re: [amsat-bb] Let's get on the air!

[John Mock <kd6pag@xxxxxxx>]

    military satellite usage as a Radio Officer.  My wife was with me when I 
    first heard the Bird and now is going after her license but she thankfully 
    has not been following this thread....  ( Oh I want to thank an elmer 

Don't worry too much about that.  YL's on AO-27 are so rare that if she can
hear the bird very well, she'll make lots of contacts.

    I guess what this says about hams is that if resource is available and you 
    have the power you have the "ownership"  If the regulars who are hitting 
    AO-27 with that much power would acknowledge the true spirit of Ham Radio 
    and become elmers, or work challenge themselves to work the "harder" birds 

Many of the regulars run QRP into an Arrow or equivalent.  And it's mostly 
those same regulars that i hear on FO-20 and FO-29.  More activity there
might take some of the pressure off of AO-27, and one can have much longer
QSO's there.

    I think many of us "newcomers would like to just get a short 
    acknowledgement, and think how much encouragement the big guns could be by 
    just saying hello to as many of the calls as they can- instead of 
    monopolizing the bird. [...]

They certainly do on the Pacific side of North America at least.  Special
effort is made by a number of the regulars to work new stations.  They do
say hello to as many calls as they can (and fairly efficiently at that).
Unfortunately, that's most of the problem on weekends, as that generates
alot of repetitive contacts.

Now, if the regulars were to contact as many stations as they can, that
they haven't contacted in the past couple of weeks, during weekend and/or
DX passes, i think we might see a noticable difference.

    Has anyone addressed the Rules of use the least power necessary to make 
    contact?????

Most do (but the exceptions make it rough on weekends).  I'm pleased when
i can give a 57 or 58 signal report, because then we both know they're
running the right amount amount of power.  In my opinion, the ideal power
level on AO-27 gives a trace of white noise on the downlink.  But if you
are running 5W into anything less than an AO-10 class antenna system, 
don't worry about it.

				    -- KD6PAG
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