Excellent! I"m looking forward to this.
As I'm designing my antenna system, I'm noticing a critical thing - the LEO sats provide an excellent opportunity to experiment with fixed-elevation antennas. It seems as though once you get a nice 4-6 element yagi above the roof at 25-30 degrees, it covers something like 97% of visible pass time.
As soon as my stock of aluminum rod and rotator come in, it's fun time :)
Matt
On 3/8/07, Bruce Robertson broberts@mta.ca wrote:
Many of us have been encouraging the newcomers to this list to avoid elevation rotors if they want to begin with a simple, less expensive station. (It is unfortunate that as recently as my 2006 edition, the ARRL Handbook states that az/el rotation is necessary. I wonder if someone should contact them and offer a rewrite.) As evidence of the effectiveness of such a station, I offer the following two QSOs (chosen merely because I was writing up the QSL cards). I also submit them as the first entries in a fixed-elevation DX bragging thread:
VE9QRP (FN75tv) to IW4DVZ (JN54IM) 5600 km " " to OK2UFB (JN99as) 5847 km
Both SSB via FO-29, both using a pair of FT-817s.
73, Bruce VE9QRP _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb