Artists impression of OSCAR 7 in Space

On September 5, 2015 Dave Swanson KG5CCI completed a contact with Manuel EA5TT over a record breaking distance of 7947 km via the OSCAR 7 satellite operating in mode B (432/145 MHz).

On the AMSAT Bulletin Board Dave KG5CCI writes:

On Saturday, September 5, 2015 at 1812 UTC I made a scheduled contact with Manuel, EA5TT, using AO-7 Mode B, from the old US Forest Service Fire Tower on top of ‘Rich Mountain’ here in extreme western Arkansas. My 10 digit grid locator was EM24UQ01MU while Manuel is located in IM99SL48CX, in Valencia, Spain. Using the http://no.nonsense.ee/qth/map.html website for reference, this equates to 7947.381 km which we believe to be a new record for AO-7 Mode B.

Like several of my extreme low elevation passes I’ve worked recently, I captured my side of the QSO on video. The bad news is that the wind on top of the tower, and limited room to operate meant a noisy audio feed and a rather awkward camera angle, the good news is our callsign, grid, and signal exchange was captured and clear. I have trimmed down the video to just the 70 seconds or so (to expedite the rural upload) of the contact and posted it to YouTube here:

Watch EA5TT Contact from Rich Mountain – Raw Footage

I fully plan on writing a more extensive post when I return from the holiday weekend, and I will likely make a proper video with commentary and data as well. I’ve made some really interesting observations when it comes to Satellite operating from places with great ‘Height Above Average Terrain’ and look forward to sharing this analysis with everyone.

Until then, catch you all on the birds, 73!

Dave, KG5CCI/P

Oscar 7 Information https://amsat-uk.org/satellites/communications/oscar-7/

A previous OSCAR-7 DX Record https://amsat-uk.org/2012/07/04/oscar-7-dx-record-broken-again/

Video of 2E0HTS Working the OSCAR-7 Satellite
https://amsat-uk.org/2012/01/26/2e0hts-working-the-oscar-7-satellite/