[aprssig] Gibraltar Monitoring for 144.39 balloon

[Bob Bruninga]

While everyone in Southern Europe and Northern Africa is listening for the
Transatlantic Balloon, K6RPT-11 on 144.39, I should also offer that you
might hear (during mid-day only) a possible packet from W3ADO-1 too.

PCSAT-1 has a downlink on 144.39 that is usually never heard in the USA due
to QRM, but it might possibly be heard in Europe where there should be no
other packets on that frequency.  But remember, that PCSAT can ONLY be heard
during rare alignment of its best solar panel to the sun, and usually around
mid-day.  All the excitement about K6RPT-11 landfall will be at night, so
there will be nothing heard of PCSAT (using the callsign of W3ADO-11) until
possibly mid-morning (if at all).  If PCSAT does come alive, you will hear
attempted occasional packets at both 1200 and 9600 baud, but almost always
they are not decodable because there is not enough battery power to complete
even the full duration of most 1 second packets..

But I just thought I would keep everyone informed in case a rare packet
popped up on 144.39 in a quiet area.

I also put out an object named "max-rng?" where I think will be the maximum
receive range of the Azores stations based on the range when the started
hearing it.  This object is NNW of Funchal.

And I see the track is starting to turn slightly northward, improving our
chances of a Portugal reception!

Bob, Wb4APR