2014-12-21
A cold try at working the SO-50 satellite 5 years ago
This evening there was a pass of the SO-50 amateur satellite so I wanted to give it a try again. Since the garden table is dissassembled and stored in winter I don't have a table outside to set up laptop, radio, battery and other things so I went the simple way with the directional antenna, the SO-50 channels programmed into the handheld radio and Hamsatdroid for the prediction of the pass. I heard the satellite, but had the usual problem of understanding callsigns. I heard one callsign good enough to answer it: 2E0FKL or that's what I think I heard, I am not one hundred percent sure. He did not hear my reply. Comparing my 3 successful amateur satellite contacts with the 264 logged HF digimode contacts shows me that satellite contacts still have a special skillset and I'm a bit out of it. Next year will bring nicer temperatures for being outside and having the laptop controlling the radio outside.