Hi!

It was nice to hear XE2AT on SO-50 during the 1440 UTC pass this morning. It has been almost 5 years since I logged a satellite QSO with Alvaro, and he used to be among the most prolific of Mexican satellite operators who worked from different grids in that country. In fact, Alvaro (as XE2YVW, his original call sign) was my first satellite contact back in 2000, via SO-35. I'm glad his encounter with the police last night didn't leave him without gear for this morning. I heard Alvaro tell Clayton W5PFG that was "working on more". I hope he is, as it will be nice to hear more grids on the air from Mexico once again. XE2AT, and initially as XE2YVW, has put many Mexican grids on the satellites over many years.

The 1440 UTC SO-50 pass came up from the southwest, and went directly over Arizona. I was happy to work XE2AT early in the pass, once the satellite cleared a house and some trees to my southwest. After I worked him, I heard XE2AT acknowledge 7 other stations with their full call signs - KC7MG, XE1AO, AA5PK, W5PFG, NP4JV, W5CBF, and XE2BHL. I heard Alvaro try to answer one station twice with partial call signs after working XE2BHL, a different partial call each time. Unfortunately, I did not hear XE2AT after the midpoint of the pass here, which meant he wasn't able to work stations for the last 4 to 5 minutes he would have had on that pass.

I also heard Sean KX9X/5 working from the Vicksburg Military Park in Mississippi. Thanks for picking me up, Sean! In the last few minutes I had on that pass, I heard Sean get several stations for his log. It will be nice to see another NPOTA site show up in LOTW. :-)

XE2AT has used LOTW in the past, although I have never received an LOTW QSL from him for any of our satellite QSOs. Omar XE1AO said that Alvaro can confirm QSOs via LOTW, so it will be nice if these grids show up in there. I know XE2AT has been good answering my QSL requests sent to his PO box over the years, and I'll mail Alvaro a QSL card with SASE. If anyone else wants to send XE2AT a QSL card with an SASE, I have lots of Mexican postage stamps. Please e-mail me directly, or send me a direct message in Twitter, and I can get some stamps out to you.

73!

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