Thank you everyone for your help. I had my first successful contact on SO-50.
AO-27 appears to be on hiatus, since the website is also down.
My next endeavor is learning the linear transponder birds. I have been trying to receive AO-7. I never heard a beacon on either mode A or B. (Daytime pass) I tuned around the downlink and I might have heard some very faint stations. I guess I need bigger antennas? Perhaps some phasing cables will help. (it's in the mail)
Thank you KB5WIA for the contact this evening.
Richard K7LWV
On Oct 24, 2011, at 6:31 AM, David Palmer KB5WIA kb5wia@amsat.org wrote:
Hi Richard,
. I am using a yeasu g-5500 rotator with the AMSAT controller and ham radio deluxe. Kenwood ts-2000 for the rig and a 8 element 440 and a 4 element 2 meter antenna. The antennas are currently linear polarized since my phasing cables still have not arrived from the manufacturer.
Good setup!
My questions are, is AO-27 difficult to work? Is it on a schedule? Any ideas why I could not raise or hear it?
Yes, it's on a schedule -- check the status page on www.amsat.org to see when it comes on and off. It comes on at mid-latitudes by a timer, so for an overhead pass in your area you *should* have heard it .... other things to check would be that the keps are current, and that there weren't any glitches during that particular pass (ie. maybe radios briefly stopped tuning). Try again, it's a nice loud sat.
As for SO-50: Should I be listening 5khz down? Ham radio deluxe is controlling the radio frequencies and I made a custom entry for 5khz down and corrected for Doppler. This still did not seem to help.
I've found SO-50 about 5kHz-8kHz down, so listen down a little. Remember the tone on the uplink too. Also, I've seen quite a few posts that the TS-2000 has a birdie right at the high end of SO-50's downlink, so you may have a better chance hearing it later in the pass as doppler moves the downlink away from the birdie.
Richard K7LWV
Good luck on the sats!!!!
73 de Dave KB5WIA