Hi all, A few observations from today:
The transmit frequency seems to change a little. On the first pass I used today I had to go up 500 Hz on the downlink to hit the right frequency. On the later passes the change was smaller.
As others have observed the carrier is there. Tuning to zero beat puts you spot on frequency.
Following Toms e-mail I tried to change to FMN (3.5 kHz deviation) on the transmitter. That makes the audio sound better - but my downlink signal to noise ratio decreased. That was to be expected.
I do not know about other areas of the World - but here over Europe the background noise on the downlink is very high. Did not experience the normal FM quieting effect by increasing the uplink power. I do not understand that - any ideas ? Is AO-16 making the noise itself ??
The polarity of the downlink antenna is difficult to make out. I thought it is RHCP - but Mark says LHCP. For me on the passes to the East RHCP is best ! Passes from the South - LHCP is best ! That is a general observation - some times it helped to switch during the passes. AO-16 might be tumbling a lot ?
Another thing is that using Noise Reduction on my IC-910 helps a little - not much.
Have fun and thanks to the team and the builders.
73 OZ1MY Ib