AM-SAT tracking

[KD8OEK]

I am a new ham and newer to sat tracking.
I set my ht up with the proper AO-51 freq,s and pl
codes and went into the living room and parked
my wheel chair and thought I would give it a try.
I set the squalch wide open and without having
a schedule, I got lucky and picked up the tail end
of a pass by A0-51....just enough to hear voices
then they where gone....I was instantly HOOKED
I went to the AmSat sight today and got the correct
times for passes over our locale,in Ohio, and waited
for the next pass deducting 4 hrs from the UTC
when the time came I started listening like it shows
in that one demo video and got nothing so I went back
to the Am-Sat sight and looked up the location of
A0-51 and it was no where near our location even though
the pass was not supposed to be finished yet for our location ??
What have I done wrong ????
Any help please cause' these things are ADDICTiVE !!!!
73's
glenn kd8oek

[KD8KSN]

I am a new ham and newer to sat tracking.
I set my ht up with the proper AO-51 freq,s and pl
codes and went into the living room and parked
my wheel chair and thought I would give it a try.
I set the squalch wide open and without having
a schedule, I got lucky and picked up the tail end
of a pass by A0-51....just enough to hear voices
then they where gone....I was instantly HOOKED
I went to the AmSat sight today and got the correct
times for passes over our locale,in Ohio, and waited
for the next pass deducting 4 hrs from the UTC
when the time came I started listening like it shows
in that one demo video and got nothing so I went back
to the Am-Sat sight and looked up the location of
A0-51 and it was no where near our location even though
the pass was not supposed to be finished yet for our location ??
What have I done wrong ????
Any help please cause' these things are ADDICTiVE !!!!
73's
glenn kd8oek

Glenn,

It's great to see more peope getting into the satellite hobby - it is certainly addictive!!!

First off, you may not have heard anything today because, if I understood you correctly, you were using your HT and stock rubber duck. You will probably have a hard time hearing the birds with you HT, so I would recommend possibly looking into a small handheld beam of some sort. The Arrow is the most popular (about $150-170), but there are also great homebrews that work just as well that can be made for next to nothing. It will also help if you can go outside and do a pass.

As far as the predictions on Amsat go, Amsat should pretty much always be correct. When you look on your sat tracking program the satellite may be, e.g., over the Atlantic, but due to the elevation of the bird, the footprint is much bigger. Look at the attachment below - you will notice my QTH marked by 'KD8KSN'. Notice how the bird is not directly over me, but is instaed out over the Atlantic? The green line around the bird itself is the footprint - for the most part, anything within that footprint should be able to hit/hear the bird. Also, I am not sure what kind of sat tracking you are using, but I would highly recommend Orbitron (www.stoff.pl it is free). I would just sit down one day and play around with it and see how things work.

Once you get going on AO51, you should take a look at AO27, SO50 and HO68 when it is in FM.

Please let me know if this does not make sense and I will try to explain it a little better.

Congrats on the new license and I hope to work you soon!

[KD8KSN]

I just had another thought - AO51 will occasionally not be on due to technical difficulties. That may be why you did not hear it the second go around. If you want to see if others are experiencing the same thing you are, check out http://oscar.dcarr.org/ . It is a system for reporting if a bird is on or off at any given time.

[KD8OEK]

Thanks for the info. I downloaded Orbitron and now need to figure out how to use it.....I checked the Sats and did not see AO-51 listed....probably looking in the wrong place......I have much to learn.....by the way, I am using an aftermarket 17" whip on my Wouxun and it will have to due for now.....I watched the video on the Arrow Sat yagi and I will probably lean towards one of those with a tri-pod.
73's
glenn kd8oek

[KD8KSN]

I think I got it figured out - to view all of the amateur sats, click the 'load TLE' on the right side of the screen, then select the 'amateur' button in the box that opens (see attchments below). Let me know if that works. You should see ISS, AO51, AO27, SO50, HO68, AO07 and a lot of others in there.

[KD8OEK]

Thanks again...........
I tried that and it worked ofcourse !!.....I downloaded a Grid map from ICOM but I am not sure how to use it......more to learn I guess.
73's
glenn kd8oek

****Do you ever talk on any of the Columbus 2m repeaters ??****

[KD8KSN]

Thanks again...........
I tried that and it worked ofcourse !!.....I downloaded a Grid map from ICOM but I am not sure how to use it......more to learn I guess.
73's
glenn kd8oek

****Do you ever talk on any of the Columbus 2m repeaters ??****

I am on 146.76 (W8RXX) quite often - would you like to talk sometime? Several people from our church (and club) are on Sunday mornings on the way to church, but we can talk some other time during the week. What works best for you? We can discuss at that time what the gridmap is.

[KD8OEK]

I would like to chat with U on the 760..since I am home most of the time, I am available to chat pretty much at your request. Do you still work and if so what hours ?? ....we only go to church every other week due to my wifes work schedule and I need the lift on the back of our suv for my pwr. chair to go anywhere (I can't drive anymore).....I seem to be getting conflicting info. between AmSat and Orbitron as to location and time of A0-51'S passes, plus I am getting very little info. on AO-51 from Orbitron...I am obviously doing something wrong...Looking forward to a QSO with U on the 760 machine.
73's
glenn kd8oek

[KD8KSN]

I would like to chat with U on the 760..since I am home most of the time, I am available to chat pretty much at your request. Do you still work and if so what hours ?? ....we only go to church every other week due to my wifes work schedule and I need the lift on the back of our suv for my pwr. chair to go anywhere (I can't drive anymore).....I seem to be getting conflicting info. between AmSat and Orbitron as to location and time of A0-51'S passes, plus I am getting very little info. on AO-51 from Orbitron...I am obviously doing something wrong...Looking forward to a QSO with U on the 760 machine.
73's
glenn kd8oek

I am actually free quite a bit - I am only 17.... I will be tied up for most of today workinng on a building we are working on here, but I will try to jump on this forum later on and let you know a possible time (I may jump on and say I will be ready in 10 minutes, so keep an eye on this forum). I may have to wait till tomorrow - we will see.

Catch you soon!

[WA9SVD]

Again, the website :

" heavens-above.com"

can provide VERY accurate pass predictions,; the better your Lat/Lon cordinates the better, but the results from QRZ.com are good enuf in most cases; if you have a GPS, that will be even better.
A0-27 is one of the easiest brds to contact: I've done it (unknowingly) with 1.5 Watts and a whip antenna, when I THOUGHT I had the 5 Watt (12 Volt vs 7,2 Vlot) nattery attached. It wasn't until the next day that I realized I had worked AO-27 on 1.5 Watts!
AO-51 is similar, but by present information, has experiences some problems,so it's best to check it's status and schedule from the

www.AMSAT.org

website.

They give both status and (if necessary) operating schedules for the Amateur satellites.

BTW, on THAT website, Ao-51 is referred to as "AO-Echo." The website doesn't always update satellite names AFTER their launch,)