XW-1 SSB transponder activated over NA

The first activation of the XW-1 linear transponder over North America took place in the early hours of Dec 20 and Drew KO4MA produced a spectragram of the event showing the 50 kHz passband full of SSB signals.

On the AMSAT Bulletin Board he writes:

That was some really exciting stuff! I recorded the pass on my SDR-IQ/R7000, and had the receive antenna split off to my normal station as well.

Right after turn on, K8YSE responded to my CQ, and we had a few brief exchanges. About that time I realized the middle of the pass band was going to be a bad place to be and moved up to the high end of the passband.

After moving up out of the mess, I worked W4DFU at the University of Florida, with Jay and Jimmy at the helm, then HK4MKE, Andrew in Columbia.

Signals were good until the end of the pass when I think I was having some polarity fades on my fixed LHCP antenna.
1 to 5 watts was PLENTY on the uplink, even when crowded. I use a 10 element horizontal only yagi for the uplink.

http://s139.photobucket.com/albums/q305/glasbrenner/
radio/?action=view&current=xw-112-20-20092-29-35Z.jpg
is a screenshot of from Spectravue before TCA. Notice the lost ditter almost twice as strong as everyone else. There are also at least 9 separate SSB signals in that screengrab, and the beacon is at the far right. The whole file is about 680 Mb.

If anyone wants it, please contact me. We can exchange it over Skype, or I'll burn it to your CD/DVD with an SASE.

Spectravue is a free download, and well worth trying even if you don't have an SDR.

73, Drew KO4MA

Email: glasbrenner <at> mindspring.com

Free Spectravue Software
http://www.moetronix.com/spectravue.htm

AMSAT Bulletin Board AMSAT-BB
http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/tools/maillist/

XW-1 frequencies and operating schedule
http://www.camsat.cn/

John K8YSE has made a available a MP3 of the transponder downlink
http://www.papays.com/XW-1_20Dec2009_022218z.mp3