AO-7, VO-52 & AO-51
In between cleaning my motor cycles, I have spent today in and out of the shack as I have been closely monitoring the various Satellite passes over my QTH. I started the day early making QSO via the AO-7 Satellite at 08.44 utc with three stations from Europe - 9A2EY, EA1BYC and ON5NY. The next "Bird" I worked via was VO-52, where I made QSO with OZ2SAT & DL7UHF at around 10.32 utc. I then tried my luck again at 16.11 utc where I got into AO-51 which is an FM Satellite which always proves a bit more difficult than the SSB Sats that I worked through earlier. Despite the European pile up and only one station working at a time via the FM transponder, I still managed to work S57ORG who was quickly followed by ES5QA. I heard many other European Ops calling through the bird during the pass, as usual it was chaotic but still lots of fun. To work the Satellites, I am still using my reliable home brewed IO-10 dual band Sat yagi with its 30º fixed elevation (seen on my QRZ page &