ok so ive been messing around with satellite ops for about 3 months now and i finally got a decent pass on FO-29 last weekend. running a 2m/70cm cross yagi setup, manually tracking with a rotator that's... well, lets say its temperamental. anyway i could hear myself on the downlink but every time i tried to adjust for doppler the signal just kind of wandered all over the place and i couldnt hold a solid copy on anything. other stations were audible but like, barely.

the thing thats tripping me up is the linear transponder behavior. i know on an inverting transponder if you tune up on the uplink your signal goes down on the downlink, i get that part conceptually. but in practice when im trying to compensate for doppler on both bands simultaneously while also trying to not lose the satellite because my rotator is being weird, it turns into kind of a disaster. is there a standard workflow people use for this or am i just supposed to practice until it becomes muscle memory? also does anyone run separate VFOs on completely different radios for this or is there a smarter way

yeah the inverting transponder thing takes a while to get wired into your brain honestly. what helped me was setting up the rig so i only chase doppler on the downlink and let the uplink sit. the idea being that the other station is doing the same, so you kind of find each other in the middle. it's not perfect but for a short LEO pass you dont really have time to be fussing with both VFOs at once anyway, especially if your rotator is eating your attention too.

for the two radio thing — a lot of people do it. one radio dedicated to the downlink, one for uplink, and you mentally separate the doppler correction for each band. 70cm shifts a lot faster than 2m so the downlink on FO-29 needs more babysitting. there's doppler correction software like GPredict that can drive CAT-capable rigs automatically which is genuinely nice once you get it set up, though getting the CAT control talking to two radios is its own adventure depending on what you're running.

FO-29 is kind of a rough one to start on tbh because the transponder is getting old and the passband is pretty narrow. i had the same exact problem when i started, thought i was doing everything wrong but half the time it was just the bird being finicky. SO-50 is FM so theres no transponder weirdness, might be worth doing a few passes on that first just to get your rotator tracking dialed in without also fighting the linear transponder learning curve at the same time. once you're comfortable with the mechanical side of it the inverting transponder stuff is less overwhelming