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Unfortunately, our concerns were well-founded. Yesterday, on the AMSAT bulletin board, the official news of VO-52’s passing was announced.

The loss of VO-52 leaves quite a gap. What I enjoyed about it particularly, was that it was the one of the linear transponders that could be used with very simple antennas. My V2000 vertical worked very well for a variety of contacts. I just wish I had started using it earlier.

VO-52 had a great downlink signal and was always in transponder mode (AO-73 is great, but I rarely hear it in transponder mode, or if I do, it’s usually brief, as it switches over to telemetry). So, hopefully the new generation of satellites which will be coming on stream soon – some already in orbit doing other things, waiting to be activated into their amateur radio roles – others waiting to be launched.

A good time to remember to support AMSAT (a VO-52 lookalike would work very well, thank you…)

Unfortunately, our concerns were well-founded. Yesterday, on the AMSAT bulletin board, the official news of VO-52’s passing was announced.

The loss of VO-52 leaves quite a gap. What I enjoyed about it particularly, was that it was the one of the linear transponders that could be used with very simple antennas. My V2000 vertical worked very well for a variety of contacts. I just wish I had started using it earlier.

VO-52 had a great downlink signal and was always in transponder mode (AO-73 is great, but I rarely hear it in transponder mode, or if I do, it’s usually brief, as it switches over to telemetry). So, hopefully the new generation of satellites which will be coming on stream soon – some already in orbit doing other things, waiting to be activated into their amateur radio roles – others waiting to be launched.

A good time to remember to support AMSAT (a VO-52 lookalike would work very well, thank you…)

It’s been a busy couple of weeks here, all good, but busy. Last weekend, a visit to the shack coincided with a pass of VO-52 according to GPREDICT. I listened and listened and didn’t hear a thing. Being somewhat new to satellites, I always assume that if I don’t hear anything, it’s my fault (it usually is!). I checked the TLEs I was using in GPREDICT and all was ok. I checked the 145Mhz receiver – all ok. Very odd.

I didn’t have a chance to think about it again until yesterday afternoon when I was in the shack working on a review of the Wouxun UV-8D for Practical Wireless and I noticed that VO-52 was due again. Once again, I heard nothing. Again I checked my receiver and the TLEs. I was now starting to think that perhaps it wasn’t me.

On Twitter, I asked my satellite friends if there was any news about VO-52 that I had missed. Ricardo EA4GMZ kindly replied saying that it had been out of order for some days and included two useful links, one satellite status page and secondly to the threads on the AMSAT message board, where if you page down, you will find some messages relating to VO-52.

VO-52 had very quickly become one of my favourite satellites once I got going with it earlier in the year. I hope we shall hear from it again.

I’m indebted to Roger, G3XBM for pointing me at the news that the VC1T expedition was heard in the UK on 144MHz by G4SWX, but unfortunately no 2 way QSO was made, despite trying for 4 hours to make a two way contact. It is also reported that a station in Ireland heard portions of the VC1T transmission.

See the news from the ARRL site

See a screenshot from G4SWX at G4CQM’s site

The UKube-1 satellite was launched this evening with the first pass due over the UK at 2014 local time.

Coincidentally, supper had finished around 2013 local time, so I sped upstairs and switched on the FT-847 with the V2000 vertical connected. The UKube-1 CW beacon on 145.840 plus minus doppler was the first target. It doesn’t transmit continuously, but I was pleased to hear it around 2018 local up on 846. Shortly after that, I heard the telemetry on 145.915 coming through at very good strength.

Congrats to the UK team responsible for the satellite!

Some would say it was 30 years too late, but here in the UK, today was the day that AM and SSB CB was made legal on the CEPT ‘mid’ band, with an output power of 4W AM and 12W SSB. Good news as far as I am concerned and it will give me the opportunity to make contact with various friends who are active on CB and not amateur radio.

Not much about in the way of Es today, although I did manage a late afternoon QSO with HA8IB on 50MHz. Pretty quiet apart from that.

Late in the afternoon, I caught a couple of VO-52 satellite passes. The first was a very low angle one, around 2 degrees over Russia. I had a nice snappy CW QSO with Imre HA1SE. I was pleased to find I could work a pass at that distance and elevation, as I’d love to try working UA9CS and potentially even UA0SUN.

The second pass was a bit higher and I had a sketchy exchange – I’m not going to call it a QSO with 4X1AJ, but we heard each other before some noise kicked in here and that was that. As we’re both reasonably regularly active, I’m hopeful of making a QSO before long.

Over the years, there have been plenty of attempts to bridge the Atlantic on 144MHz, via tropo or meteor scatter. Up to now, it hasn’t been done. There’s no doubt at all in my mind that it’s possible – it’s just a question of try, try and try again.

A North America group, operating as VC1T plan to try from July 5th to 12th this year. They plan to use good power to a 43 element yagi (yes, 43 elements) and concentrate on FSK441 and JT65b modes.

You can read more about their plans here

Will this be the year it’s done? Wouldn’t it be great if the answer was yes!