Well, this certainly was more fun than last year.
I participated as W5SI with the Texas Emergency Amateur Communicators (TEAC) club in Kingwood, TX again this year. We doubled our satellite contacts from last year.
Our station had an unobstructed view north and south. To the east, we were next to a building so zero visibility. To the west we were blocked the first 20 degrees or so. Had to wait for the highest passes.
We started off field day working SO-50 and AO-91 on the first passes. Everything was done manually, radio tuning and LEO pack antenna turning. That makes it a little more fun as more people can be involved. Did not work a single station. By 4:00 PM I decided to head to the house. We had to have high elevation passes due to our location.
When I returned an RV had moved along side the antennas. The antennas were moved another 20 feet away and had to place the radio in the back of my car as the coax was not long enough to reach where the radio was before.
Next pass that was high for us was FO-29 in early evening around 8:30 PM. I have not worked an SSB satellite since 2001. Have been using the HT and mobile radio with the Arrow. But, heck it is like riding a bicycle. Found my downlink, cruised around and found W5RRR, my friend Andy, W5ACM, at the mic. We made a contact with them.
Next good pass for us was SO-50 later in the evening around 10:30 PM. Unplugged the power and coax cables, closed up the car and went inside for some air conditioning. Time to work SO-50. A good 14 minute pass, we should make one contact, easy as pie. Hooked up the radio and started listening, nothing. Did not hear a peep (you can see where this is going?). Pass was about 90 degrees and still nothing.
Someone looked down and said, the coax is not plugged in. Uh, huh, in my haste, forgot to plug them in. Quick which is 2m, which is 70cm. Hooked up and listening. Heard a familiar voice. Yes, last couple minutes of the pass, worked W5RRR with Andy once again at the mic. What are the chances? Out of all the stations on the air during field day, we wind up working not only someone else in the Houston area but the same station.
Murphy tried to ruin our field day, but we got over on him. Those that were there to help and watch the satellite contacts enjoyed it and as I said, we did double our score from last year. We had 2 this year. Maybe next year will use Satpc32 for radio control and double this year's score.
Be sure to get your scores into me. They are due by 11:59PM Central Time on July 9, 2018. A lot less time to submit than ARRL. We do this so that we can get our story out in the next issue of the AMSAT Journal.
73...bruce
Bruce wrote:
Well, this certainly was more fun than last year.
So, "fun" has various definitions... Making contacts via satellite, unfortunately, was not among them for our club, W6EK, this year.
This was our first "serious" attempt to get a satellite contact during Field Day. I, the "satellite guy", arrived at our Field Day site armed with my trusty FT-736R and its 1.2 ghz module, 17-turn helix antenna, Elk (plus an Arrow from another club member), and sufficient pass-prediction IT infrastructure to start my own data center, fully expecting to Ka-Ching! 100 points into the coffer within 10 minutes of Field Day starting. Got all set up, double-checked where North was (hind-sight, we were still wrong, but it didn't matter). Then I looked at the S-meter. The meter was indicating 20-over-9 noise over the entire 2 meter band. And, I'm going to hear a sub-one-watt signal from a thousand miles away in space? Yeah, right.
Taking a sweep of the area, it appeared the noise peak was from a set of power lines that ran along one side of the Field Day site. I repositioned as far away as I could, but was still looking at several S-units of noise, depending on where the antennas pointed. Since many (most) of the satellites have their downlinks on 2 meters, this would set the theme for the event. How to defeat the noise?
I'll spare you the lengthy saga. Bottom line, we were able to hear a few of the passes of a few of the satellites, for a few brief moments of clarity, but never could get through. Not enough power on the FM birds, nor apparently even on the linear ones either. While I did hear myself (barely) on FO-29, a complete contact was not to be made. We did get a good pass at AO-92's Model L/v in the late evening, aiming away from the power lines, but it was so loaded with doubles that we couldn't get through. Good to know that Mode L still has a strong installed base among hams, I suppose, but that didn't help our immediate problem.
Our overall points strategy also included doing some Winlink packet messaging, but being 2-meter-based, that was thwarted too. In the end, I did manage to get a couple of messages out via APRS (shorter packets, better infrastructure, UI-based protocol, equals better chances), entered via the keypad of my Kenwood TH-D74. I think we can at least claim those.
Strategy for next year? Perhaps an alternate site (the HF teams were somewhat affected too), or better antennas (narrower beamwidth, more side rejection), more power, and perhaps a chain saw for the enticingly-wooden utility poles. Just kidding on that last one...
So, Drew and the AO-92 control ops, thank you for the opportunity to give L/v a shot. It certainly appears that it was a popular mode, and well worth the off-cycle mode switch. Maybe next year...
Greg KO6TH
Does anyone have any audio of the passes when AO-92 was in L-band they can share? I'm curious what calls I recognize and what I don't. I still need to get an antenna for that band. I have the IC-910H with the L-band module.
73, John Brier KG4AKV
On Sun, Jun 24, 2018 at 9:49 PM, Greg D ko6th.greg@gmail.com wrote:
Bruce wrote:
Well, this certainly was more fun than last year.
So, "fun" has various definitions... Making contacts via satellite, unfortunately, was not among them for our club, W6EK, this year.
This was our first "serious" attempt to get a satellite contact during Field Day. I, the "satellite guy", arrived at our Field Day site armed with my trusty FT-736R and its 1.2 ghz module, 17-turn helix antenna, Elk (plus an Arrow from another club member), and sufficient pass-prediction IT infrastructure to start my own data center, fully expecting to Ka-Ching! 100 points into the coffer within 10 minutes of Field Day starting. Got all set up, double-checked where North was (hind-sight, we were still wrong, but it didn't matter). Then I looked at the S-meter. The meter was indicating 20-over-9 noise over the entire 2 meter band. And, I'm going to hear a sub-one-watt signal from a thousand miles away in space? Yeah, right.
Taking a sweep of the area, it appeared the noise peak was from a set of power lines that ran along one side of the Field Day site. I repositioned as far away as I could, but was still looking at several S-units of noise, depending on where the antennas pointed. Since many (most) of the satellites have their downlinks on 2 meters, this would set the theme for the event. How to defeat the noise?
I'll spare you the lengthy saga. Bottom line, we were able to hear a few of the passes of a few of the satellites, for a few brief moments of clarity, but never could get through. Not enough power on the FM birds, nor apparently even on the linear ones either. While I did hear myself (barely) on FO-29, a complete contact was not to be made. We did get a good pass at AO-92's Model L/v in the late evening, aiming away from the power lines, but it was so loaded with doubles that we couldn't get through. Good to know that Mode L still has a strong installed base among hams, I suppose, but that didn't help our immediate problem.
Our overall points strategy also included doing some Winlink packet messaging, but being 2-meter-based, that was thwarted too. In the end, I did manage to get a couple of messages out via APRS (shorter packets, better infrastructure, UI-based protocol, equals better chances), entered via the keypad of my Kenwood TH-D74. I think we can at least claim those.
Strategy for next year? Perhaps an alternate site (the HF teams were somewhat affected too), or better antennas (narrower beamwidth, more side rejection), more power, and perhaps a chain saw for the enticingly-wooden utility poles. Just kidding on that last one...
So, Drew and the AO-92 control ops, thank you for the opportunity to give L/v a shot. It certainly appears that it was a popular mode, and well worth the off-cycle mode switch. Maybe next year...
Greg KO6TH
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participants (3)
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Bruce -
Greg D -
John Brier