Hi!
Sorry for the delay in posting this report. A project at the office has consumed a lot of my time this week - not just during the workdays, but also a couple of very late evenings and early mornings.
Last Saturday's Cochise Amateur Radio Association hamfest in Sierra Vista, Arizona, was another good event for AMSAT. This is a small, half-day hamfest in southern Arizona, which had a good turnout on a great day. No rain or heavy winds to deal with. After the hamfest, the afternoon and evening was nice for some sightseeing and - of course - more operating.
After I drove down to Sierra Vista the night before the hamfest, I only had a 15-minute drive to reach the hamfest on the edge of town. The gate for the hamfest site was open when I arrived a few minutes after 5am (1200 UTC). I started to set up my AMSAT table, knowing there was an SO-50 pass an hour or so after that. Even though the hamfest didn't officially start until 7am (1400 UTC), I still had a small crowd on hand for that pass that went to the west of the hamfest. Seven QSOs went in the log on that pass, 6 from stations in the western USA plus XE2BHL in Tijuana. A good start to the morning. The hamfest site is in grid DM41, not a rare Arizona grid with some active satellite operators in the area (NP4JV, W7JPI, W7JSD).
I missed the passes for the XW-2 satellites after SO-50, as I had been talking with people walking around my AMSAT booth, outside the buildings at the club's "Green Acres" site. After the crowds eased, I set up for a demonstration on AO-73 around 1535 UTC. I moved the VFO on my receiver through the transponder and down to the telemetry around 145.935 MHz, so the crowd could hear the SSB activity as well as the data that comes from this satellite. I was able to work 3 stations, AA5PK in Texas followed by XE1AO and XE1AU (a club station at XE1AO's university in central Mexico). Omar, as always, greeted the crowd in English as I talked to him in Spanish.
Some time passed before another satellite pass, the first of two AO-85 passes that have probably become the best for demonstrations. With the stronger 2m downlink from AO-85 compared to SO-50's 70cm downlink, many are now able to hear the satellite with almost any 2m FM radio they may have at a hamfest. The first of the two AO-85 passes Saturday morning came a little after 10am (1700 UTC), which provided for 14 QSOs from coast to coast. A great way to show off the capabilities of AMSAT's newest satellite, and for several in the crowd to hear the satellite for themselves on HTs with either duckie antennas or (in one case) a telescoping whip antenna.
The later AO-85 pass, just before 12 noon (1900 UTC) and the official end of the hamfest, came up from the west and wrapped around the north. This wasn't as busy as the earlier AO-85 pass, but still enough activity for most of the pass. Stations in the western USA and Canada, and as far east as K8YSE in Cleveland, made up the 8 QSOs logged on this pass. The shortest QSOs were made with Fernando NP4JV, who was across the field from the AMSAT booth, and with Sid W7JSD who worked me from his house a few miles away. Sid had been out to the hamfest earlier in the morning, and I asked him if he could possibly try working this pass when he returned home.
On the two AO-85 passes, John K8YSE figured prominently in both passes. Not that John made lots of QSOs on each pass, but that he initially made QSOs with me as K8YSE/7 from his Arizona station, and then made QSOs with me as K8YSE from his station in Cleveland. He was physically in Arizona at his home in the Phoenix area, and remotely operating his Cleveland station later in each of these passes. The crowd was impressed with the ability to be on from two different stations at the same time. They were also happy with the extremely long-distance QSO with NP4JV. :-)
Along with talking with John through both of his stations and seeing both Fernando and Sid, Fernando had his daughter Yalitza ("Yali") with him at the hamfest. Yali took the Technician license exam at the hamfest, and passed. Yali has not received a call sign from the FCC yet, but hopefully she does soon, and we can hear her on the satellites from DM41 in the near future.
Unlike most of my hamfest road trips, I had not made definite plans to go anywhere after the hamfest. Talking with Fernando and Yali at lunch after the hamfest, I wanted to try working at least one pass from the nearby Coronado National Memorial. This memorial is south of Sierra Vista, at the USA/Mexico border. It is so close to the border that my mobile phone made the switch to a Mexican carrier, until I left the memorial. The best place to work an SO-50 pass just after 3pm (2200 UTC) was just inside the east entrance of the memorial, near the large Coronado National Memorial sign at a parking area in front of that sign. I set up my station, took pictures of it and my GPS receiver, and proceeded to work 13 stations on that pass across the USA and Mexico. I think some were hoping another station was going to show up, so that helped me in making at least 10 QSOs to have this pass count as an activation for the ARRL's National Parks on the Air activity. This was my second NPOTA activation, and the first for me at a National Park Service site in Arizona following my operating from Lake Mead in Nevada the previous weekend (29 April-1 May). Like with the hamfest, this memorial is also in grid DM41.
After working the SO-50 pass, I stopped at the visitor center to get the obligatory stamps in my passport to show I was at this location, and then took my time heading back to Sierra Vista. My drive home took several hours, with a drive through another scenic part of southern Arizona to Nogales along another portion of the USA/Mexico border, and then up through Tucson back home. I stopped to work one AO-85 pass in the evening, around 8.25pm (0325 UTC), logging 4 QSOs from a spot northwest of Tucson in grid DM42 before finishing my drive home.
Between the hamfest and operating from the Coronado National Memorial, this was a fun day in southern Arizona. I'll be on the road for another hamfest in eastern Arizona on 4 June, plus I hope to operate from more National Park Service sites around Arizona during the summer. Thanks to the Cochise Amateur Radio Association for their hospitality in providing AMSAT a space at their annual hamfest, and to all of the stations that worked WD9EWK during the hamfest and later in the day at the other locations!
73!
Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK http://www.wd9ewk.net/ Twitter: @WD9EWK