Hi!

After just over 2 days, John K8YSE/7 and I have been busy putting W1AW/7 on lots of satellite passes. It's been fun! I just worked a couple of passes this evening on FO-29 and AO-73, bringing my QSO count to 23 over 7 different passes on 3 satellites (AO-73, FO-29, VO-52). John has been on during the daytime, working more passes and stations. I did not get an update from him today, but hope to get something from him tomorrow that I can pass along (if he doesn't post an update himself).

On the AO-73 pass I just worked tonight, there was a Canadian station who was trying to call me in CW near the end of the pass. I'm sorry I could not copy enough of your call to make a cross- mode contact, as your CW was a bit faster than what I can copy outside of some HF contests. I have the keyer in my FT-817NDs set at 17wpm, a speed fast enough to be comfortable sending and copying without having to scribble anything down (my audio recorder comes in handy on CW just as it does for SSB and FM QSOs). I have been asked to make CW QSOs as W1AW/7, but I'm not very comfortable doing a lot of CW via satellite. Throw in Doppler on top of trying to concentrate on my sending and pointing the antenna - a lot to do.

Despite my poor effort trying to decode that call, I was able to work CO6CBF early in tonight's AO-73 pass. Hector has been doing great things with his gear on the satellites lately, including operating portable - something he had difficulties doing in the past. Maybe we can get him to work SSB and FM satellites during Cuban grid expeditions, as he has done previously on SO-50. :-)

I may not stay up too late tomorrow (Friday) night working the satellites, so I can be up early and at the hamfest in Scottsdale AZ early Saturday morning. I might be able to work a couple of passes, ending with an FO-29 pass around 0335 UTC, so I can pack my gear and get up to the hamfest early. I am shooting for the VO-52 pass around 1251 UTC and the FO-29 pass after that at 1305 UTC for good chances to work all across North America from the hamfest as W1AW/7.

A reminder... I'm posting updates on my plans to work as W1AW/7 on my Twitter feed @WD9EWK (http://twitter.com/WD9EWK for those not using Twitter), and will continue to do that Saturday morning at the hamfest. I should be able to tweet some photos during the hamfest, and - assuming the mobile phone data network is 3G or 4G at the hamfest - I should be able to submit data from AO-73 to the FUNcube data warehouse from the hamfest site.

Thanks for all the QSOs with John and me as W1AW/7 so far this week. We'll keep working passes through Tuesday afternoon, when this week of fun comes to an end for us using W1AW/7 in Arizona. Please call us when you hear us on, even if you've already worked us this week.

73!

Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK http://www.wd9ewk.net/