petebrunelli

I’m new to Satellite operations having started just over five months ago, but I’m not new to portable operations. I don’t build fancy rover rigs. I just secure my gear, use a good portable antenna support, and keep things “fast and light”. That means I don’t have much for rainproofing and am turning antennas by hand, but I like the flexibility.

Here’s a short video I took at a portable IO-117/Greencube activation here in southern Rhode Island. The location is Ninigret Park, a former military air base and bombing target (!!!!). This video is from one of the large parking lots with decent horizon views. I am able to work passes down to about 5-degrees.

A few additional items to fill in the gaps:

I think the WIMO X-Quad is a good antenna. In use I have not found a way to get fade-free performance on Greencube. The RHCP harness works, but isn’t consistent. I have also run it by only feeding the Horizontal or Vertical inputs. Even though WIMO says it can’t be used like this, it can. I find it covers better with less fading, but when it goes bad it is just as bad as the RHCP setup.

DC power is a 20Ah Bioenno LiFePO4. It will run this station at 25W for multiple passes. Probably 6 or more. I don’t transmit too much so it is mainly the 1-Amp idle current of the 991A that eats up capacity.

I buy Times Microwave LMR240-UF (Ultraflex) in bulk and build cables as needed. I like the DX-Engineering crimp/solder PL-259s for 8X/240, and they sell good BNCs at a variety of price points. I wish the flex was a little more “ultra” but the performance at UHF is worth some stiff handling.

I’ll be sure to make another video when I have a windproof mic and I’ll go into more detail.

Enjoy! 73 N1QDQ