[amsat-bb] AO40 up on an Arrow

["Michael Kingery" <mkingery@xxxxxxx>]

As an experiment tonight I setup an arrow antenna to use as my uplink
antenna for the S1 transponder on AO40.  I wanted to see if I could be
successful using that setup for potential portable operation in the near
future.  The antenna was setup on a tripod in the backyard.  Approx 15ft of
RG-8X feed to the UHF side of the antenna from my FT-847.  The VHF side of
the antenna was not connected.  Pointing was done with a compass, a
protractor, and comparing to my other antennas.  I had a clear view of the
sky, with cloud cover (had seen strong Thunderstorms in the area that
night), and it was a high elevation (55 to 58 degrees) pass.

For the S-band side I was using my 36" TSI BBQ dish and modified 3733.  On
my rotor.

I operated with the antenna from MA44 (with a squint of 14) to about MA76
(with a squint of 3).  The squints were very favorable during that pass
which certainly helped.  I was able to make the uplink at MA44 using an
output power setting at the 847 of 25 to 40 watts.  My signal was easy to
copy and I made a number of contacts.    As the squint continued to get
better, even with increasing range, I was able to reduce power and still
maintain a favorable uplink.  Near MA76 I was down to using 10 watts or so
and still making contacts without any difficulty.  And I set off Lelia a
couple of times as the squint was getting better.

Hope this information is useful to someone considering portable AO40
operations or someone who is still considering their options to join the fun
on AO40.  The S1 transponder, as has been noted by many others on the list,
is very strong and opens up the bird to many more stations with less than
"full up" AO13 class stations.

Last night as pretty neat.  Countless roundtables going on at different
frequencies in the passband.  I know that one of them I joined in on had at
least 8, or maybe 10, stations on at the same time.

CU on AO40!

73 KE4AZN
Mike Kingery
mkingery@ala.net


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