Amateur satellite activity in Bulgaria

The British radio amateur Andy Thomas, G0SFJ, is motivated to encourage amateur satellite activity in Bulgaria and elsewhere.

He will be travelling to the Astro-school at Belite Brezi, near Ardino outside Kardzhali in the Rhodope mountains in Bulgaria. While he is there, he will be using his portable satellite equipment to work as LZ/G0SFJ/P on amateur satellites AO-51 and SO-50.

If you go to www.qrz.com and search for G0SFJ you will see a picture of a similar “mini-DXpedition” to Majorca, EA6 a few years ago. He uses a hand-held dual-band FM transceiver (FT51-R) and a hand-held Arrow antenna (this is a 70 cm Yagi crossed with a 2 meter Yagi) and tracks the satellite pass by hand. So far Andy has operated in EA6, F, G, LZ, TA, TK and YL and hopes to work from YO this August as well.

His operating method is described in the “Radio Communication Handbook” published by the Radio Society of Great Britain.

Last year he took his equipment to the “Porto Lagos” radio club of Kardzhali and the Haskovo radio club in Bulgaria and they worked a number of stations in Europe this way.

Andy will be operating as LZ/G0SFJ/P from the astro camp from the 12th to the 14th August and will operate at specific times during the day as the satellite comes into view. He tape records every pass for the log as he needs both hands to operate (one to hold the radio and the other to hold the antenna!)