The XW-1 CW Beacon was heard over North America this morning with an excellent signal and tone quality. It sends a long string which changes a bit on every transmission.

The keps are a bit off since the bird went over the horizon prior to the prediction. I lost it when it was still at 2.7 degrees according to SatPC32. The doppler correction is off as well indicating changing keps. Hopefully we will get some better keps soon.

A recording of XW-1 is on my webserver:

http://www.papays.com/XW-1_15Dec2009_1517z.mp3

At one point the antenna had to turn around. I had some copy on this bird while the antennas came around 180 degrees indicating a strong signal. I noted that there were polarity shifts between right and left hand circular. At one point I tuned to the packet frequency to see if there was any activity. I heard none but only listened for a short time before returning to the beacon frequency.

Congratulations to the Chinese Team that designed, built and launched this satellite. It is off to an excellent start. We look forward to having it operational soon and for many years to come.

73, John K8YSE EN91dh

John Papay john@papays.com