[amsat-bb] AO-51 and Field Day.

[Bruce Nolte N3LSY <n3lsy@xxxxxxx>]

I put on the satellite show for BARC (Baltimore Amateur Radio Club)  
this year and got my one contact, plus a couple of partials. Tried 
VO-52, FO-29, SO-50, AO-7, and  AO-51. The LEOS are a bit of a struggle 
without computer control, just a tracking program to guide my manual 
efforts.   For AO-51 I used some leftover AO-40 gear, including  the 
helix feed for my dish, and the downconverter. Ran the downconverter 
output into my Bearcat Scanner, and scanned the 2 meter band. Had one 
obvious false spot where the scanner stopped on the uplink frequency, 
but it stopped at another with full quieting, when calling. Thought it 
might have been the downink, since the output changed as I moved the 
booms around, but alas, it was just another birdie. Uplink was 35 watts 
into half a 13B2, the S band downlink was a 6 turn helix into an AIDC 3733.

This setup should have been enough muscle to do the job, though I am 
thinking for a semipermanant setup when I rebuild the station here is to 
possibly use a hubcap dish and will have my full OSCAR array available.
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Sent via amsat-bb@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author.
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