I tried the pass that started here around 1600 UTC. I could hear the downlink but the quality of the signal was like what I noted during the previous pass: faint and crackling.

By comparison, I called CQ on VO-52 which came a few minutes after I was finished. The downlink was strong and clear so it doesn't appear that the problem with AO-7 was with my station hardware.

73s

Bernhard VA6BMJ @ DO33FL