WB4SON

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Getting Ready for WFD/Satellite

Posted: 23 Jan 2020 01:46 PM PST
https://wb4son.com/wpblog/?p=4009


I dont have the stamina of my youth, and especially dont push things in New
England Winters.Â* That said, this coming weekend is Winter Field Day.Â* Ive
participated the past five years with my club, W1SYE Newport County Radio
Club.Â* My role is to make a single satellite contact for the 1500 point
bonus.

It is with much sadness that I note the demise of FO-29, AO-73, AO-85,
XW-2C, and XW-2D.Â* That leaves AO-91, AO92, SO-50, AO7, CAS4A, CAS4B, XW2A,
XW2B and XW2F in operation still, nine birds is pretty rich.Â* I did the
orbital predictions for Saturday and Sunday, daylight passes only, and
found three on Saturday, and six on Sunday.Â* So I am going to focus my
operation on Sunday.

Part of the secret sauce to having a successful contact in the field is to
plan ahead.Â* Temperature and the suns elevation impact the oscillators on
the satellite as well as the ground station gear.Â* Last time I used my
portable setup was SFD when the sun was well above the equator, and
temperatures were quite high.Â* Now, for WFD, the sun is below the equator,
and its in the 30s/40s outside.Â* That means it is critical to check every
possible bird and adjust the Uplink Calibration so you will find yourself
quickly on the downlink.

And, of course, the other part is to be sure that our wireless gear, with
all those wired connections (key, headphones, mic, PTT, keyer, computer,
battery, antenna cables, etc.) are working.Â* For example, when I opened my
kit, I found I had the wrong power cable for my IC-910H.

So far, Ive made a couple of CW contacts (NA1ME on AO7, and VE3XC on XW2B),
plus SSB contacts (KP3A and WB8DDV on XW2F) and adjusted my uplink
calibration on 3 of the 9 birds.Â* The others will be done over the next few
days.Â* Incidentally, the only one off by more than 100 Hz happened to be
AO-7, which required a -3000 Hz Uplink Calibration offset.