Here a few few quick pointers which might help you.

Visit as many amateur radio satellites web sites on the internet as you can. In particular visit the AMSAT-North America (AMSAT-NA) site at www.amsat.org. This site contains a wealth of information and articles.

Find away of determining where the satellite you are attempting to listen to is at any given moment. Try looking at http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/tools/predict/ (part of the AMSAT North America website) or other web sites on our links page which allow the determination of a satellites position. Alternatively, obtain some satellite tracking software you can run on your PC. (See our shop pages)

There are two main recommended paper books. The first is "Guide to Oscar Operating" by Richard Limebear, G3RWL, available from AMSAT-UK (see our shop pages). The second is "The Radio Amateur's Satellite Handbook" by Martin Davidoff, K2UBC. This book is available from the Radio Society of Great Britain and costs approximately £10.00

Select a satellite for which you have a suitable receiver. Some can be received using simple omni directional antenna, but better results with a larger number of satellites can usually be obtained with modest directional antennas of the type very often found in existing amateur radio set ups. To start with concentrate on being able to receive the satellite's beacon transmission. Once you are confident at doing this, move onto receiving signals from other amateur stations which are being retransmitted by the satellite. Very often, the FM satellites are the easiest to receive, but be aware that they generally are only overhead for a maximum of 15 minutes at a time.

You do not need generally need antennas which are adjustable in elevation (although many for very best results, they are desirable). Generally, low earth orbit satellites (the ones in an orbit similar to the International Space station) spend most of there time at elevations less than 60 degrees at any point on the earth; hence, say, a 6 element U/VHF beam, fixed at an elevation of 30 degrees will prove very satisfactory.

If you are trying to receive a particular satellite, you may like to visit http://oscar.dcarr.org/ to see if anyone else has succeeded! The site is still (Nov 2003) 'experimental', but has been producing stable results for some months.

For more information on UO-11 see Cilve Wallis's web site at http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/clivew/oscar11.htm and for a wealth of practical information on using satellites, go to Howard Long's site at www.g6lvb.com

And of course (!), join AMSAT-UK to get the latest news, and support the amateur