I've not had any problems bringing the bird up during the late passes such as the one in question. Between 2200 and 0600 eastern, SO-50 is usually dead and I find myself talking to myself H-I.
If you'd like to make another attempt I'd be willing to work a schedule with you to test your gear and ability to work the bird.
Though I'd find it hard to believe it's your antenna... Truth be told I work the birds on one of two antenna's depending where I am at that particular passing. If I'm at work I'll work birds over 40 degrees on my mobile rig with my dual band vertical mag mount. It works and watching my tracking software on my iPhone I'm able to tell when the bird passes into my blind spots as it passes. If I'm at home I use nothing more than a 2 meter 3 element beam and an HT in my back yard. SWR are low on 144 and 440 bands, though my reception could be better I'm sure. However; to this date it's worked. I've successfully worked AO-51, SO-50, ISS, and HO-68 (Hope-1) with the set ups above with no more than 5 watts (I don't believe in using big guns, conserve resources!).
As Rick said, FN42 and MA would be a new grid and state for me as well.
73 Jeremy KB3DLP / FM19 York, Pennsylvania
PS: I too have read what AMSAT shows for the frequency shifting, however I haven't experienced it yet myself, I still tune on the coordinated frequencies without issue.
On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 12:48 AM, Chris Danis [email protected] wrote:
Was anyone working SO-50 during its pass over FN42 at 12:25a Eastern / 05:25 UTC?
I just finished constructing a WA5VJB yagi just a few hours ago. Was listening on the downlink during the pass but heard nothing. (Didn't try transmitting.) Maybe no one was on, maybe the downlink is shifted off frequency slightly (I see a note of reports of this in the AMSAT Status page for the bird), or maybe my setup is just broken (very possible -- it's all new and I don't know what I'm doing!).
In any case, I'll be trying some other passes of FM sats tomorrow.
vy 73 -chris N2YYZ _______________________________________________ Sent via [email protected]. 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