At 09:24 AM 11/9/2006, Martin Gillen wrote:

Hi, John.

I'm in Ottawa, and I'm new to satellites.

SO-50 is one of the sats that I am going to try out because all I have is an FM handie-talkie. I've built an (admittedly heavy!) antenna which is a 6 element 70cm beam and a 4 element 2m beam joined together, but I'm not sure if it will have enough gain for SO-50, my H/T will only do about 4W max, and if possible I'd like to run it at 0.5 or 1.5W to extend the battery life.

I noticed your signature line "Satellite QRPer" so I thought you might know if I ought to be able to transmit only 1/2W and have a reliable QSO.

Well, I have worked satellites in the past (specifically UO-14, when it was active) with 0.25W and a 2 element Yagi. When the uplink is quiet, your 0.5W will work fine. However, both contention from hams and foreign QRM will increase the uplink requirements considerably. In any case, give it a whirl! :-)

73 de VK3JED http://vkradio.com