I tried to work AO-91 at midday today from AK69 (another watery area), but the satellite isn't doing well right now; the off time during the pass was far more than on. I also tried AO-7/CW at 03/0331 from AK59, but didn't hear any signals let alone make any contacts. But the first RS-44/CW pass got AK59 into a few western US/VE logs, and I worked my first JA/7K this trip during the next RS-44/CW pass; it's the first time I'd worked both North America and Asia by satellite on the same day.

Tomorrow, I'll try AO-91 again, likely from AK39. I'm not really expecting to actually work anyone on that satellite from out here in the middle of nowhere, but I want to see how the bird's doing. We'll cross into AK29 later on, and I'll give AO-7/CW another go at 04/0425Z although I still don't know what ITU Region 3 countries (if any) permit operation on 432 MHz. After that, I'll be on RS-44/CW at 04/0512Z for a pass that should hit the Left Coast about 04/0523Z and the next pass at 04/0704Z which hits JA at about 04/0715Z. There's a chance that we may cross into AK19 about that time too.

As mentioned before, our route is via "great circle" which is the most direct route between two distant points although the route looks like an arc when viewed on a common Mercator projection map. We're at the very "top" of that arc now and will start a somewhat west-southwest slope tonight as we enter the final week of our voyage. We should hit the International Date Line around the new UTC day on 5/5; we'll leave the AK grid field and enter the RK field at that time. 73/Jim, ND9M