Although licensed for 55 years + , I am just now an SWL on the birds. I did Oscar 6 in ~ 1975. Having worked and confirmed all of the DXCC countries and just recently retired, the birds have my interest. I have plenty of 1/2 inch and 7/8 inch hardline and connectors as well as a Kenpro G 500 elevation rotor. I have an Elecraft K2 with their transverter and a Microwave Module with satellite capability for 435. Just need some antennas. I am also thinking of getting a more modern rig and the Icom 910 caught my eye. A friend of mine has a Yaseu 736 which he will sell me with 2 and 440 modules. No price discussed yet but I thought $700 would be my top. As an alternative I thought about the Icom 910H. The only concern was a comment I read on EHam that it was not user friendly on the FM birds being more friendly to the JA birds. Is the 910 capable of doing AO 51 OK or is it a pain ? Often information can be misleading. This is my first post here on the BB. If there is any bird operator close to Cincinnati, Ohio , I would love to visit your station. I do have the old style Mirage bricks for 2 and 432 too. I thought of Egg beaters from M Square but now leaning more toward the 10 foot long circular yagis for 2 and 432.
Any info or comments would be greatly appreciated. Hope to QSO many of you soon.
73 Jim W9VNE
Jim:
I have used the IC910H for several years on the birds and have found it very friendly to the FM birds. I use two non satellite memories for each FM bird. One for the VHF uplink and one for the UHF downlink. One the UHF memory, I store it with AFC enabled so the radio automatically tunes for the doppler shift on its own.
Please check my web site at www.ka4kyi.com for more info on how I operate the birds using the IC910H and other radios. Contact me directly if you would like with any other questions you might have.
Thanks, Ron KA4KYI
Jim Danehy wrote:
Although licensed for 55 years + , I am just now an SWL on the birds. I did Oscar 6 in ~ 1975. Having worked and confirmed all of the DXCC countries and just recently retired, the birds have my interest. I have plenty of 1/2 inch and 7/8 inch hardline and connectors as well as a Kenpro G 500 elevation rotor. I have an Elecraft K2 with their transverter and a Microwave Module with satellite capability for 435. Just need some antennas. I am also thinking of getting a more modern rig and the Icom 910 caught my eye. A friend of mine has a Yaseu 736 which he will sell me with 2 and 440 modules. No price discussed yet but I thought $700 would be my top. As an alternative I thought about the Icom 910H. The only concern was a comment I read on EHam that it was not user friendly on the FM birds being more friendly to the JA birds. Is the 910 capable of doing AO 51 OK or is it a pain ? Often information can be misleading. This is my first post here on the BB. If there is any bird op
er!
ator close to Cincinnati, Ohio , I would love to visit your station. I do have the old style Mirage bricks for 2 and 432 too. I thought of Egg beaters from M Square but now leaning more toward the 10 foot long circular yagis for 2 and 432.
Any info or comments would be greatly appreciated. Hope to QSO many of you soon.
73 Jim W9VNE _______________________________________________ Sent via [email protected]. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Danehy" [email protected] To: [email protected] Sent: Monday, May 26, 2008 5:26 PM Subject: [amsat-bb] newbie question Icom 910H & LEO antennas
Although licensed for 55 years + , I am just now an SWL on the birds. I
did Oscar 6 in ~ 1975. Having worked and confirmed all of the DXCC countries and just recently retired, the birds have my interest. I have plenty of 1/2 inch and 7/8 inch hardline and connectors as well as a Kenpro G 500 elevation rotor. I have an Elecraft K2 with their transverter and a Microwave Module with satellite capability for 435. Just need some antennas. I am also thinking of getting a more modern rig and the Icom 910 caught my eye. A friend of mine has a Yaseu 736 which he will sell me with 2 and 440 modules. No price discussed yet but I thought $700 would be my top. As an alternative I thought about the Icom 910H. The only concern was a comment I read on EHam that it was not user friendly on the FM birds being more friendly to the JA birds. Is the 910 capable of doing AO 51 OK or is it a pain ? Often information can be misleading. This is my first post here on the BB. If there is any bird oper!
ator close to Cincinnati, Ohio , I would love to visit your station. I do
have the old style Mirage bricks for 2 and 432 too. I thought of Egg beaters from M Square but now leaning more toward the 10 foot long circular yagis for 2 and 432.
Any info or comments would be greatly appreciated. Hope to QSO many of you
soon.
73 Jim W9VNE _______________________________________________
Hi Jim, W9VNE
I also started with OSCAR-6 and since you have capability to use transverters and Microwave Modules to transmit and receive in 2 meters and 70 cm you are exactly in my actual operating conditions. I suggest you to start again the satellite activity with VO-52 and the old OSCAR-7 using the familiar CW and SSB operating practice. I suggest you to simply start with separate equipments one to transmit and the other one to receive and manually compensate for doppler as you did with OSCAR-6 You will be very happy to use your old 2 meters and 70 cm transverters because using VO-52 and OSCAR-7 you will find a lot of friends in those linear transponder allowing many QSO's at the same time similarly as you did with OSCAR-6 You only need to put up again your KR-500 for the elevation and two circularly polarized antennas one for 2 meters and the other one for 70 cm possibly with relay to switch between RHCP to LHCP About the antennas I suggest you the KLM 2M-22C or KLM 2M-14C for 2 meters and KLM 435-40CX for 70 cm As soon you will be ready to operate VO-52 and OSCAR-7 you will find again the same excitements that you already experienced with OSCAR-6
Have fun and 73" de
i8CVS Domenico
participants (3)
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i8cvs -
Jim Danehy -
Ronald Nutter