Re: armstrong antenna pointing
Before the pass I use a compass or landmarks to sort of draw an imaginary arc of the satellite path. Once you acquire the signal, simply keep it peaked up by ear, including twisting the arrow to match polarity. This twist also does wonders on the FM satellite uplinks, and is reason enough to use full duplex (among a host of other benefits).
It certainly gets easier with time and practice.
73, Drew KO4MA
-----Original Message-----
From: Eric Fort eric.fort@gmail.com Sent: May 2, 2007 4:51 PM To: amsat-bb@amsat.org Subject: [amsat-bb] armstrong antenna pointing
When one is using an arrow antenna and an armstrong rotator to work one of the birds, how does one have any idea where to have the antenna pointed when and what movements to make to keep it pointed? It's a big sky up there.
Eric KG6KQT _______________________________________________ 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
If you have a Palm or Pocket PC I recommend PocketSat+
Download it here http://www.bigfattail.com/software/pocketsatplus/index.html
If you don't have a PDA you can get old ones such as Palm IIIxe for almost free.
Once you know when and where the AOS and LOS is you track by ear. If you loose the signal mid-pass because of fads etc, a quick check of the plot
http://www.bigfattail.com/software/pocketsatplus/palm/images/colorpassplot.g if
and you know approximately where to pick up the pass.
73, Alan VE4YZ AMSAT 35968 http://www.mts.net/~ve4wsc/ AMSAT A-485
| |-----Original Message----- |From: Eric Fort eric.fort@gmail.com |Sent: May 2, 2007 4:51 PM |To: amsat-bb@amsat.org |Subject: [amsat-bb] armstrong antenna pointing | |When one is using an arrow antenna and an armstrong rotator |to work one |of the birds, how does one have any idea where to have the antenna |pointed when and what movements to make to keep it pointed? |It's a big sky up there. | |Eric |KG6KQT
participants (2)
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Alan Thoren -
Andrew Glasbrenner