Greetings from the frigid north country,
I have used my single IC-706MKIIG with the linear sats. Back in the day I had a table full of receivers, transmitters, transverters, preamps etc to operate full duplex on AO-10 and the other sats. Since I had not been on the sats since then it almost seemed like cheating using the tiny IC-706MKIIG. Immediately the disadvantages of not having a full duplex station became apparent. Even though I had made hundreds of contacts back in the day they were all full duplex. I seized the excuse to buy a new radio and bought an IC-7000 to pair up with the IC-706MKIIG for full duplex operation and have been very happy with the pair. The receiver on the 7000 is much better than the receiver on the 706 so I use the 7000 for receive and the 706 for transmit. In my opinion most of the mysterious QRM on the linear sats is due to not using full duplex. With the high doppler shift and the narrow passband filters in most modern radios it is easy to call CQ and not realize people are trying to return your call because you are not listening on the "right" frequency. The fact that there are many expert opinions on using doppler correction on uplink, downlink, both uplink and downlink or none of the above makes it even more difficult. Obviously it is possible to make contacts without full duplex but in my opinion it is more difficult. Hopefully the Chinese will come out with a decent low cost HF/VHF/UHF all mode radio with CAT control that will make it possible to operate full duplex on the linear sats without breaking the bank or having to resurrect some old radios.
W9KE Tom Doyle
On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 12:15 PM, Bob Herrell [email protected] wrote:
Hi all,
Does anyone have experience working the linear birds with a single IC-706MkIIG?
Thanks
Bob Herrell HI4/AJ5C _______________________________________________ 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