WHY SATELLITES? As a class-B licensee under the old rules, I did not have any HF privileges at all. Satellites offered a technical challenge and the possibility to work some serious DX using 2m and 70cm. My first trans-Atlantic contact was achieved on the now-defunct RS-10 using 10W to a small Yagi for the uplink, and a sloping dipole to receive the RS-10 downlink signal in the 10m band. It took several months to achieve this first trans-Atlantic QSO as I needed to build up my operating skills and make improvements to my receive set up. To minimise noise pickup from the house, the antenna went at the bottom of the garden and a homebrew RF pre-amp overcame the cable loss and boosted the signal. It was a great sense of achievement to send and receive signals to and from space and to make that contact via an orbiting satellite. I still get a buzz from communication via a spacecraft.
More at http://www.uk.amsat.org/images/PDF/Satellites_RadCom_mar07.pdf
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