I have two satellite stations: a portable one using an Icom -910H, and my home station using an Icom-9100. The portable one usually works better because I’ll be in open areas with no trees, and using a beam (either fixed on a tripod, or on an AZ/EL rotor). Each station has its own laptop because of different configurations. Therein lies today’s embarrassing problem.
Before WFD, I had contacted stations on every operating satellite so I could get things calibrated. So the portable station was working just fine.
Back at home, things weren’t so rosy. I didn’t have the Doppler.sqf values entered for CAS-4A or CAS-4B (odd since I had AO-91 and AO-92 entered). So I looked them up and edited the file. As I had several passes this morning and early afternoon, I calibrated the uplink, but heard folks rapidly shift out of my passband. On top of that the calibration values seemed to hop around, a problem I’ve never experienced.
I don’t know why I thought to look, but I checked the front panel, and saw “Satellite” “Reverse” exactly as I expected. But things sure weren’t right. So I checked the Satellite.sqf file entries for CAS-4A and CAS-4B and found out, SURPRISE, that I had incorrectly entered “NOR” not “REV”. Things were tracking in the opposite direction. So that front panel indicator of “REV” means nothing.
I apologize to everyone who attempted to work me today. My total screwup.
