Hello all,

for those interested in further results with two lindenblad antennas (see my earlier post for a description of the setup), I had the opportunity to already test a couple of passes of the ISS configured as V/U repeater. The received signal is very strong already an S9 from 2 degrees of elevation and peaks to S9+40 when the ISS is higher than about 14 degrees. Usually there can be some deep fades during the pass. The transponder is accessible if not too many stations are txing at the same time. I couldn't complete any QSO in a 80 degrees (max) pass (many european stations heard), but completed two QSO in a 30 degrees pass over south europe. Unfortunately the frequency pair isn't very friendly for the FT-847, it receives its own spurii or harmonic when the doppler correction hits a certain frequency pair at the second half of a pass. On the linear sats (VO-52/FO-29) I'm able to complete a mean of one CW QSO per pass, AO-07 is much more difficult because my own signal is very low and other signals are greatly frequency modulated and thus very difficult to decode (for my poor cw skills). Again things would be much easier with preamplifiers under both antennas, but I think only CW QSO would be possible anyway (but probably a lot easier than now).

73 Francesco IS0/IZ8DWF