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>Yes, RS-15 is still there! I'm generally able to start hearing myself at
>about 30 degrees AOS and continue until about 20 degrees before LOS which
>doesn't sound great until you realize the size of it's footprint. I haven't
>heard the beacon in at least a couple of weeks but I'm becoming convinced
>that it's not a bad thing as the transponder seems to be on all the time
>these days. Of course, now that I've written this, it will probably prove me
>a liar and do something bizarre for a couple weeks.
>
Along these lines, on 14 Jan 1995, G3IOR and I had a QSO on RS-15. I
copied Pat 339, he gave me 559. The distance was 8721 km. I believe
this is the farthest DX ever attained on any LEO. It took a week of
daily schedules to finally achieve a true 2-way contact using mutual
windows of only 15-30 seconds. All windows were on the horizon, of
course.
In June of 1995, GM4JJJ and I tried RS-15 also. I could hear David
fine from Fife, Scotland, but he couldn't hear me. David then
fashioned a dual diversity setup using two receivers and two antennas
on 10 meters. On 1 June 1995 we suceeded in a very good QSO which
lasted nearly two minutes. I copied David 559, he gave me 529.
Distance was 8261 km.
The station here was a 16el KLM on 2m at 150 w and a special 2el 10m
beam which I designed for Oscar only using Yagi Optimizer. I believe
Pat & David's stations were also 100w class.
There doesn't seem to be much interest anymore in "pushing the
envelope" on LEO's. Too bad. FO-20 has always allowed the
opportunity for long distance communication because of the high
apogee of it's eliptical orbit.
/ / / / / * Dennis Dinga * dennis@dinga.com
/--/--/--/--/ * 1024 Twin Canyon * n6dd@amsat.org
/ / /| / / N6DD * Diamond Bar, CA 91765 * Tel: 909-860-1515
| * USA * Fax: 909-860-3685
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