Post date: Dec 17, 2008 3:33:48 PM
This post was from Hal ZS6WB.
We're in the final countdown for the 009 Namibian VHF DXpedition with the departure date for Luderitz now down to under three weeks and Pine, ZS6OB has been burning the midnight oil preparing the 144 & 432 MHz EME antennas for travel while the 1296 MHz station has been shipped down from Switzerland.
In the final weeks before departure we will also be readying the rest of the equipment for the trip and going through the checklist to make sure nothing is left behind. We'll keep you up to date on the preparations and we urge you to make sure your VHF equipment is ready for use by the time we reach Luderitz around January 7th. Whether by EME, meteor scatter, tropo, Es or any of the other VHF propagation modes we hope to see as many African VHF stations as possible in our logbooks.
While preparations have been going on back home in South Africa our satellite operator Sarel, ZS6AC has been causing quite a stir in satellite DXing circles during a month-long holiday in the Seychelles operating as S79AC on the low earth-orbiting satellites. During the past few days there have been a lot of interesting satellite contacts made, some examples being S79AC to ST2NH, 5R8KH to ND9M/Maritime Mobile in MI62 near the Chagos Islands (VQ9), ZS6BB to ST2NH and ZS6WB to S79AC. Activity is increasing almost daily around the Indian Ocean area and in the past few days operations from Reunion Island, Saudi Arabia and India have also been reported.
It is interesting to note that both S79AC and ND9M/MM are using small portable stations, basically a small dual-band handheld VHF/UHF Yagi antenna connected to a battery operated dual-band handheld transceiver. The AO-51 satellite is designed for use in this mode with a 145 MHz FM uplink and 435 MHz FM downlink. If you're traveling the whole station fits in a corner of your suitcase and weighs virtually nothing.
If your VHF stations isn't geared up for EME or meteor scatter on the VHF bands, but you have 144 and 432 FM equipment why don't you look into working us on one or more of the satellites while we are in Namibia. It doesn't take fancy equipment, but it is a challenge and demands that operators develop some level of skill.
If you have some time to spare during the holidays, why don't you look into this interesting aspect of our hobby.
WARNING: SATELLITE OPERATION CAN BECOME ADDICTIVE!