Drew,

I appreciate your comments about what AO-51 can and cannot do. There is no problem if the v/u mode comes down on 435.150 rather than 435.300 except for the polarization difference. Those with Right Hand Circular Polarization (RHCP) will have a difficult time hearing the Left hand (LHCP) downlink. Those with yagi's etc won't be affected and that includes most of the new people. A downlink on 435.150 is better than no UHF Voice downlink at all.

As far as dxpeditioners working ssb birds, most of us can do that. But who are we going to work? - only the few that have ssb equipment. The new people starting out are likely to only have a FM handheld or mobile. These are the people that will be going for their first award. As they progress, they'll start working towards their first 100 grid VUCC award and maybe Worked All States, especially if they are on the west coast and can work Hawaii on a FM bird. We cannot expect everyone to invest in L and S band equipment to work the handful of people who operate those modes. If it weren't for the people that bought their radios/antennas/converters a long time ago, even fewer would be operating L/S.

It's a lot harder to work grids now than it was years back. If you worked your 550 grids on birds that have the footprint of AO-51, you're a stellar operator. These days you have to pull out the stops to do it and if it weren't for the grid dxpeditioners, it would be tough to do half that amount. Without V/U FM, you don't get to those totals very fast, if ever, on today's birds.

There does need to be a balance between modes and AO-51 is certainly a versatile satellite that can serve many different interests. What we need to keep in mind is that new people are the future of AMSAT. If they don't have an FM voice mode, there is no other likely entry point for them. And if no one is going out on grid dxpeditions because there is so little v/u airtime per day, the organization will never grow. There would be no interest in DXCC if there were no dxpeditions. I think that there would be a lot less interest in operating satellites if there was no VUCC and grid dxpeditions to facilitate working something new on a regular basis. Making a contact with the same people over and over gets old quickly. Put someone like WD9EWK in Utah, ND9M all over the eastern US including Delaware, KD8CAO in northeastern Michigan and Drummond Island, KB0RZD on a 4 corner grid boundary in Missouri and even K8YSE in Delaware for those that missed ND9M, and AO-51 COMES ALIVE. XE2AT who is at the top of the VUCC leader board with over 900 grids worked is in there calling KD8CAO in EN86 and EN76. There are no pileups on L/S and the BBS.

That being said, I only ask that configurations that preclude a FM V/U transponder be kept to a minimum. We need to do everything we can to encourage new people to enter the world of satellites and we need to support those who operate from other grids and give everyone something to work for.

I will be listening for you on AO-7 et. al. Have a great trip. Don't forget to post your operating schedule on the amsat-bb so we know when to look for you and what grids you'll be in.

John K8YSE

Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2009 16:43:03 -0400 From: "Andrew Glasbrenner" glasbrenner@mindspring.com Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: Rare Grids and Gridpeditions To: amsat-bb@amsat.org, "John Papay" john@papays.com Message-ID: 58370780F3A14122A8BB648728DFAD90@Andrewlaptop Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original

John,

I certainly understand where you are coming from, although I disagree with some of your positions. AO-51 is currently our only satellite with multiple modes (other than ISS), our only S band satellite, our only BBS, our only L band satellite, etc. Unfortunately our power budget doesn't allow us to run every mode we want to at the same time. This problem will only get worse as the batteries age. We are already at the point where after this extended period of mostly full illumination, we will most likely only be able to run one transmitter at any time, and possibly not the S band in eclipse at -all-.

The good news is that the full illumination lasts for quite a while, and during this period we can support two UHF transmitters at a high power level, or one UHF at modest power and the S band transmitter. If we run separate S and UHF, the UHF downlink will have to be on 435.150, as the 435.300 and S transmitters share an audio path.

So...that being said, do not expect us to completely forego L and S just for more grid swapping, as fun as it is (I'm at 550 confirmed). Send your requests in early for whatever mode you'd like, and we will try to honor them. Meanwhile, get your S band downconverters ready for portable ops, your 817s and 706s working with SatPC32 on a laptop, and be ready to occasionally run your grid trips on ALL the satellites. It's a real shame to hear so many ops on V/U FM, and so few on V/U and U/V SSB/CW.

Since I try to walk the walk, look for me on the SSB -and- FM birds as G/ and OZ/KO4MA over the next 2.5 weeks. I hope to stretch the footprint to North America on FO-29 and AO-7 with my little 817 and Arrow setup.

Mode requests should go to ao51-modes@amsat.org, not to me direct.

73, Drew KO4MA

We have enjoyed a long stretch of AO51 being in the V/U mode on 435.300. After the end of the month, the bird will be in sunlight continuously and that will allow higher power and other modes to be used. If AO51 is in a non-V/U voice mode, as it was for a 2 week period not long ago, grid dxpeditions are not going to be worthwhile. If you plan a vacation ahead of time, you might find later that the bird will not be in a v/u voice mode during your trip.

The Operations Team sets the schedule and they do it based upon requests from the membership for alternate modes. Personally I think that there should always be a 435.300/145.92 mode available. Everyone who is interested in chasing grids or activating grids away from their home should email KO4MA and request that V/U voice remain on. You cannot plan anything if you don't know if AO51 will be in V/U voice during your trip. The schedule is based upon input from the membership and if we don't make our requests, those that want the bird in other modes (both transponders) will most likely be served. The second transponder is fine for other modes but there are probably some modes that cannot be activated if V/U voice is to remain on. Maybe Drew can clarify this for us.

There are some that would say that there are other satellites that can be used for FM voice. Very true, however, if you are out there trying to activate grids, not having AO51 available is a handicap. You spend a lot of money to do it and then have 1/3 of your potential air time, on the best FM satellite up there, not available to you. It makes no sense.

I'm on L band now and will have S band RX running soon. I enjoy setting up for different modes. But after you work a few stations in those modes, and fine tune your equipment, there's not much left. Chasing grids never ends. There's always one more to work.

If you are interested in working or activating new grids, please email KO4MA and request that AO51 always have one V/U voice transponder available. There is no guarantee that this will always work, but if there are no emails, it is likely that there will be more periods of non V/U voice on AO51.

John K8YSE

John Papay john@papays.com