I operated OSCAR satellites back in 1974-1976. It was simple with 2 meters up and 10 meters down. Not much doppler effect either. I got back on a month ago after a lapse of 32 years. I would like to give my impressions to date. I have had QSOs on 6 or 7 different birds using CW, SSB and of course FM. By far the most productive mode is FM. It is also the easy way to get on OSCAR. The transponders on AO7, VO52 and FO29 go aching for use. On 15 minute passes you can find just one or two other users. Sadly nobody at times. Of course you need to be able to manage doppler and to track the bird with some degree of accuracy. I guess I have had over 400 QSOs during the past month. I have worked 42 states and 7 countries along with about 110 grid squares. Being newly retired the XYL encourages me to stay in the shack. However of the 400 QSOs I have probably only worked 120 different stations. The biggest disappointment for me is the lack of information in QST and CQ magazines on OSCAR. I had no idea that there were that many potential birds flying and providing the opportunity to make contacts. Having been a ham for 56 years and always active I don't miss a lot. Oh I see the AMSAT booth at Dayton. But there is little effective public relations going on to attract hams to use OSCAR satellites. There is some but not to the extent that is needed. I just rejoined AMSAT. It is obvious that there is plenty of transponder "spectrum" going unused. It is a very modest challenge to use satellites other than FM birds, in my opinion. I have some M Square yagis that I put together along with an elevation and azimuth rotators. I put them up about 15 feet off the ground. I learned a few things about switching polarity too. We did not have circular polarity being used in 1974 if my memory is working.
The best part about being back on is the opportunity to meet a new group of hams. I have learned about SatPC32 and struggle to get it working with the Vista operating system. I also got the RHCP vs. LHCP wrong on my 2 meter antenna. I owe thanks to K9QHO and K9CIS for helping me on that issue.
Most use AO51 as the bird of choice. I wonder why there is so little use of SO50 ? It works great and is under used too. These are my first impressions. There really is a lack of public relations about how much is out there in the way of satellite opportunities. Of course that is just my opinion. One thing for sure you do not need to count the sun spots to see if you can make contacts. I would like to see folks give a little opening to some of the Central American stations who come on frequency but get stepped on. A QSO with a TI4 or a KP4 is still DX even for a guy like me who has been around long enough to have worked them all. One day HR1LW called me on VO52. What a thrill. There was no one else on. A few weeks later he called me again and called me by name. Same for a few European QSOs that I have had.
My XYL wants to thank all of those that have kept me in the shack and out of her hair as she adjusts to my retirement. I do too.
73 Jim W9VNE Cincinnati, Ohio EM79tb
Jim
I would like to add to your comments. I have been a ham for 31 years, and a DXer almost from the start. CW has been my mode of choice, and I have never run more than 100 watts (I get a lot of grief from the hard-core DXers for not using QRO, but that is another story). I have always wondered about AMSAT, but never wanted to invest in the heavy duty equipment and antennas. With the sunspot lulls and a new FT817 from my XUL last Christmas and no progress in the sunspot department, I decided to see what all the excitement was about. Starting in April with 5 watts and a hand-held Arrow dual-band yagi, I had a rejuvenated ham experience working satellites. My hands shook with excitement when I made my first QSO through AO-51. The thrill was just as great when I worked MODE A on AO-7 two weeks later. The Doppler on CW and SSB is an interesting challenge, but the satellite prediction programs (thanks, Simon for HRD!) make it much easier. Instead of firing up my rig on HF first thing, I now check the satellite passes first to see what is available! My Arrow is mounted on a radio shack rotor in the attic at a fixed elevation of 20 degrees, and I have heard every satellite that I am listening for so far. What a thrill! I agree with you Jim, this puts even more excitement into the hobby for me. Although so far I have heard every bird active, I have already re-worked a couple of hams in just the 30 QSO's made so far. I like how Patrick WD9EWK is actively evangelizing the satellites, and others are doing the same. I think it's time for a demo at my local club meeting, and for groups beyond ham radio. This is another entry point for non-hams into our hobby.
73, look forward to hearing you on the "birds"
Mark Lunday WD4ELG, FM06 wd4elg@arrl.net http://wd4elg.net
On Sep 20, 2008, at 10:39 AM, Mark Lunday, WD4ELG wrote:
Starting in April with 5 watts and a hand-held Arrow dual-band yagi, I had a rejuvenated ham experience working satellites. My hands shook with excitement when I made my first QSO through AO-51. The thrill was just as great when I worked MODE A on AO-7 two weeks later.
