Burns, First of all, I also have an eggbeater on 144 and it does work, however, it is a poor antenna and my preamp for this one is in the shack. I have always advised that anyone that wants to do LEO satellites, needs to put their money into their antenna system- Good coax, good preamp with a directional antenna. Tonites pass at 7:20 local here in NJ was clearly heard by many since it was about 55 degrees. I was just on the local AMSAT net and many heard it. I would take your handheld outside and use the rubber duck to listen Next pass is in about 10 minutes at 22 degrees. Listen on 145.950 +- Doppler and you should hear the voice announcements and the SSTV sigs. Good luck... When it is in eclipse, it is in low power mode. 73, Dee, NB2F

-----Original Message----- From: amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org [mailto:amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org] On Behalf Of Burns Fisher Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2011 8:04 PM To: AMSAT BB Subject: [amsat-bb] Frustrated--not hearing ARRISat

Hi everyone,

Ok, I'm getting very frustrated and I think I need some Elmering. I have not heard ANYTHING from ARRISat-1, at least nothing intelligible. I'm a pretty new ham, so I'm getting into it one piece of equipment at a time. Figured I'd play a bit with a handheld, and then figure out what I needed next step by step. It's been several steps so far with nothing to show for it except some pretty hardware and a smaller bank account. I know a few more things I can do, but I'd really like to know if I have some major problem here. I'll tell you what I'm trying, and I'd like to know if anyone has had success with anything similar.

First, I have an M2 2-meter eggbeater antenna. It is inside the house (my shack is on the 2nd floor, sadly). It has an SSB 2-meter pre-amp, followed immediately by a Diamond 2m/70cm duplexer into a 25-foot feed line. At that point it is connected via an adapter to my Kenwood F6A handheld. I also have an FCD, but with its poor 2-meter filtering, I wanted to eliminate one problem.

A few minutes ago, there was a nice pass from ARRISat-1 here in FN42 (southern NH ); it was in sunlight and had been for some time, should have been up over 50 degrees elevation. Turned everything on, (oh, yes including a 13.8V power supply for the preamp, fed separately). My radio tunes in .005MHz increments, so I started out at 145.955 and tweaked around up and down, shifting to 145.950 and 145.945 as the sat reached and passed max elevation. I *may* have heard vaguely down in the static a voice. I *may* have heard vaguely down in the static some data that might have been SSTV. I may have imagined it.

I *know* I would get better reception outside; I know I would be better off with a directional antenna that had more gain. I can see improving things that way, but is NOTHING a reasonable expectation with this setup? I can receive the NOAA weather station on 162ish MHz (outside the pre-amp's curve but I still get it); I have received the ISS without the preamp (I know that is a lot more power than the sat). So I don't think something is wildly broken. So my question to you is: Have any of you been able to read the sat with anything similar? An eggbeater? I thought I remembered someone receiving on a handheld with a rubber ducky? BTW, someone previous mentioned that I should try listening to some of the other lower-power sats; many of them are 70cm downlink and I have not gotten a 70cm antenna yet.

Thanks for any advice or comparisons.

Burns W2BFJ _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. 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