At 12:35 AM 10/17/2007, John Hackett wrote:

Hello All, AO-7's mode-B transponder absolutely *THUNDERING* !!! in this morning at 08:20 UTC.

(Okay !!! ... S5 ... alright?).

73 John. la2qaa@amsat.org

GREAT NEWS!

John,

Having read your prior e-mail "AO-7 report" and the warnings about running too much uplink power .... and using better receive, I wonder if you would share with the readers what antennas, power at antenna, resulting EIRP, and receive antenna and preamp you are using on AO-7.

Maybe your example will help folks figure out what they need to do. You probably remember that I have hammered on about using a preamp (at the antenna) for years on this reflector. ----------------------------------------------------- OK folks: Good news is I am actively working on resurrecting my Heo antenna system (as used for AO-10, AO40):

144-MHz KLM-22C (both RHCP & LHCP) 15-dBic, GasFet preamp, and about 25w max at antennas (output of FT-847 is adjustable 2w to 50w), EIRPmax = 790w, EIRPmin = 31w. 432-MHz M2-436CP42 (RHCP) 17.7 dBic, mgf-1302 preamp, 60w max (PA at antenna), adjustable to about 5w min, EIRPmax = 3533w, EIRPmin = 294w 2401-MHz 33-inch offset feed dish with helix feed, MKU-232A2 preamp (0.6 dBNF, 40-dB gain), two Drake downconverters: 2401/123, 2401/435 May build a corner-reflector antenna for AO-51 mode-S

Already have 2x 45-elem loop-yagis (23-dBi) and DEMI 144/1268 (15w) + 60wPA with 20w max at antenna for EIRPmax = 4000w, EIRPmin = 200w.

Of course this is overkill for Leos and AO-7. If curious you may see the setup on my website as I set it up: http://www.kl7uw.com/sat.htm

73, Ed - KL7UW ====================================== BP40IQ 50-MHz - 10-GHz www.kl7uw.com 144-EME: FT-847, mgf-1801, 4x-xpol-20, 185w DUBUS Magazine USA Rep dubususa@hotmail.com ======================================