W2MMD Satellite Blog

 For those unfamiliar with satellite operation, working DX is quite different from terrestrial radio. Band conditions don't really matter since the stations that can be worked all must be within the footprint of the satellite. The satellite footprint is determined by the altitude of the satellite above the earth. It's like shining a flashlight on a basketball - the further away the satellite is, the larger the circle - but the circle is also dimmer because the same amount of light is spread through a larger area. This is how satellites work - satellites with lower orbits have less range than those with higher orbits.  The CAS-4A and -4B satellites (both launched from the same rocket) are in an orbit about 325 miles from earth and have a footprint that would cover most of the US if the satellite was located in the middle of the country. For east coast stations like W2MMD in NJ we can only work west-coast stations on passes over the middle of the country in which the east and wes

  The clubhouse satellite station has had steady incremental upgrades over the past few years but one factor had remained constant – the antenna and rotator system. The antennas were 1980’s style Cushcraft units that were probably average at the time and gave reasonable but not outstanding performance. Since “outstanding” is a goal of the Skunkworks team we were able to procure through a club member donation a pair of M 2 state-of-the-art satellite antennas – the 42-element   436CP42UG crossed yagi for 70 cm and the 22 element 2MCP22 crossed yagi for 2 meters along with the fiberglass boom to connect them. These are the top of the line satellite antennas from M 2 and promised to significantly improve clubhouse satellite operations. Figure 1 - Original Antennas Both antennas are 18 feet long and have considerable gain and would be a significant improvement over the existing antennas but the additional length created potential problems in clearing the clubhouse roof and the guy