On an AO-91 pass earlier this Sunday, I heard a partial callsign who said “Looking for initial contact.” I responded and he heard me. But then we were stomped out by the usual stations. It was the weekend; the worst time of all to be on FM. It’s hard to welcome new users to satellites when this happens. I would add: this is not the first time. Week before last we had new people, rovers, portables, and kids-at-the-mike on an AO-91 pass. They all got stomped. No QSOs heard with any of them. Some have suggested that launching more FM birds would alleviate the stompfest. But how many more birds would it take before the number of ops per pass begins to thin out? It might be a large number given the appetite among some ops for repeat QSOs with the same station again and again on every pass. Behavior mod on the part of veteran FM ops doesn’t seem to be in the cards. So what about this? Suppose the next gen FM birds were channelized? That would divide the number of ops per pass. Thoughts? Ray KN2K
Sent from the all new AOL app for iOS