FM Birds

["Gregory S. Williams" <ke4hsm@xxxxxxx>]

Hello.

I bought me a cushcraft 11 element beam for 440 at a HAMfest yesterday and
was going to try to hit AO27, AO21, and SAFEX/Mir using my FT-530 Yaesu (an
article in this month's QST gave me inspiration).

After no success manually pointing it to AO21, I wondered if I had been
gypped but I was able to hit a 440 repeater about 75 miles away on 1 watt,
so I knew it was a good antenna.  Then I read the email about AO21, power
regulation, so i was feeling better.

However, I could not get into SAFEX on board Mir.  Was SAFEX shutdown due
to the spacewalk yesterday?  I plan on trying again maybe tonight or
tomorrow during a visible pass (tonight at 9:30 EDT or tomorrow at 10:10
EDT look good) so that I can manually point the beam right at Mir and try
to get in.

I am using 151.4 PL and the freqs listed for doppler shift, so hopefully
I'll make it in.  Am I missing something else or is SAFEX indeed offline
for a few days?

Me.
****************************************************  
*  I am grateful that I am not as judgmental as    *
*    all those censurious, self-righteous people   *
*    around me.                                    *
*                                                  *
*  Gregory S. Williams                             *
*  ke4hsm@icx.net                                  *
*  http://user.icx.net/~ke4hsm/index.html          *
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