I have to agree with John...significant increase in the polarity switching noticed both on the US west coast pass last night (02-Dec-09 0158) and this morning (03-Dec-09 1417). This morning's pass required a lot of switching...some of it back-to-back (10 seconds between switching). Also, it took a long time to acquire the bird and I lost it early as well.
For the sake of full disclosure, I've only been running polarity switches since Thanksgiving day but in that time I've worked AO-51 several times and the need to switch polarity has been minimal.
73, David
-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Thursday, December 03, 2009 7:43 AM To: amsat-bb Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: AO-51 magnet reversal tonight
Drew, the only difference I detected in the 0029 utc pass over Western US was the polarity changes. Almost thought I was on SO-50 instead of AO-51. Had to keep the hand on the reversal switch. Heard acouple of other comments about it too during the pass. Signal strength here on the West Coast seemed to be the same as before.
John W6ZKH
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