so ive been chasing LEO satellites for the past couple weekends and i honestly cant figure out if im doing something wrong or if my expectations are just way off. im using a vx-6r with a cheap arrow antenna, manually doppler correcting as best i can, and i can hear the downlink on SO-50 pretty clearly during good passes but nobody seems to hear me when i try to get in. like i can hear full qsos happening but my calls just vanish into the void.

im tracking with heavens-above and gpredict on my laptop which is sitting next to me, so the azimuth and elevation data should be at least close. passes above maybe 30 degrees elevation i can hear fine. below that its pretty marginal but thats expected i think. my main question is whether the issue is likely power, my uplink doppler correction timing, antenna polarization, or just the learning curve of getting into a pile of people trying to hit the same FM bird at once. probably some combination of all of that but curious what experience people have had. also does anyone actually work AO-27 anymore or is that thing basically dead at this point

the FM birds are honestly kind of brutal for getting your first contact because everyone and their brother is on them and the transponder just gets hammered. SO-50 especially. my first few times i had the exact same experience — crystal clear audio on the downlink, total silence from my end going up. turned out i wasnt holding the PTT long enough before talking, the subaudible 67hz tone on SO-50 needs a moment to open the squelch on the bird and if you just key up and immediately start calling youre already halfway through your callsign before the repeater even opens. try keying a beat early and see if that helps.

also the polarization thing is real but honestly at 5w into an arrow youre probably fine there. the bigger thing is just timing your doppler correction — on the uplink you want to be a little high at AOS and work your way down, opposite of what you do on the downlink. gpredict can actually drive a rig via CAT if you have the right cable, worth setting up if you havent.

AO-27 is basically a zombie at this point, dont bother. hit SO-50 or wait for a good AO-91 pass. and yeah what the other guy said about the tone is spot on, got me too when i started. once you get your first contact on an FM bird honestly think about jumping to the linear transponders on something like FO-29 or AO-73 because the FM stuff gets old fast and working SSB through a sat is a completely different thing. way harder but way more satisfying