I became involved again with satellite operation with AO40. I operated Oscar 10 and Oscar 13 years ago with my good friend Joe VK4AGL (SK). Oscar 40 is an absolutely great machine. In spite of the problems it had at the beginning, what is currently working does a very good job. Activity on the satellite is high. Every time I operate I do not contact less than 20 or 25 stations in a few hours. Most of the QSO's are on SSB, but I enjoy working a lot of them also on CW. Many countries are active, and every now and then a DXpedition shows up.

I uplink my signal on L band (1269 MHz). I use an LSB/CW IF exciter different to the one I use for EME, so the same 23 cm transverter can be used. Power at the feed is 5 watts. The antenna is my 3 m (10') dish with a 2.25 turn helix on transmit and a 4 turn helix on receive. This was done on purpose to achieve the same beamwidth on both bands. I do not need the extra gain on S band as I can already hear the transponder noise floor quite well.

I used UHF for the uplink before for a short time, but the performance of the L band is superior. I have even exchanged beautiful SSTV pictures!

100% of my satellite equipment is homebrew.