Hi!

I will have an AMSAT table at the Scottsdale Amateur Radio Club's Springfest hamfest on Saturday morning, 13 March 2010. For the first time in about 20 years, this hamfest has a new location. It will be in the parking lot at the Fort McDowell Casino, along the Beeline Highway (Arizona route 87) a couple of miles northeast of Shea Boulevard on the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation reservation. The hamfest officially runs from 7am to 1pm (1400-2000 UTC), although it typically wraps up before noon.

During the hamfest, I will do several on-air demonstrations using a variety of satellites as WD9EWK. Even though the hamfest does not officially start until 1400 UTC, I may be on passes as early as 1300 UTC. I will attempt to work passes on two FM satellites (AO-51 and SO-50) along with 3 SSB satellites (AO-7, FO-29, VO-52) from the hamfest, located in either grid DM43dn or DM43do depending on the parking lot the hamfest uses. With K4T on this weekend, I will try not to get in their way on the SSB passes. I will try to be in the upper half of the downlink passband for each of these satellites (and, if possible, work K4T during one of the demonstrations), but not park too close to their planned frequencies. If there is activity at the hamfest until 2000 UTC, I will also try to work an HO-68 pass at 1920-1933 UTC around 145.950 MHz USB on that downlink.

Anyone working WD9EWK on Saturday wanting a QSL card for any contacts only needs to e-mail me with the QSO details. If you're in the log, you will get a card. Making contacts with regular operators is a great help with the demonstrations; stations typically make the normal exchange along with briefly mentioning the city/town and state they are in. This helps to reinforce that a low-power portable VHF/UHF station can reach out across North America via satellite.

Thanks in advance, and 73!

Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK http://www.wd9ewk.net/