Nice reception of Space Station Amateur Radio with my homebrew VHF Slim Jim Antenna

 Listened to the downlink frequency of the cross band repeater on International Space Station just now. It was an 80 degree maximum elevation visible pass in my region. I could hear my friends talking through the repeater very well. But somehow my calls did not reach them, may be because my homebrew Slim Jim antenna does not have enough gain to reach up to the Space Station on the uplink! Afterall it is not well tuned and the lowest SWR which I got was about 2:1. I need to try tuning it again to bring down the SWR to near 1:1 and then try again for similar high elevation passes. Yesterday evening I could hear the NA1SS beacon with a 31 degree maximum elevation pass. But there were no stations on the pass.



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