Hi!

On the AO-51 pass that just went by around 0012 UTC this afternoon, I tried something I do with any HT I get - work satellites. I picked up a Yaesu VX-8GR at Dayton 3 months ago, and have started using it for APRS. Since it has two VFOs on it, I did not have to program any memory channels to get it working for satellites. It is not a full- duplex radio, but it can work. I use a Diamond SMA-BNC adapter on it all the time (a well-designed adapter, which makes a secure physical connection to the radio), and put a Diamond RH77CA 2m/70cm long duckie on it. Since I did not have my Sony digital audio recorder with me, I used a recorder app on my N900 phone, with the phone sitting in my shirt pocket and the microphone hole pointing up. And I was doing this on a west-facing balcony at my office in Scottsdale AZ (DM43al).

This pass was a nice one for Arizona, with maximum elevation at 64 degrees to the west. The footprint still covered a significant chunk of North America. Once the satellite got up to about 25 to 30 degrees elevation, I could hear it easily with the squelch wide open on the receive VFO. I made a few QSOs, including one with John K8YSE still on his road trip. Thanks to everyone for the QSOs, and thanks to John for all your work putting on a lot of rarely-heard grids in that part of North America!

With this radio, I had to change from one VFO to the other before and after transmitting. Since this radio has two VFOs, I could still hear the downlink even if the transmit VFO was the active VFO. I had to make sure to go back to the receive VFO to make my Doppler adjustments, and then to the transmit VFO if I wanted to be heard through the satellite (something I missed once or twice). Sure, this is not the ideal handheld radio for FM satellite operating, but it is definitely good enough as a backup if I am not able to use my normal HT (IC-T7H) or any of my other radios to get on an FM satellite pass.

I will not regularly work satellite passes from this location. I tried it today, since I was the only one in the office (I had some work to do on one of my computer systems, best done when nobody else is in). There is a hospital about 1/2 mile (about 1km) south of here, which throws out a lot of intermod - a good reason not to work many passes here. With a better antenna, and especially pointing south toward the hospital, I would have had problems hearing the satellite downlink. Even with all of that in mind, I now have another radio that I've used on the satellites - and is capable of being used in the future if the need arises. It will definitely be used for APRS when I go on the road, mostly through the terrestrial APRS network but I might see if I can get an APRS packet through the ISS some time.

73!

Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK http://www.wd9ewk.net/