[Mike Swatko]

Heard the whole astronaut session today outside on my HT – very nice!

Also on an earlier pass of the ISS this morning, I made my first ‘satellite’ QSO using the ISS repeater to a station W9SV in Wisconsin.  Not bad for a 5-watt Baofeng and handheld Yagi.

[Mike Swatko]

I’m so sad to hear of Jon’s passing.  As a relatively new ham, Jon was a welcoming and encouraging presence to me in the club, both in-person at Field Day and on-the-air.  I will really miss him.

My deepest sympathies to Stephanie and family.

Sincerely,
Mike W1TKO

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[Mike Swatko]

I’ll be there. Looking forward to it.
73
Mike W1TKO

[Mike Swatko]

I have a single-band (10-meter) Sirio SD-27 rotatable dipole that I like.  I picked it up at a hamfest.   It can be oriented as a horizontal dipole or a vertical dipole.  It is light enough that a TV rotor can easily manipulate it.

I have no experience with the MFJ-1775 rotatable dipole, but looking at the manual, I note that the bandwidth where the SWR is less that 2:1 is only 60kHz on 20-meters, and only 40Khz on 40-meters, so only a small slice of those bands will be workable.

I also see Diamond Antenna HFV-5 HF has a multiband rotatable dipole.  I might expect all the multiband dipoles probably have narrow bandwidth.

Good luck & 73,
-Mike W1TKO

[Mike Swatko]

Congrats Jon on the VP6A Ducie Island contact!

I was just hearing them quite well on 20-meters (14.214MHz)… quite the pileup going but I couldn’t quite break thru.

Best,
-Mike W1TKO

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