Re: [amsat-bb] FM - APRS Satellites

["Howard Long" <howard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Tony, Bruce,

Great words, especially the 'LISTEN' bit!

You should try operating in Europe. The other night we even got someone
playing music, an act I still hoped was solely dedicated to the odd
terrestrial repeater.

Although I've worked the FM sats in Europe, I had the opportunity to watch
an AMSAT demo at Dayton. Far more gentlemanly. I almost thought the demo was
rigged!

The order of the day in Europe seems to be Power, Power and more Power on
the FM sats which is a shame. I therefore only rarely operate on the FM
sats.

Regarding the FT-847 operator (aka a 'silver-spooner' like myself), I had my
radio six weeks before I got my first downlink, and that was on RS13. It
took another two to get a QSO. I think that a very large amount of the
problem for me was getting aquainted with the radio. In my opinion, this
radio has a very steep learning curve for the beginner if you seriously want
to use it on sats. Lots of buttons to get the knack of. IMHO, a beginner
(such as I was) would be better off cutting his/her teeth on a separate
simple transmitter and receiver. Now I've got the knack though, I wouldn't
give up my '847.

There were times during my first six weeks when I really thought I was going
to be a listener on the sats for the rest of my life! Patience, as always,
is a virtue.

73, Howard G6LVB

----- Original Message -----
From: Tony Langdon <tlangdon@atctraining.com.au>
To: <kk5do@AMSAT.Org>; Bob Bruninga <bruninga@nadn.navy.mil>;
<amsat-bb@AMSAT.Org>
Sent: Thursday, June 01, 2000 4:17 AM
Subject: RE: [amsat-bb] FM - APRS Satellites


 > > bob does a great job with his aprs. but i would like to
 > > remind all those that
 > > have not operated through a satellite before that you
 > > ***MUST*** hear the
 > > downlink before you even think of keying your transmitter. If
 > > you do not hear
 > > anything on the downlink, then you are either listening to the wrong
 > > frequency, the wrong satellite or have your pass times wrong. The LEO
 > > satellites are extremely busy birds and at any one time,
 > > there are no less
 > > that 25 people on them. If you transmit without hearing any
 > > of these people,
 > > then you will be causing QRM.
 >
 > I have to second this.  I have heard many stations over time come up and
 > clobber a QSO in progress, because they couldn't hear the downlink.  The
 > other night, after a UO-14 pass, I caught one of those stations and had a
 > friendly word with him, offered a few pointers and he's going to work on
his
 > station and give it another go. :-)
 >
 > > Today, there was a person calling CQ on UO-14. (not an aprs
 > > problem) You
 > > knew that he could not hear the downlink because if he did,
 > > he would have
 > > heard the dozen or so that came back to him. I found his
 > > email and sent him
 > > a polite notice about hearing the downlink before he
 > > transmits. He responded
 > > that he had a new Yaesu 847 radio and was new to satellites
 > > and did not
 > > know how to get the receive to work yet.
 >
 > We have a few stations here on both of the FM birds that seem to have
 > downlink trouble.  It only slows up the pass for everyone else.
 >
 > Anyway, I did write a piece on this topic last year.  People may be
 > interested in http://www.qsl.net/vk3jed/satiquette.html, to pass onto
 > prospective and new FM satellite operators.
 >
 > ----
 > Via the amsat-bb mailing list at AMSAT.ORG courtesy of AMSAT-NA.
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