September 2006 - AMSAT-BB - mailman.amsat.org

FS: Gulf Alpha EasySat Dual Band Yagi *SOLD*
by John Zaruba Jr 09 Sep '06

09 Sep '06

Thanks to everyone for their interest and the use of the bandwidth. 73, John AA2BN AMSAT 22683

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want this
by w7lrd＠comcast.net 09 Sep '06

09 Sep '06

On a related subject, seems like I read somewhere that some C-band experimenters were considering using s-band units for the final conversion from 5 GHz? In other words, the C-band converter would only need to convert from 5 GHz to 2 GHz, and let the surplus s-band units do the rest? Anyone know any more about this subject? The above was gleened from all the lateset gnashing. Is or does anyone know of work being done of 5ghz receive systems? I have a bunch of old C band receivers and C band LNA/LNB a 12 foot TVRO. I am not and engineer, but I can follow directions. Just get me started I would like to get ahead of the curve. 5ghz will be in our future, ready or not! 73 Bob W7LRD Seattle

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Dr. Bob is Correct
by John Champa 09 Sep '06

09 Sep '06

Greetings All! As many of you have done, I have been tracking satellite design and construction for years. If we have learned one thing, it is that this is not your Dad's Amateur Radio. Legacy ground gear investment is irrelevant. We must go where the engineering constraints lead us. If that is to 10 GHz, then so be it. And, digital is the future of Amateur Radio (and all other radios) anyway. Besides, I will do nearly anything not to have to mess around on the roof again with that huge long-boomed 145 MHz cross-polarized yagi. You could shoot you eye out! (HI) John - K8OCL

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Re: S band and Eagle: an appeal for a higher level discussion
by Tom Clark, K3IO 09 Sep '06

