[amsat-bb] World's smallest satellite station?

[RaySoifer@xxxxxx]

Hi,

As anyone knows who's tried it, UO-14 is extremely sensitive on the uplink 
and quite strong on the downlink.  I, and many others, have made numerous 
QSOs through it with nothing more than a handheld radio and its 
standard-issue "rubber duck" antenna.

Last weekend, however, while operating in the ARRL Field Day, I noticed that 
I was actually hearing signals from UO-14 (during a nearly-overhead pass) 
with nothing more than a Diamond SRH805, which is a so-called "bullet" 
antenna, 1 1/2 inches (38 cm) long excluding the gold-plated SMA connector at 
its base.  It covers the 144, 430 and 1200 MHz bands.

One thing led to another, and I've now worked four stations through UO-14 
using only the Diamond SRH805, my Yaesu FT-50R handheld with a 2-watt 
battery, and a speaker-mike to keep the bullet antenna away from my face.  
They include KK5DO (twice), N8DEU, N3ZLL and W5BTS (KK5DO's daughter, Mahana).

I wouldn't even try to estimate the eirp precisely, but an optimist would say 
that it may be on the order of 100 mW.

A RealAudio recording of my QSOs with KK5DO (the second one) and W5BTS, made 
by Bruce, appears on his Houston AMSAT Net web page, www.amsatnet.com, which 
is linked to the AMSAT-NA site, www.amsat.org.

I now put this forward as my latest contender for the title of world's 
smallest working satellite station.  The credit really goes to the gang at 
UoS, for building such a user-friendly satellite.  If a 2W handheld and a 1 
1/2 inch antenna can make four QSOs in as many passes, there's really no 
excuse for anyone not giving UO-14 a try!

73, Ray
w2rs@amsat.org  
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