[UK-CONTEST] Strange signals on 28 MHz

[Clive Whelan]

Many years ago OM Bill/G6JJ drew my attention to the presence of what 
was a ( Met Office?) weather balloon in the 28Mhz band, which actually 
carried an on-board transponder. The passage of time has meant that I 
have forgotten the details but Bill had all the guff, and we actually 
made several QSOs through the transponder from Cardiff to London on an 
otherwise dead band. This would have been in the era of Oscar 7 ( Bill 
was a satellite wallah if I recall) and making those QSOs was very 
reminiscent of the 2m up/10m down QSOs on that bird, quite surreal 
really. I suspect that the device should not have been in our 10m band 
but in an adjacent band reserved for such purposes, but the frequency 
stability was not of the best!

Does anyone else remember these devices and possibly made QSOs through 
them? The era I am talking about was probably ca.1974 or so, so only 
Gx3s or early Gx4s would be eligible!


73


Clive
GW3NJW

P.S. I believe the only usable satellites these days employ FM mode only 
( 70cm up/2m down?). Jeez, don't it always seem to go that you don't 
know what you got 'til it's gone? - yep too right Joni :-(