I'll have to agree with Tim. I dusted off my arrow a few days ago and walked outside to work AO-51 and I haven't had any problems at all. I have been consistently working three and four stations a pass using 5-watts or less and my arrow antenna. I remember when it was quite difficult to get into 51 with the same setup. Maybe people have gotten more polite or maybe it's just luck.

73, Eric W4OTN

For what it's worth, guys ... any day can be QRP day.

I'll soon be applying for the AMSAT Achievement Award using confirmed contacts that were all made while I was transmitting 50 milliwatts RF out from my Yaesu VX-7R, on 2 AA Duracells - the same set of AA Duracells, actually. I ended up making 51 contacts at 50 mW RF out, and another 3 at 300 mW RF out, from that one set of Duracells.

Only 4 of the 20 contacts I'll use for the Achievement Award came on AO-51's QRP pair of 145.880 up and 435.300 down. The other 16 contacts included all three Mode-J FM LEO satellites during operation on the standard V/U pairs. It took me six days of operating to wear out the Duracells, and I ended up with 20 states, Ontario, Mexico and Venezuela worked. The highlight for me was state No. 20, thanks to Mark, WA8SME - it was my first-ever contact (any mode, any band) with W1AW. That was cool!

So any time you'd like a QRP day, just reduce the output power and go for it!

73 to all,

Tim - N3TL AMSAT Member No. 36820 Athens, Ga. - EM84ha

-------------- Original message from Ben Jackson bbj@innismir.net:

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Nigel Gunn G8IFF/W8IFF wrote:

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Remember the weekly QRP day on ALL the sats until a few years ago?

I actually like the idea of a QRP day. When Drew started bringing the 2nd V/U transponder online last winter/early spring it was fun to have a (nearly) empty satellite to play on and see "how low I could go" to get in. (5W into a vertical)

Now that I'm testing a more directional antenna, it would be fun to not have to deal with the 50W stations muscling through.

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Ben Jackson - N1WBV - New Bedford, MA bbj innismir.net - http://www.innismir.net/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

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Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb