Today (UTC) is the 20th anniversary of the launch of FO-29. Congratulations to the Japan Amateur Radio League for the success and long life of this satellite. To commemorate FO-29's birthday, I have posted a short article about FO-29 on the AMSAT-NA website.
On a personal note, FO-29 has provided me with many, many hundreds of hours of enjoyment since I made my first QSO via it's linear transponder nearly four years ago. I have made 1,601 QSOs (34% of my total) with 400 different stations in 511 grids, 41 grid fields, 48 states (Hawaii is out of range, but I'd love to work Delaware on it some time!), 7 Canadian call areas, 46 DXCCs, 14 CQ zones, and 4 continents - all using two Yaesu FT-817s, manual Doppler tuning, and an Arrow antenna from here in Washington, DC. The large majority of QSOs were made using 5 watts (as I only became "QRO" with a 30 watt amplifier last November). I always look forward to saying hello to my European satellite friends every couple of months when the apogee is over the Atlantic and trying to stretch the footprint to work new countries. Here's to hopefully many more years of service to the amateur satellite community!
73,
Paul Stoetzer, N8HM Secretary Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT-NA)