Re: [amsat-bb] Tracking accuracy questions

[Lee810@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 10/20/99 11:49:31 AM Mountain Daylight Time, 
KB8QIR@aol.com writes:

> we were not able to 
> hear anything except for a few seconds of squelch breaking for the entire 
> pass.

You actually had the squelch on???  It's no wonder you couldn't hear it :-).  
AO27 is transmitting from a few hundred miles away with 600 mW so it's 
unlikely to break the squelch unless you have your antenna oriented correctly 
or are using a gain antenna pointed at the bird.  I always disable the 
squelch to work AO27.   Also, a rubber duck is much better than an outdoor 
vertical in hearing AO27 since you'll actually stand a chance of lining up 
the polarity with that of the bird's if you rotate the HT around.  I found a  
vertical or a J-pole to be just about useless unless you want to put a signal 
INTO the bird and not hear the downlink.  Occasionally you'll get lucky, but 
mostly you'll be frustrated with a vertical antenna.   Not only that, you'll 
step  on others if you don't have a good downlink signal.

Lee Devlin, KØLEE
Greeley, CO
http://members.aol.com/lee810/ham.html
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