At 10:26 AM 2/26/2008, Mark VandeWettering wrote:
I mostly agree with this, there are some calls which are rather difficult to pull apart sometimes, and often just the fact that you are slowing down to say them phonetically helps.
Very much so. :)
But perhaps this is a good time to introduce a little personal rant of mine. First of all, I work satellites exclusively QRP with a TH-D7A and an arrow antenna (no preamp). This is a fun way for me to work, and I enjoy it a great deal, and quite frankly, with some ear buds I can hear the satellite very well, and always get good strong signal reports above 10 degrees or so, which is pretty much
I normally work the birds with a similar setup, and have no difficulty receiving it. In the past, I used around 1W to access the uplink with little difficulty.
That's what makes the following particularly frustrating: someone with a LOT more power than me simply comes on and blasts over my QSO. Well, that's just the half of
That's common, and the cause (at least down here) is invariably a newbie trying to work the bird using a high gain vertical and no preamp (For the newcomers out there, this DOESN'T WORK!!! Best to try working it with a HT, seriously).
Yes, I understand there can be fading and the like, but once the satellite is above even ten degrees, I pretty much always get full quieting from AO-51. I keep wondering
I do too.
why people with presumably much larger stations have so much more difficulty hearing the bird. I'm left with equally puzzling alternatives: that people running much more power than I simply don't have sufficient receive gain to hear the satellite, or that they simply don't care whether they interrupt existing communications and just key up over people.
One of the things I hate about V/U is there is a 20 ish dB disparity in the uplink/downlink power budgets, and that is in favour of the uplink. U/V is roughly balanced. The former creates all sorts of opportunities for alligators...
of your station before clogging the satellite. The maxim "you got to hear 'em to work 'em" should be the motto of every satellite operator.
True, ESPECIALLY for satellites. If you can't hear it, fix your station! :)
73 de VK3JED http://vkradio.com