so ive been wanting to try satellite work for a while and finally got around to setting up for it last weekend. running a FT-818 and a pair of arrow antennas, the II/III cross yagi one that everybody seems to use. got gpredict running on the laptop and it's tracking fine, passes look right compared to what heavens-above shows so i think that part is good.

my problem is with the linear transponders. i understand the concept of doppler correction at least in theory — uplink goes up in frequency as the bird approaches and down as it recedes, and the downlink does the opposite since its inverting. but when im actually on the pass i feel like im spending the whole time twisting knobs and never actually making a contact. tried AO-73 a couple times and i can hear signals on the downlink passband, sometimes pretty clearly, but by the time i think i found my own downlink and corrected back to where i should be transmitting, the pass is half over.

is there a trick to this that im missing or is it just a practice thing. do most people set the doppler correction to automatic somehow or are you really just manually tweaking the whole time. feels like im fighting the radio more than using it.

yeah the first few passes are rough, honestly it took me probably 10-15 passes before i felt like i wasnt completely lost the whole time. a few things that helped me — first, if gpredict supports CAT control for your radio it can do the doppler tuning automatically which is a huge help, worth looking into if you havent already. the 818 should work with that.

the other thing is on a linear bird like AO-73 or SO-50 (well SO-50 is FM but you know what i mean), find your downlink first before you even think about transmitting. tune around the passband and find a clear spot or a beacon if the bird has one. then you kinda know where the passband center is and you can work from there. transmit a short low power burst and listen for yourself — with the inverting transponder if you tune up on the uplink youll hear your downlink go down, which gets confusing but once it clicks in your head it makes more sense. just takes reps basically.

the arrow antenna is solid for this, good choice. one thing i didnt see you mention is are you doing full duplex or are you transmitting and then switching to receive to hear yourself? if youre not doing full duplex that makes it way harder because you literally cant hear yourself while youre transmitting to correct in real time. the 818 can do it but you need two radios or a rig that supports split operation properly for sat work, a lot of guys use like an old VX-7R or something for the uplink and a separate receiver for downlink. just something to think about if thats the issue