AO-51 2nd repeater for K5D Desecheo Island operation

AMSAT-NA VP Operations, Drew Glasbrenner, KO4MA announced, 'The second repeater on AO-51 will be activated on February 16 and reserved only for contacts with the K5D Desecheo Island 2009 DXpedition while the satellite is within range of the island.'

K5D may be active on either AO-51 repeater, SO-50 or the ISS voice repeater modes if available.

Users attempting contact with K5D should be aware the the DXpedition does not wish to exchange grid squares during the contact in order to allow more operators a chance for a contact. The Desecheo Island grid square is FK68, which is the same as most of Puerto Rico. Please be courteous and limit yourself to one contact. Logs are expected to be available online.

Thanks to the support of AMSAT-NA, the K5D Desecheo team is equipped with a Kenwood D7 HT and Arrow antenna. AMSAT-NA would like to thank Doug Faunt N6TQS, Tim Lilley N3TL, and Patrick Stoddard, WD9EWK for their generous donations of equipment for this and future DXpeditions. Keith Pugh, W5IU provided training for FM satellite operating.

Outside of range of Desecheo, users are encouraged to operate under the standard AO-51 QRP rules. These guidelines are 10 watts output or less, to omnidirectional or handheld antennas only. Telemetry collection operations on AO-51 will occasionally interrupt the 435.150 downlink on US west coast passes not in range of Desecheo.

AO-51 Desecheo Mode
FM Repeater V/U
Uplink: 145.880 MHz FM
Downlink: 435.150 MHz FM

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