Contacting amateur radio satellites is always a lot of fun particularly when you only have minimal equipment.  Marsha and I decided to work AO-51 during field day but only had basic ham radio gear.  Although I have a tracking program I could only use it for the printed information to track progress across the sky manually and used two handheld radio's; ICOM IC-T7H's. Both antennas are homemade.

You rapidly understand what a "one arm paper hanger" must go through!  Several things must be taken into consideration simultaneously:

• Position of receive antenna in the sky vs time
• Be sure transmit antenna follows
  
• Doppler compensation on the UHF receiver
• Doppler compensation on the VHF transmitter
• Best polarization for receive antenna
• Best polarization for transmit antenna
• Calling and exchanging information with several stations within a 10 minute period
• Doing it all with 4 watts transmit power
  

AO-51, echo was the "bird" of choice as it has an easy to hit cross band repeater on board.  As mentioned in the photo, this was the first team success.  I handled the receive antenna and she handled the transmit.  We made two contacts on the first attempt, Seattle and Arizona. Many of the big gun stations  can access this bird from California and Arizona and reach us here in the PNW.  Last year I heard Alaska on this sat.

Neil  Robin, WA7NBF