Hi!
After flying from Phoenix to Indianapolis, I drove up to Fort Wayne for the night. On the 125-mile drive, I made two stops to work AO-85 passes. I have worked from EN70 and EN71 before, but those past occasions were times I operated from Ohio. Between a freeway rest area and a parking lot for a large store, I was able to give out these two grids and have fun on the new bird.
Between pass predictions I printed at home last night and my AmsatDroid Free app on my mobile phone, I had a good idea when I could work passes. I decided to focus on AO-85 tonight, even though I basically have my complete satellite station with me. I decided I would stop about 25 to 30 minutes before the first of the two AO-85 passes I worked, so I could disassemble my suitcase and carry-on bags enough to get my gear ready for the pass. I assembled an Elk antenna, pulled out everything related to my 8-inch HP tablet and SDRplay receiver, my IC-2820H 2m/70cm FM mobile radio (that was an item of interest in the Phoenix airport this morning, especially with its faceplate packed away from the radio), and accessories like an audio splitter, diplexer, coax, etc. I had everything ready in time to take some pictures, and tweet a couple of them before the pass.
I used the same setup that I have used at home a couple of times with this satellite - Icom IC-2820H 2m/70cm FM mobile transceiver for the uplink, set to transmit in narrow FM; SDRplay SDR receiver, 8-inch Windows 10 tablet with HDSDR, all connected through a diplexer to my Elk log periodic. I plug an audio splitter into the tablet's headset jack, and split the receive audio between earbuds for me and a Sony audio recorder. I know I could also have HDSDR write an audio recording at the same time it writes an RF recording, but I don't want to risk overloading the tablet.
When 2305 UTC came, I could hear AO-85 after it was up about 2 to 3 degrees elevation. It sounds like most stations were using narrow FM on the uplink, as most signals sounded pretty good this evening. I was able to log QSOs with 7 stations, including Paul N8HM on top of the parking garage next to the Crowne Plaza hotel in downtown Dayton, site of this weekend's AMSAT Symposium. During this pass, I could hear XW-2F passing by - just like I did on Sunday evening back in Phoenix. I saw stations working the XW-2F transponder, and also saw XW-2F's CW beacon, as I worked AO-85.
After that pass, I drove north to Fort Wayne. I realized that Fort Wayne is basically at the EN70/EN71 grid boundary, but did not want to try to find a good spot for that boundary in the dark. I have only been through Fort Wayne once before, so I'm not familiar with the area. I kept an eye on my TH-D72A's GPS location, waiting to see EN71 appear on the screen. Once that happened, I looked for an exit off I-69, and for something like a truck stop or large parking lot at a store or shopping center to park. Just north of the grid boundary, I exited the freeway, and found a parking lot just west of the freeway.
After setting up my gear on the roof of my car, and waiting for AO-85 to pop up over the western horizon around 0051 UTC, I had no problems hearing it. I worked 8 stations during this pass, including someone else heading to Dayton (Wyatt AC0RA - he was in EN60 for this pass). It was also nice to hear stations from the western USA, like Larry WA6DIR and Jack KC7MG, from here in Fort Wayne, plus VE4AMU in Manitoba.
Most stations sounded pretty good on both passes. The later pass was a little harder for me to hear, not keeping up with the fading as well as I had been doing on the earlier pass. I think more stations were transmitting in narrow FM tonight. A couple were not, and one sounded so-so at best - even after trying to adjust the FM settings in HDSDR in an attempt to clean up the audio. My portable setup worked well from the rooftop of my rental car in two different locations, a good sign for upcoming activities later on in the coming week.
The SDRplay is working very well as my receiver for working satellites, including AO-85. HDSDR's AFC function works well, except in close proximity to the XW-2F CW beacon and/or transponder signals (the 2305 UTC pass had both AO-85 and XW-2F in view at EN70). Being able to fine-tune how narrow I heard the FM signals, and being able to raise the filtering on the low end of the received signals to eliminate any noise from the telemetry, makes this a very powerful way to work these passes. I will try to upload the telemetry from the RF recordings of both passes this evening.
I have uploaded the audio recordings, along with photos and screengrabs, from both of these passes to my Dropbox space:
Again, press F5 if the file/folder listing doesn't appear immediately. I hope to be able to upload my RF recordings in a day or two from Dayton, depending on the Internet access at the Symposium hotel. I won't try to upload them using my mobile phone's hotspot, as they are too big to do without exhausting my monthly data allowance in a matter of a couple of days. I hope to have tonight's QSOs uploaded to Logbook of the World shortly, for those looking to get confirmations for EN70 and/or EN71. QSL cards will also be available after the trip; please e-mail me with the QSO details, and I'll send a card if you're in the log.
Tomorrow will be a busy day, between making a quick stop at the border tripoint where 3 states come together (Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio) and driving down to Dayton to attend the AMSAT Symposium. Please follow my @WD9EWK Twitter feed (https://twitter.com/WD9EWK ) for updates on my activities, and my car should show up on APRS as WD9EWK-9 (visible at http://aprs.fi/WD9EWK-9 among other places). Day 1 was fun, and there is a week to go...
73!
Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK - Fort Wayne, Indiana http://www.wd9ewk.net/ Twitter: @WD9EWK