Working Diwata-2 (PO-101) Amateur Radio Satellite!

There was a pass of about 57 degrees maximum elevation of Diwata-2 (PO-101) amateur radio satellite in this region. Being a U/V satellite with uplink on UHF and downlink on VHF, it has always been a difficult satellite for me to work. More over the power output is also low, compared to the 5W output of amateur radio on international space station and IO-86 which are much easier to hear. I have been trying several times to work through the FM repeater of PO-101, most of the times without hearing anything and sometimes hearing one station. Today I heard one station and called him back a couple of times. Though I did not hear his reply well, he did hear me and recorded an audio clip and emailed me. So I was happy that though it was not a complete LEO satellite contact in the strict sense of it, both of us heard each other through the satellite. That is quite nice for a suboptimal setup like mine, with a fixed elevation-azimuth Moxon Yagi. This gives a motivation to try good elevation passes in future as well and may be to homebrew an antenna with a higher gain. I am always hesitating to homebrew an antenna with higher gain because I do not have an antenna rotator. Increasing the gain would mean lower beam width and lesser time during each pass for me to work!

Now you can hear both the audio recorded by me and the audio sent by the receiving station.