Radio is just wicked fun, isn't it? :-)
-- Nate Duehr, WY0X nate@natetech.com
Hi Jim, I enjoyed this post. Lots of resources up there if we just use them. I too am frustrated by the almost complete abscense of any thing related to AMSAT or the satellites coming out of QST. There used to be a regular column that rotated with other ones and appeared about every three months or so but it has sadly disappeared. By looking in the mainstream amateur press, except for the occasional brief mention of P3E, you would not even know that satellite operations still exist. I will be glad to be joining you guys on the linear SSB/CW birds if I can jst get a couple of issues figured out here. I'm having a devil of a time getting SatPC32 sorted out where I can hear my own downlink on them. I had thought I had a TX antenna issue on the 70cm uplink birds and still do but recently I've been trying to get my downlink tuned in where it's intelligible to me on FO-29 and haven't been able to do it. It used to seem so easy to set that up in the CAT screen of SatPC32 when I had a TS-2000X but I had to sell that and now I'm using an Icom IC-820H and it's giving me fits. i guess it wouldn't be so much fun if it was easy though, would it? 73, Michael, W4HIJ AMSAT # 36017 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Danehy" jdanehy@cinci.rr.com To: amsat-bb@amsat.org Sent: Friday, September 19, 2008 10:45 PM Subject: [amsat-bb] first impression
I operated OSCAR satellites back in 1974-1976. It was simple with 2 meters up and 10 meters down. Not much doppler effect either. I got back on a month ago after a lapse of 32 years. I would like to give my impressions to date. I have had QSOs on 6 or 7 different birds using CW, SSB and of course FM. By far the most productive mode is FM. It is also the easy way to get on OSCAR. The transponders on AO7, VO52 and FO29 go aching for use. On 15 minute passes you can find just one or two other users. Sadly nobody at times. Of course you need to be able to manage doppler and to track the bird with some degree of accuracy. I guess I have had over 400 QSOs during the past month. I have worked 42 states and 7 countries along with about 110 grid squares. Being newly retired the XYL encourages me to stay in the shack. However of the 400 QSOs I have probably only worked 120 different stations. The biggest disappointment for me is the lack of information in QST and CQ magazines on OSCA! R. I had no idea that there were that many potential birds flying and providing the opportunity to make contacts. Having been a ham for 56 years and always active I don't miss a lot. Oh I see the AMSAT booth at Dayton. But there is little effective public relations going on to attract hams to use OSCAR satellites. There is some but not to the extent that is needed. I just rejoined AMSAT. It is obvious that there is plenty of transponder "spectrum" going unused. It is a very modest challenge to use satellites other than FM birds, in my opinion. I have some M Square yagis that I put together along with an elevation and azimuth rotators. I put them up about 15 feet off the ground. I learned a few things about switching polarity too. We did not have circular polarity being used in 1974 if my memory is working.
The best part about being back on is the opportunity to meet a new group of hams. I have learned about SatPC32 and struggle to get it working with the Vista operating system. I also got the RHCP vs. LHCP wrong on my 2 meter antenna. I owe thanks to K9QHO and K9CIS for helping me on that issue.
Most use AO51 as the bird of choice. I wonder why there is so little use of SO50 ? It works great and is under used too. These are my first impressions. There really is a lack of public relations about how much is out there in the way of satellite opportunities. Of course that is just my opinion. One thing for sure you do not need to count the sun spots to see if you can make contacts. I would like to see folks give a little opening to some of the Central American stations who come on frequency but get stepped on. A QSO with a TI4 or a KP4 is still DX even for a guy like me who has been around long enough to have worked them all. One day HR1LW called me on VO52. What a thrill. There was no one else on. A few weeks later he called me again and called me by name. Same for a few European QSOs that I have had.
My XYL wants to thank all of those that have kept me in the shack and out of her hair as she adjusts to my retirement. I do too.
73 Jim W9VNE Cincinnati, Ohio EM79tb
participants (4)
-
Jim Danehy -
Mark Lunday, WD4ELG -
Michael Tondee -
Nate Duehr