Mark, While I really like the audio on S-band a lot better than U, I think 9600 b packet is a great idea! I know you meant it tongue-in-cheek, but if a real emergency occurred world-wide (you know, like we lost the Internet during the upcoming royal wedding or some other equally cataclysmic event), store-and-forward technology would be a viable and reliable way for hams without HF privileges to communicate world-wide. Reminds me a little of Independence Day :-)

73, Jerry, K5OE

--- original message --- Hi Bob,

I think it's safe to say that we won't be running S-band. We haven't planned that far ahead, but I expect we'll be in mode V/U simply because of eclipses and the battery.

Or we could run 9600 baud packet instead :)

73,

Mark N8MH

At 11:39 PM 4/18/2011 +0000, Bob- W7LRD wrote:

Field day will be here before we know it. Last year we had AO-51 with mode S activated. What if any plans are there for this year? With the power budget as it is what can we plan on? 73 Bob W7LRD Seattle