At 03:08 PM 2/5/2011, Bill Dzurilla wrote: >I've been enjoying the posts regarding our last HEO satellite, >AO-40. I was inactive while AO-40 was going strong, but the posts >brought back memories of our first HEO, OSCAR 10, my first >experience with satellites until a couple of years ago. You can't >find much about the glory days of AO-10 on the web, but I remember them well. > >Passes lasted for 8 hours. Always Q5 copy everywhere in the huge >footprint, very little QRM or QRN. I worked over 100 countries from >1983-85, but never got enough cards for DXCC. My rig was a Yaesu >FT-726R with a Mirage D-1010 amp. It was 70cm uplink, 2 meters >downlink. I attached the antennas to a small mast on my chimney. I >had a surplus cavity bandpass filter that wiped away all the >birdies; it was needed because I lived in EL49 in New Orleans. The >antennas were small crossed-yagis (KLM?), circularly polarized, on >separate booms. I can't recall the make or model. Also must have >had a mast-mounted preamp and an az-el rotator, but I can't remember >them. I got the tracking info from a program that ran on my >Commodore 64 and printed it out on my Gorilla Banana printer. > >Those were halycon days, with AO-10 supposed to be just the >beginning. The grand plan was to put up 3 linked ham sats in >geosynchronous orbit, which would enable any ham to work any other >ham anywhere on the globe 24-7. Will we ever see anything like that >again? How did AO-10 compare with AO-40? > >There was a fire at my home and all my logs and QSL cards from those >days were lost. If anyone out there happens to have an old AO-10 >QSL card from me, I'd sure appreciate a copy. > >73, Bill NZ5N > > > >_______________________________________________ >Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. >Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! >Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
AO-10 in the mid-1980's was my first real satellite operation (I had been involved with AO-6). It was the basic mode-B linear transponder. Great range and lots of DX. I worked some rare DX that was rare on HF standards. The hams I worked said they were tired of the pileups on HF and came up on AO-10 to enjoy some nice contacts. P3E inherits the legacy of AO-10 and AO-13, as it is very similar in what it is equipped to do. ARISSat-1 will be a precurser for what P3E would be without the high orbit. 73, Ed - KL7UW, WD2XSH/45 ====================================== BP40IQ 500 KHz - 10-GHz www.kl7uw.com EME: 144-1.4kw*, 432-100w*, 1296-testing*, 3400-winter? DUBUS Magazine USA Rep dubus...@hotmail.com ====================================== *temp not in service _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
