Re: [amsat-bb] Satellite FIeld Day!

[Glenn Little <glittle@xxxxxxxx>]

At 07:38 PM 6/25/00 -0400, Bob Bruninga wrote:
>What a difference a day makes!
>
>Three days a week for the last month, I have been taking students out
>doors to demonstrate AO27 and UO14.  We have about 6 handhelds ($88
>ALinco's with chicken wire reflectors and 3 Kenwood D7's).  Its mostly a
>receive only demo, but every single time I have keyed up my D7, HT, I
>always make one contact, before continuing on with the students...
>
>FIeld Day I took along the same 6 handhelds so that many people at our FD
>site could see how easy it is to hear the donwlink.  I knew it would be
>busy, but was amazed that even my 50 watts into an arrow not once did I
>hear even a sylable of my uplink....


We also ATTEMPTED satellite ops on field day.  We were unable to operate 
the digital modes due to lack of equipment (this will change next year). We 
found that the satellite (AO-27) was monopolized from AOS to LOS by a small 
handful of stations.  The people that operated these stations did so 
without regard to the FCC rules (use minimum power to communicate) and 
without regard to their fellow amateur radio operators.  The first contact 
got the field day team 100 points each additional contact denied a field 
day team that same bonus.  We attempted the contact with a pair of 
handhelds and an Arrow antenna.  The antenna performed flawlessly.  Without 
a KW (and I am not sure that his would be enough) the satellite was 
unobtainable due to the methods that some operators insisted on using.  It 
definitely made our emergency communications demonstration a wash out and 
was a definite discouragement to the potential satellite operators here.  I 
can only hope that this was worthwhile to the operators that insisted on 
this method of satellite operation.  The term LID comes to mind.
73

Glenn
WB4UIV


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Glenn Little                         glittle@awod.com   QCWA  LM 28417
Amateur Callsign:  WB4UIV            wb4uiv@amsat.org   AMSAT LM 2178
QTH:  Goose Creek, SC USA (EM92xx)                      ARRL  TAPR
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