You just answered your own question about antenna and angle of radiation. If you have trouble above 25 degrees. this is normal for verticals, especially high gain verticals (Ringos, etc.). I use omnis here for now as my arrays are still on the ground from the storms of '04'. I suspect that the Arrow antennas I hear about would probably work well. I have used and need to put new ones up, sloper 1/4 wave ground plane antennas. They have worked quite well in the past for me. The satellite handbook has examples of the sloped ground plane.
Good luck on the birds. By the way, the mode ('A' or'B') of AO-7 is a crap shoot as there is no automatic control and it will come up however it feels. It appears to be in mode 'A' more than it has in the past but still comes up also in mode 'B'.
Reid, W4UPD
Bill Dzurilla wrote:
Hi,
Today I listened for the first time for AO-7. I read all the info pages about this bird, but did not see anything about a key question: when is the bird in mode A and when in mode B? Is there a schedule, or do we have to listen on both 10m and 2m until we hear the beacon?
Anyhow, this morning there was a high pass and I heard the sat loud and clear in mode A, although it was not at all busy. Just 2 or 3 stations calling CQ on cw, no ssb at all. I was able to hear my own ssb signal on the downlink.
Was wondering what is a good antenna for receiving the 10m downlink. I have a vertical that usually performs quite well for regular HF work, but I lost the sat signal when the bird was still quite high, 25 degrees or so. This surprised me, as the vertical has a low angle of radiation.
Is there any SSB activity on this sat?
73, Bill NZ5N
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