I'd agree that the attitude of the satellite affects link margin, given the geometry of the antennas in the satellite drawings I've seen.
This FS-3 pass I just tried must have had a lot more PBBS traffic, not quite as much as Wed or Thu, but much more than two hours ago, maybe one packet every 2 seconds or so. I wasn't iGated, despite sending my beacon several times manually. If the downlink is this full of PBBS packets, is that clear evidence that the uplink is active, since only a successful uplink to the PBBS would trigger the flood of packets?
73, Ryan AI6DO
On Friday, June 1, 2018, 3:06:13 PM PDT, Mark L. Hammond marklhammond@gmail.com wrote:
Great. Yes less PBBS means better Digi. I am convinced the attitude of FS-3 varies, and it matters. Elevation alone sometimes isn’t enough! Mark N8MH