[amsat-bb] RE: More RS-15 revisited: W6-Europe

["MarkG" <markg@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Dennis,
   Those low passes can be brutal on a 10m downlink. I'm just trying to have
a QSO on the bird so I'll worry about DX later but when I do, you can get a
3 element monobander for something like $80 and it's probably light enough
for an Az-El set up so that's probably what I'll try next to attempt DX via
the bird. I was nearly stunned at how well my turnstile did, however.
Between the performance and that it was basically built out of junk that was
sitting around, I figured it may be worth mentioning if it drums up at least
one signal that isn't mine.

   I'm not so sure a lot of satellite ops are looking to "push the
envelope". The other use of a satellite is basically that of a repeater and
that's fine too except that towards that end, the LEOs don't work very well.
They're not present for long, the SSB/CW birds are a little harder to use
than the FM birds and the FM birds are hard to use because you have to
repeat your name and grid a half dozen times to get it across. AO-10 could
work but it's unreliable. That's where P3D will shine and while I'm excited
for P3D to get underway, I've managed an SSTV contact on RS-13, have been
holding Feld-Hell QSOs on the FO birds (which works surprisingly well, by
the way. Better than even CW at times!) and I'm nearly obsessed with RS-15
"because it's there". I think the other problem with RS-15 is, as I
mentioned, most people probably don't hear it the first few times they try
and dismiss it as another non-bird like RS-10/11 and RS-12. A search around
the web for these satellites will turn up lots of "how to" info and "QRV
spots"  that read "I'm active on RS-13, RS-15, FO-20, FO-29 and AO-10" which
gives the impression that RS-15 should be as easy as RS-13 or FO-20 when, in
fact, it's not. Oh well, I'll be there.

Thanks for your comments & 73...Mark - KB3CWS


-----Original Message-----
From: Dennis Dinga [mailto:dennis@dinga.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2000 9:29 PM
To: MarkG
Cc: amsat-bb@amsat.org
Subject: More RS-15 revisited: W6-Europe


>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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