Browsing around the AMSAT-UK site yesterday, I came across this article by the ever inspirational Ray, W2RS about how he had made QSOs on the SSB satellites using nothing more than a dual band mobile whip, a diplexer and SSB transceivers for 144 and 432MHz.
Well! I wondered if I could do something similar, given that I had the V2000 vertical up on the mast. In some respects, it is a 'long whip' as Ray discusses, putting quite a lot of radiation towards the horizon, which is what's normally wanted for tropo, but not for satellites, but there are certainly some vertical lobes.
So, I fed the V2000 into the Diamond diplexer and then connected the appropriate coax from the diplexer to the FT847's 144MHz port and (separate) 432MHz port.
An initial test to see if there was much desense or crackle was positive.
The first satellite around was AO-73, which was testing its' transponder in daylight. After a bit of fiddling around, I was able to hear my CW, just as the satellite flew over the horizon! Then VO-52 came over and I was receiving good signals on 145MHz and again was able to hear my CW, sufficiently to call CQ. No-one came back, but it's a start! I also managed to hear myself on a pass of FO-29 with reasonable elevation.
This is all quite promising and I'm pretty sure that I will be able to make some QSOs in due course, most likely on CW.
However, all of this enthused me sufficiently that I'm aiming to be able to take the FT847 out into the garden (or out portable) with the diplexer and the Elk to try and make some contacts with the yagi.
Good fun - thank you for the inspiration, Ray!
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