The XW sats

Finally had a couple of decent passes lined up.

Using the new rotor setup, had a 42deg pass of XW-2F, followed by
a 47deg pass of XW-2A.

Beautiful site lines for my QTH, AOS was at about 15deg, LOS about the same, for both Sats.

I'm in the shack.

N8HM, Paul, is a real amateur satellite 'heavy hitter'....  he's been working the sats HARD for many years now, and via email he gave me some tips on finding my sig, calculating doppler, for these sats.

Cool.

All set, watching my ipad tracking app.

Sats rise, I call out and wow, able to hear myself back in my FT-736R.

"CQ Satellite, hello, CQ CQ CQ Satellite, this is KA2CZU, Kilo Alpha 2 Charlie Zulu Uniform"

On I go, hearing myself, tracking through the entire sat. Occasionally tuning around for other signals.

Nothing, Nobody.

Just myself.

Ok, fine, it happens... no one on the East coast was ready to talk.

Up next, XW-2A... same drill, different satellite. Call CQ, no takers, hear myself fine... start tuning around and think I hear someone, but can't adjust the doppler properly.  Tune more, adjust the antenna and track through the pass.

Now, I'm thinking, this is ridiculous... I know this is a more popular Sat, and I think I heard others. What gives?

Simultaneous with the sneaking realization, someone else has heard me and will later send me a nice email: Hey, OP, this is {blah 8 blah blah blah} and I heard you on XW-2A, but you were  on the wrong sidebands.

DOH!

LSB up, gets inverted by the sat to, USB down.

I had my rig setup the opposite, and thus no one really wanted to waste a pass by switching themselves, telling me, and then trying to get back to working the pass.

I deserve it:

Rotation - Option 5

Just wanted to correct something with respect to portable, outdoor (or even indoor) operation.

I had listed 4 options for my shack:

1. to go outside and manually position the antenna, that is go semi-portable with the FT-736R, which I've done... 
2. get a second FT-817 to work full duplex, and then go outside
3. only try to work FM satellites using my FT-817 plus a handheld, OR
4. get some kind of antenna rotor/positioning system in place

In fact, I was overlooking using my SDRPlay SDR receiver... so, in the spirit of "completeness"
there is option:

     5. use SDRPlay with HDSDR as a satellite downlink receiver. For uplink, the FT-817

Rotation

So, my current plan is to keep using the FT-736R, as much to get totally comfortable with the rig as any other reason, and thus stay inside to work satellite passes.

This has posed a dilemma as, obviously, my antenna needs to be outdoors and working a satellite like XW-2A with a fixed position antenna only works for a portion of any given pass.

My home QTH is not the best for summertime satellite work with the density of trees and other factors, but for certain common passes, I can get by.

Therefore, I have several options:

• to go outside and manually position the antenna, that is go semi-portable with the FT-736R, which I've done... 
• get a second FT-817 to work full duplex, and then go outside
• only try to work FM satellites using my FT-817 plus a handheld, OR
• get some kind of antenna rotor/positioning system in place

Thankfully, my brother gave me an old G-550 elevation rotor, but had not tested it at all.

Yesterday, I hooked it up and it seems to work AOK. I have a sturdy tripod and now just
have to come up with some kind of boom arrangement to allow me to easily mount my Elk Log Periodic to the rotor. Seems simple enough.

By visual calculations, just having this arrangement should allow me to work many high passes without worrying about azimuth corrections. The Elk is not that high gain an antenna that precludes a decent signal up or down, except for perhaps the deafest of satellites (and there is at least one, AO-85, with that reputation).

"Stoked" for trying this out, is the word!

XW-2A part 2

Had a decent pass, 46 degrees at TCA, of XW-2A yesterday. Made for a quicker pass than the last time, but I was a step ahead of myself. Knowing that I was successful through the transponder, I was ready with a few new frequencies.

Got on, found my signal and called CQ. Heard VE3HII come back but we couldn't quite complete the exchange for a full contact. Emails confirmed that we each heard the other correctly but, as  you know, it's the "on the air" exchange that counts for the log book, hi hi :)

Ordered a portable tripod, on which will be trying my kenpro elevation rotor.  Eventually may setup the az-el, but for most good passes here, the el rotor may actually be enough.  Low Earth Orbit satellites aren't that picky with a short beam like the Elk log periodic antenna, so I'm planning on trying a semi fixed position, but letting the elevation take the beam horizon to horizon on a pass.

For the stronger birds, it should work AOK.

Think I found my bird with which I'll complete my first Transponder satellite contact!

Best 73s (just had to write that for the humor-impaired)

XW-2A and NO-84

So, I continued with another pass of XW-2A and found the same booming strong downlink.

I did try to work N8HM, unfortunately I'm not experienced enough on linear transponders and it took me until the end of the pass to find my signal through the satellite.

The good news is that Paul gave me some helpful hints on compensating for doppler and I did eventually find my signal. It should be easier the next time. Also working on a portable tripod/rotator setup to allow working from the shack FT-736R a bit easier, more consistent signal. Right now, I've just been choosing passes that allow the relatively strong signal to hit the sat from a fixed position.
XW-2A has a good receiver and healthy downlink so this is a good sat for working this way.

For now :)

Onto an NO-84 pass, I was looking for the FM PSK31 downlink... took a while to find, but no signals in the waterfall. Getting closer, I'm going to continue to monitor for PSK31 traffic before attempting to send.

Progress, ever steady, though slow by some standards :)

73!

XW-2A Surprise

Yesterday, I had a little bit of free time, so I decide to setup my elk log periodic 2 band antenna at a fixed SW direction, maybe 35 degrees elevation, and try to listen for a few new satellite beacons.

http://amsat.org.ar/pass has a nice little site giving a rolling list of satellites coming into view over your QTH.

I attempted to listen for, what were to me, obscure satellites using my FT-736r.  After a few failed passes, that is with nothing heard, finally XW-2A came up.

XW 2A or CAS 3A (Chinese Amateur Radio satellite 3A) is a Chinese micro-satellite for atmospheric physics experiments and amateur radio missions. The satellite features a 398 mm × 398 mm × 398 mm cubic body with body mounted solar cells and a mass of approximately 25 kg mass. It features a three-axis stabilization system. The amateur communications payload consists of U/V 20 kHz wide transponders with 145 MHz CW beacon and 19k2 GMSK AX25 telemetry downlinks.

I listened in on 145.660 + doppler which brought it in around 145.663 and found a very very strong cw beacon... hope to put the recording up on box later tonight

Then I swung over to the transponder and found some really really nice signals.

I had never setup my rig for full duplex satellite use before, so pulled out the book and started fiddling around with VFOs and settings, all the while listening in on some QSO's

Eventually I heard my signal, which was cool, however I couldn't get the tuning right in order to engage the other ham operator's call (CQ).

Next time I'll be ready!