09 Sep '06

At the risk of bodily attack, let me offer some comments on the topic that has produced so much AMSAT-BB traffic. The Eagle Mode-S decision was made at the conclusion of an intense, but very productive design meeting held in San Diego, just 2 months ago, at the end of June. In case you feel that we haven't told you what went on and why the radical changes, please refer to the very latest (July/August) AMSAT JOURNAL for some of the details of the meeting. In particular, I ask you to read Rick's (W2GPS) editorial on Page 3, and Bob's (N4HY) "Engineering Notebook" beginning with "Warning: Honesty Follows" on pages 9/10, and the Jim's (WB4GCS) Eagle Update on pages 24/25. Also, you can glean some details of the meeting and its conclusions in the K3IO/N4HY presentation at the Central States VHF Society (CSVHFS) Meeting in July; that material is on my personal website at http://mysite.verizon.net/~w3iwi/EAGLE_CSVHFS.pdf <http://mysite.verizon.net/%7Ew3iwi/EAGLE_CSVHFS.pdf> (~3.9 MB in size) or in its full-blown (a huge 19MB in size) PowerPoint version as http://mysite.verizon.net/~w3iwi/EAGLE_CSVHFS.ppt <http://mysite.verizon.net/%7Ew3iwi/EAGLE_CSVHFS.ppt>. As you can see from the pictures in Bob's Engineering Notebook, the meeting included your AMSAT President (W2GPS), VP of Engineering (N4HY), Eagle Project Manager (WB4GCS) and two Board members (W2GPS & K3IO). To answer one oft-posed question, the entire Board has not met since the June meeting; the material constitutes the current "best guess" engineering forecast, and the Board has been told of the conclusions (and they have read the Journal); but as of now no votes have been taken. Feel free to contact the Board members if you feel that your desires have not been taken into consideration. A full list appears on Page 3 of the Journal, and all can be reached by Email addressed to call(a)amsat.org. After the design group went through careful estimates of the link budgets for each of the classes of users we considered (see Jim's paper on Page 24 and/or my CSVHFS presentation), and considered the feasibility of making the spacecraft work, we came to the conclusion that my C-C Rider concept wouldn't fly; there was no way we could obtain enough T/R isolation for full-duplex operation, and using half-duplex with the time delays associated with a satellite 40,000 km away was impractical. C'est la vie. We considered the RFI environment carefully (see my CSVHFS paper for details) as it would exist 10 years from now. Why 10 years? Well, it will take us 3-4 years to fly Eagle, and then we hope it will last and be useful for at least a decade, so a 10 year forecast seemed about right. In that time frame, many of us (me especially) feel that the European Galileo GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System, i.e. GPS) (and possibly similar systems being designed in Japan & China) will have prime DOWNLINK signals overlaying our 1260-1270 MHz UPLINK band. The signals being sent down may well be deemed critical for "Safety of Life" services; it is not unlikely (double negative used intentionally) that administrations may cancel out our L-band uplink so those "damned Hams can't cause an A380 with 500 people on board to crash!". Since weight, power and volunteer engineering talent are all finite resources, we came to the conclusion that it was not prudent for us to invest in an L-band uplink. C'est la vie. We then considered the S1 (13 cm) and S2 (9 cm) allocations. It's a pity that amateurs cannot use the S2 = 9 cm (3400 MHz) band in Region 1; it would be PERFECT as an alternate to L-band. I argued long and hard for it and was beaten down. However, it might find some use for telemetry downlinks. The 10 GHz = X-band and higher microwave frequencies were considered as possible interesting channels for experimental use, but not really practical for "heavy lifting" transponders. C'est la vie. I'll come back to S1 & C-band in a bit. During the discussions we put in hard numbers for each of the possible bands for each of the classes of users we envisioned (See Jim's article on Page 23 and my slides). We were already planning on the use of a Mode-B (70 cm up, 2M down) Software Defined Transponder (SDX) which would be PERFECT for the legacy "Class-0" users. We then discussed our desire for a new Class-1 service. This is envisioned as a service which can send short text messages from portable hand-held terminals, rather like the SMS messaging service in wide use by teen-agers and similar to Bob Bruninga's APRS messaging. The idea is based in a desire to have Amateur Radio ready for the next Katrina or Christmas Tsunami disaster. When we put in the link budget numbers for hand-held terminals (including antennas) with a satellite at 40,000 km range, it also dictated the use of Mode-B. (Detailed spreadsheets justifying this conclusion are posted on EaglePedia). In fact, Fran Brickle (AB2KT) is already hard at work on the protocol and SDX code and plans to present a paper at San Diego. Now let's turn our attention to the controversial S-band topic. Jan King (W3GEY/VK4GEY) presented quantitative results that he and Kerry Banke (N6IZW) had obtained in San Diego, Palo Alto & Queensland on the 2.4 GHz RFI environment. He indicated that, even in the midst of a field hundreds of meters from the nearest building, the RFI levels were 20+ dB above thermal as seen with a non-directional antenna. Others in the meeting reported anecdotal data that noise levels in some small towns had increased 60+ dB in three years since WiFi systems were installed. Several people in the meeting told the effects of the newer (802.11G and 802.11DraftN) 50-100 Mbit/s systems and discussed plans that they new industry had in the pipeline that will make the situation even worse. This is especially true on the 10+ year time scales that Eagle must be designed for. In my CSVHFS paper, you will see a slide that says "S-Band is a Sewer". Part of this is our own inadvertent fault. With AO-40 & AO-51, we use S-Band in a receive mode. The non-licensed users have no idea that we are occupying the frequency. What better way to clear them out (now here's a radical thought) than by TRANSMITTING instead of receiving! And we noted the easy availability of surplus S-band power amplifiers at the 5-30 watt level. Thus S-band lost its "beauty" for downlink and became a band for uplinks. And we noted that in locations where a fairly high power ATV repeater was operating on S-band, the QRM was a LOT less. Yes, this decision was based on incomplete data. It would be wonderful if many of you took the challenge to make quantitative measurements of the S-band RFI levels in multiple locations. Just take your S-band LNA, put on a low-gain antenna and measure the difference in background noise level between that antenna and a 50 ohm dummy load as accurately as you can. You will get better accuracy if you can use a wide measurement bandwidth (10-100 kHz or so). Remember to disable your receiver's AGC. A good spectrum analyzer would be an excellent choice to use as the detector. Please feel free to send me any such measurements along with notes on the equipment you used and the environment where you made the tests (urban, rural, etc). My Email address is mailto:[email protected]. Since L and S2 had been ruled out for reasons described above, this left us with the possibility of using C-band as a DOWNLINK. There are some concerns about the 802.11A/cordless phone/etc QRM, but we noted that the Amateur Satellite DOWNLINK band is above most of the crap (5830-5850 MHz). The work I had done on C-C Rider had shown that, with a phased array antenna and a power amplifier at each element, we could generate adequate power so that a Class-A user with a 50 cm diameter (i.e. DirecTV) dish would have good performance. The S/C links were designed as digital links. The uplink signals would have error correction coding that would be decoded at the spacecraft, and then sent down with "fresh" codes on the downlink. This makes the satellite links much easier (by tens of dB) than if they were "bent pipe" linear links. The users would be able to use any type of signal they desire (Voice, SSTV or even CW). In all this design work, we took into account that the typical user does not have the digital and S/C RF widgets. The plan is to develop the user's hardware at the same time, in parallel with the spacecraft hardware; AMSAT would then make this available to all. We envisioned using the TAPR TNC-2 model -- TAPR "seeded" the community by distributing a few hundred kits, and then licensed the design to commercial manufacturers. In conclusion, I ask you, the satellite users to consider what will be the state-of-the-art and the state of amateur radio in the window 5-15 years from now. It may be painful to admit that you invested in an S-band down converted and barbecue grill dish for a now-defunct AO-40. Just consider the big picture -- I've been around long enough to think back on the early 70s: People had cobbled together 2M CW transmitters for use on Mode-A with AO-6. Then AO-7 came along with Mode-B and the loud cry went up "Now we have to throw away our 2M transmitters and then figure out how to make a transmitter that can work on UHF!!". And when the lower frequency transmitters failed on AO-40, people had to listen on S-band. Admit it -- it wasn't all that hard to accept new technology. 73 de Tom, K3IO

