On Sep 23, 2011, at 11:18 AM, Patrick STODDARD (WD9EWK/VA7EWK) wrote:
I hope you are able to be on VO-52 on Saturday, 22 October, when I am doing demonstrations on FM and SSB satellites from a hamfest in Tucson AZ that morning. If there are FM passes available that morning, I will be on them - as well as the VO-52 passes. At the hamfests I have operated from, the SSB demonstrations usually attract the larger crowds. When they see it does not take much more equipment to work SSB than FM via satellite, that turns out to be a pleasant surprise for the audiences.
In the morning should be a 9:40ish am pass local time for me. So I might be on it sipping my coffee :). The big difference that you can show is, that the linear birds are not like a zoo at times (except for the 5 am passes during the weekends on AO-51) and you can have a real QSO for the entire length of the pass. Granted you may only collect one grid and you may already have that one but it's simply an addition.
I use a pair of FT-817NDs (or sometimes I substitute a TH-F6A in place of the FT-817ND I use to receive the downlinks) and a "store bought antenna" (an Elk log periodic) for my all-mode satellite station. This station, except for the Elk, fits in an old laptop bag that has seen tens of thousands of miles of travel in the past couple of years around North America and - recently - Australia.
My current antenna setup is a AR-22 TV rotor with a 5 ele 2M and a 10 ele 70cm at 30 deg fixed elevation both horizontal polarized. Total cost approx. $200 plus cables. Next project will be to build a 2nd IOio and phase them together 90 deg off to see if that will help with the fading issue (mostly on FO-29) vs buying or building a complex RHCP/LHCP switchable setup.
My IOio beats your Arrow or Elk in terms of price by leaps :). But then again it doesn't look as nice.
73 Mike K5TRI