Greetings from CM97,

PACIFICON/ARRL National Convention is coming this weekend to Santa Clara, CA. Friday October 12 to Sunday October 14. I will be presenting satellite demos at the convention and will be able to use the W1AW/6 callsign. I was planning on AO-27 for almost half of the passes but it's not looking very favorable at this point. Thus, it looks like all the passes may be on the linear birds FO-29 and AO-07.

I will be helping with registration duties with our radio club, the Mount Diablo Amateur Radio Club, who is the sponsor of PACIFICON. I will be working each morning till noon. With the MDARC meeting Friday night and the banquet on Saturday night, this leaves only the afternoons for sat demos. Looking over the pass predictions, including AO-27, it looks like there are 10 good passes for demos. Without AO-27 it looks like we're down to 6 good demo passes. These are listed below:

Friday, October 12: 11:57 AM PDT - 1857 UTC - FO-29 1:42 PM PDT - 2042 UTC - FO-29

Saturday, October 13: 12:46 PM PDT - 1946 UTC - FO-29 4:28 PM PDT - 2328 UTC - AO-07

Sunday, October 14: 11:52 AM PDT - 1852 UTC - FO-29 1:37 PM PDT - 2037 UTC - FO-29

If AO-27 is restarted then here is the full schedule:

Friday, October 12: 11:57 AM PDT - 1857 UTC - FO-29 1:12 PM PDT - 2012 UTC - AO-27 1:42 PM PDT - 2042 UTC - FO-29 2:51 PM PDT - 2151 UTC - AO-27

Saturday, October 13: 12:46 PM PDT - 1946 UTC - FO-29 2:22 PM PDT - 2122 UTC - AO-27 4:28 PM PDT - 2328 UTC - AO-07

Sunday, October 14: 11:52 AM PDT - 1852 UTC - FO-29 1:37 PM PDT - 2037 UTC - FO-29 1:54 PM PDT - 2054 UTC - AO-27

For FO-29 & AO-07, I will try to start out around 10 kHz +/- above the center of the transponder (435.860 MHz & 145.960 MHz).

If you hear W1AW/6 on any of these passes, please call and be a part of the demonstrations. Please QSL via ARRL W1AW/6, 225 Main St, Newington, CT 06111 (please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope). QSOs will also be uploaded to Logbook of the World by ARRL after PACIFICON.

I will try to work some other passes as time permits but no guarantee. Sorry that there might not be any FM passes but this will be a good excuse to try the linear birds if you haven't alredy tried. I'll be using a dual Yaesu FT-817 setup, netbook/SatPC32 controlled, with an Arrow antenna.

Hope to make contact with you from W1AW/6!

73's, Tom Deeble, KA6SIP

P.S. Sorry for the late posting of this, but I was hoping that AO-27 would be back online before I sent this out. We could sure use AO-51 right now!

Tom Deeble - KA6SIP Mt. Diablo Amateur Radio Club Membership Chairman ka6sip@aol.com PACIFICON - ARRL National Convention Oct 12-14