Many hams confuse working the more sophisticated SSB satellites with the simple FM birds. Tom explained how easy it was to work these flying FM repeaters with just a dual-band handheld radio or with separate 2 metre and 70 cm mobile radios. He went back to Sputnik and the evolution of satellites right up to today’s most recent birds.
Great software for tracking the satellites is available free of charge on the web for both PCs and Android devices. Tom gets excellent results with just vertical antennas mounted on his bakkie. He enjoys driving around RSA and working from various Maidenhead grid squares as many satellite operators collect different grid squares like a DXer does different countries.
A most interesting meeting and I am sure it will result in a few more ZS1 call signs being heard from space.
Rob ZS1SA
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| We were prepared for load-shedding... |
