Rhett Duke wrote:
Kenwood HT....I have read a few articles on working AO-51 with your HT....seen a couple good videos on UTUBE etc......One guy had what I call a marine compass rigged to his Arrow beam/camera tripod that worked even with the change in elevation that would cause a regular "pocket compass" to go haywire.......I am curious if anyone uses a Digital Compass? One that might display the heading in degrees...not just North....NE/ East etc.....? even with changes in elevation.....or must a digital compass be held parallel to the earth to read correctly ?
73 KI4OVO
Having a compass or PDA with real-time prediction software is nice but certainly not a must have. At least not while working satellites. The compass is nice for knowing where the satellite while rise above the horizon but once you acquired its signal you just wave your Arrow antenna a bit to follow the satellite across the sky.
I use a Icom IC-R20 as receiver which has a built-in voice recorder. I find that very useful as I don't have to write down anything ;) Using VOX on your transmitter is another good thing but watch out when outside in high winds which can switch on the transmitter when not wanted!
Good luck!
Andre PH7AT