Re: [amsat-bb] AO10 + FD = What a BLAST!

["Christopher Cox" <cobox@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I think you will have no problem hearing AO-10 if you wait for perigee like
I did. After 20,000 miles, the signals become very faint with my setup. I,
allot like you, I thought megabuck antennas would be needed. I turns out
not to be the case.


I used a hand held Arrow Satellite antenna attached to a camera tripod with
tie wraps. It is a 19oz yagi with 3 elements for 2 meters on one polarity
mixed with a 7 element 70cm on another, all on the same boom. I would guess
the 2 meters yagi's gain figure between 7 to 9 dB. 

http://members.aol.com/Arrow146/arrowii.html#m2

I fed the yagi's via 25' of 9913 (coincidence?) to the 2 meter preamp which
was onboard a TE Systems 1452G and the RF concepts 4-110 70cm amplifier.
The TE systems preamp's figures are 15 dB with a .6 dB noise floor.

I was able to aim the antenna from a listing I generated in advance from
Nova, a tracking program. I  manually steered the antenna every 5 to 15
minutes. 

http://www.nlsa.com/

The program generated a listing like the following:


Time Azim. Elev. Range Height Mode SSPLat SSPLon Ph Squint
                 AO-10 ================= Sunday, June 27, 1999
07:33:20   177.3" + 5.6"    4857.     2602.    1     7.6"S  81.00W    2.5  
  0"
07:38:20   162.9" +11.80    4750.     2821.    1     2.10S  71.30W    4.3  
  0"
07:43:20   148.1" +16.4"    4876.     3137.    1     3.00N  62.6"W    6.1  
  0"
07:48:20   134.2" +18.9"    5201.     3531.    1     7.60N  54.7"W    8.0  
  0"
07:53:20   122.3" +19.8"    5673.     3983.    1    11.5"N  47.60W    9.8  
  00
07:58:20   112.60 +19.6"    6241.     4476.    1    14.70N  41.3"W   11.6  
  0"
08:03:20   104.70 +18.70    6865.     4997.    1    17.40N  35.7"W   13.4  
  00
08:08:20   98.50 +17.6"     7517.     5535.    1    19.60N  30.6dW   15.3  
  00
08:13:20   93.4" +16.4"     8181.     6081.    1    21.4"N  26.10W   17.1  
  00
08:18:20   89.30 +15.20     8844.     6631.    1    22.8"N  22.10W   18.9  
  0"
08:23:20   85.90 +14.1"     9499.     7178.    1    23.90N  18.50W   20.8  
  00
08:28:20   83.2" +13.0"   10141.      7720.    1    24.8"N  15.30W   22.6  
  0"
08:33:20   80.8" +12.0"   10769.      8256.    1    25.50N  12.50W   24.4  
  0"
08:38:20   78.9" +11.1"   11381.      8782.    1    26.00N  9.9"W    26.3  
  00
08:43:20   77.20 +10.20   11975.      9298.    1    26.4"N    7.6"W  28.1  
  0"
08:48:20   75.8" + 9.50   12552.      9804.    1    26.7"N    5.6BW  29.9  
  Ob
08:53:20   74.60 + 8.8"   13112.      10298.   1    26.9"N    3.80W   31.7 
  0"
08:58:20   73.60 + 8.20   13654.      10781.   1    27.00N    2.20W   33.6 
  0"
09:03:20   72.8" + 7.60     14179.    11252.   1    27.1"N    0.70W   35.4 
  0"


Lots of  luck, hope you have fun!

Christopher Cox
KC8FRJ

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