I received an Arrow II antenna from N9BAV today, a very generous gift after I tweeted that I needed to buy said antenna. After I put it together, I looked on GoSatWatch app to see the next pass of well-known amateur satellites. I immediately recognized that AO-92 was going to pass very well overhead in about 2½ hours. So I prepped my Kenwood TH-D74A with the VHF downlink frequency (145.880MHz) on sub band A, and the UHF uplink (435.340MHz) on sub band B.
My previous attempts at satellite with a HT whip antenna and my HVU-8 vertical have met with no success, so I was half expecting this Arrow to also be a failure where I wouldn’t get in. Much to my surprise, the RX side started quieting, and I was hearing solid full-quieting voices! I tried popping in my callsign and no one answered, I had doubled. Then I tried again and WB7VUF came back to me crystal clear. AWESOME.
I finished that QSO, trembling with excitement and rambling a bit that this was my first satellite contact, then right after he closed KB6LTY called for me. TWO AO-92 contacts!
One thing I learned is the TH-D74A, while having a very convenient recording feature, only records one of the two bands. Luckily I had it preset to sub band A, because I totally forgot about that. So I didn’t record myself, but only the RX.
I need to learn how to program the different satellites into memories.