I have had considerable experience in the 'States in mode J-FM, including operation under challenging circumstances while traveling by car on my Southwest trip earlier this year. I got back recently from two weeks in France. I also made another trip to France two years ago.

My experience on both trips was that i found mode J-FM was definitely more difficult for me overseas. There were a number of things that made it seem alot harder for me. First, many stations in/near Europe seemed to want to do a full four-way exchange rather than the often abbreviated form that i often hear in the 'States. Here, my experiences is that when two stations already know each other, or they know the satellite is particulary busy, they will just quickly give their calls (often in quick phonetics) and maybe the grid square in four characters if they haven't said it recently. On the other hand, overseas, the exchange is six characters and appeared to take alot longer. So alot fewer stations seem to complete QSOs during the passes i tried to work than i experience at home.

This seemed further complicated by language barriers. While most stations seemed to speak some English, on the average, it did not sound like their primary language. So folks necessarily had to speak slower and repeat things more often.

Third, the passes that i tried to work seemed alot busier. I gave up on weekend passes on my last trip, as even on SO-50, i couldn't seem to get a word in edgewise. With a 10 minute walk to where i could find a decent horizon, it just wasn't worth the effort. The weekday passes i worked were better, but they still seemed to me to be as busy as the transcontinental passes over the 'States on weekends.

Fourth, there did seem to be more stations who either seemed to be calling without being able to hear the downlink, or perhaps heard it poorly enough that maybe they could only work the strongest stations??? It's certainly something i've experienced alot in the 'States, but usually it's only one or maybe two stations on a given pass that seemed to have that problem.

Finally, i didn't seemed to know how to get people to answer me. In the 'States, one just transmits their callsign and grid square, and people answer if either seems unfamiliar. That didn't seem to work for me (but then again, i wasn't hearing my own downlink very often). Was it just a matter of too much competition??? After all, i was only running 1W or maybe 2W, which usually works fine in the 'States. Did i need to call CQ?? I was reluctant to do that, as at home, unless the bird is very quiet, calling CQ usually a clear indication that one is a neophyte and can't hear the satellite. I'm really not sure how to increase my success rate while in Europe.

Next time i'm overseas, i'll certainly try again. But only if i don't have to walk very far to do a satellite pass. *SIGH*

-- KD6PAG (Networking Old-Timer, Satellite QRPer)

[Note: If i'm in your address book, please replace 'qsl.net' with 'amsat.org'.]