Hey there all,

I was doing some prep work for the next Boy Scout Radio Merit badge class we will hold at the National Scouting Museum in Irving, TX on Feb. 11 and was mapping out the AO-27 and SO-50 passes for that day. I was surprised to note that they are almost on top of each other or at least down here not too many degrees apart. I know this has happened before but since the uplink and downlink frequencies for these two satellites are quite close, I would expect quite a bit of interference at times to each of them during my pass. SO-50 has a weaker downlink power so most likely I suspect capture effect would for the most part wipe it out or at least make the signal quite noisy. Also the issue of antennas like the Arrow that have a decently wide beamwidth on the two meter uplink side will cause issues with the same uplink possibly hitting both satellites at the same time. Folks with higher gain fixed stations may be able to differentiate each satellite for uplink and downlink but us little portable guys may not.

Any experiences that those of you veterans can pass along on dealing with this type of situation will be appreciated.

73 Tom Schuessler N5HYP On Feb 11th, K2BSA/5