I have heard the satellite, and it's AO-51

I am a radio amateur. My call sign is KA8KPN, and I've been licensed for almost 30 years. Lately, I've been attending QRP meetings. Now, QRP is an abbreviation that means "low power radio" and I got to the meetings because the guys there are enthusiastic about radio. I'm not particularly interested in operating at reduced power, but I like talking to people who do things, and these guys do lots of things.

Anyway, I opened my big mouth and started spouting off about what's wrong with ham radio satellites. Now, this being Houston, there are lots of guys around here who work for NASA and who are big into space and the ham radio space program is called AMSAT, short for AMateur SATellite. It would be expected that at least a few of the hams at a ham radio meeting inHouston would be big in AMSAT, and AMSAT basically sets the direction for ham radio satellites for hams all over the world.

So, naturally, my assertions did not go unchallenged, and one person in particular objected to what I said. Andy, I'll call him, (mostly because that's his name,) suggested that before I criticized what's available I should try to make use of it. Now, that there is what we in the business call "good advice" and although I think most of his objections had more to do with my lack of skill in explaining what I thought than they did in my thoughts being dim, I was fully prepared to follow his advice, and he said that I should try to operate a satellite called AO-51, otherwise known as "echo", before I started dissing the FM satellites as requiring no skill.

My first action on agreeing to this plan of action was to attempt to assemble a station from items I had available. My workhorse radio is an Icom IC-706MkIIg, which does everything that I need, radio-wise, even for satellites. These satellites use VHF and UHF frequencies, and I have a dual-band UHF and VHF antenna, although it is a (semi-traditional) mag mount car antenna on top of a filing cabinet. Anyway, I set it up and listened for a pass and was disappointed.

Now, when an experienced ham such as myself fails to achieve communications over microwaves, he usually points the finger first at the antenna, and so that is precisely what I did. It makes sense, for a mobile antenna is not usually well suited for the satellite operations. However, better antennas tend to be expensive, or a lot of work, or both. I thought a simple homemade dipole might be enough and I built one for the 435 MHz downlink using some 14-gauge house wiring I happened to have lying around and a dowel rod I bought at the local big-box home center. Over the weekend, I was encouraged to hear FO-29 (a Japanese Satellite, that uses similar frequencies) using this antenna, and this morning I heard several QSO's (or "conversations") on AO-51.

Now that I can receive, I need a transmitting antenna. It's complicated by the fact that I only have one radio that can be used for transmitting to AO-51 and that is the IC-706. If I could use a different radio, I could easily use a separate antenna, but I can't. I'm looking to not spend any more money until I have achieved success, so I'm looking at using some more wire on the same dowel rod and, well, we'll see. If it works, then maybe I'll build a short Yagi beam antenna to make the signal strong. If it doesn't work, well, then I don't know what I'll do.

More, as it happens.