hook-up).
(I'm doing a separate post about another antenna system, since I have a separate question about that, so as not to cram too much info into one post).
Thanks for the replies so far
Philip N4HF
On Wed, May 18, 2016 at 1:14 PM, Philip Jenkins n4hf.philip@gmail.com wrote:
I know the first/easiest path to sat communications is on the FM birds (which I agree with), but when someone is ready to "graduate" to the
linear
sats, which would be the best/easiest one to start with?
Philip N4HF
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