Tony Langdon wrote:
This is more of an issue in the lesser populated parts of the world. The number of QSOs I've had on the linear birds that weren't pre-arranged with another local is very small. The majority date back to the days of RS-10 (now there's a bird I miss). Other than that, I can recall a QSO on FO-29 during a demonstration at a hamfest. FM, OTOH, gets a reasonable response, though I have had SO-50 and UO-14 to myself on late night passes. Think I even managed AO-51 to myself on one occasion. ;)
Tony Langdon gives a false impression of current activity in this part of the world (VK/ZL). There is daily activity on AO-51, VO-52 AO-07 (Both modes) AO-16 and to a lesser extent SO-50. In the past six months I have had almost 500 satellite QSOs almost equally spread across the above and none were pre-arranged!
Alan Cresswell ZL2BX