OSCAR-7 YouTube video

A video has been put on YouTube showing signals received via the Amateur Radio satellite OSCAR-7 at a distance of 7694 km (4805 milles).

On the AMSAT Bulletin Board Piraja, PS8RF, reports hearing Andre, ZS2BK, via OSCAR-7 which is a remarkable distance for a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite such as this.

The OSCAR-7 satellite was launched on 15th November 1974 but despite the loss of it's Nicad batteries it's still providing excellent service when the solar panels are illuminated by the sun. Not bad for an Amateur Satellite that's nearly 35 years old.

Note it's 70cm uplink is 432.125 - 432.175 MHz. This is because when it was built the 435-438 ITU Amateur Satellite Service allocation didn't exist! There was consderable annoyance to Radio Amateurs that when, in the late 1970's, the ITU allocated dedicated spectrum for the Amateur Satellite Service in the UHF and Microwave allocations they seemed to chose frequencies as far away from existing Amateur Radio weak signal segments as possible.

The YouTube description of the video reads:

Andre, ZS2BK heard in GI84ow - via satellite AO-7 - 4805 milles (7.694Km). 16.06.2009 20:15:22 UTC - 20:15:22 (UTC) heard the first signal cw, in the frequency of 145.940 MHz, the last sign I heard 20:15:52 UTC. That is, we had a window of 30 seconds, not bad for an excellent QSO.

OSCAR-7
http://www.amsat.org/amsat/sats/n7hpr/ao7.html

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