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Mode B equipment for eagle (fwd)
by McGrane 09 Sep '06

09 Sep '06

Quick follow-up before I'm inundated; Of course I would resolve the antenna pointing pointing issue, pat ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 9 Sep 2006 07:46:45 -0400 (EDT) From: McGrane <tmcgrane(a)suffolk.lib.ny.us> To: Amsat BB <amsat-bb(a)amsat.org> Subject: Mode B equipment for eagle Greetings In the past couple of years, I have set up a very cheap satellite station for mode B. I had a 2 meter all-mode mobile rig (FT480R) I paid 50 dollars for connected to a cushcraft 4 element Yagi beam. I purchased a 70 centimeter FT790RII for $125 and made a homebrew 8 element Yagi. Antennas are monted on single azimuth rotator mast and angled up about 10 degrees. This setup works extremely well for hamsat (VO-52). Now, going from LEO hamsat to HEO Eagle, I will probably have to make a longer UHF yagi and add an amplifier, Also a longer VHF beam. I already have a mirage 2 meter amp with built in preamp. If the coax is short as it is now, I can use the amp's preamp. I saw a reference in one of the flurry of emails mentioning a 1KW ERP SSB station for eagle. Right now, for UHF, I'm at about 250 watts ERP. Either adding an amp or making a new antenna will bring me up to 1KW ERP or more. Am I on the right path? Will I be able to add to this equipment to work Eagle or will something totally new be required for mode B ? Thanks for ideas, Patrick N2OEQ

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Mode B equipment for eagle
by McGrane 09 Sep '06

09 Sep '06

Greetings In the past couple of years, I have set up a very cheap satellite station for mode B. I had a 2 meter all-mode mobile rig (FT480R) I paid 50 dollars for connected to a cushcraft 4 element Yagi beam. I purchased a 70 centimeter FT790RII for $125 and made a homebrew 8 element Yagi. Antennas are monted on single azimuth rotator mast and angled up about 10 degrees. This setup works extremely well for hamsat (VO-52). Now, going from LEO hamsat to HEO Eagle, I will probably have to make a longer UHF yagi and add an amplifier, Also a longer VHF beam. I already have a mirage 2 meter amp with built in preamp. If the coax is short as it is now, I can use the amp's preamp. I saw a reference in one of the flurry of emails mentioning a 1KW ERP SSB station for eagle. Right now, for UHF, I'm at about 250 watts ERP. Either adding an amp or making a new antenna will bring me up to 1KW ERP or more. Am I on the right path? Will I be able to add to this equipment to work Eagle or will something totally new be required for mode B ? Thanks for ideas, Patrick N2OEQ

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SO-50 Not Heard at 2200z... CORRECTION
by Eric H Christensen 09 Sep '06

09 Sep '06

Opps, forgot the time in my original message... Just took the arrow and the HT out to the driveway to work SO-50 and didn't hear anything. I attempted to activate the bird numerous times but still nothing. Did anyone hear/work the bird on this pass? 73s, Eric KF4OTN

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10 september balloon with x repeater active!
by Cor 09 Sep '06

09 Sep '06

Hello All, At 10 september 2006 is a balloon fox hunt event in Holland. On the balloon is also a 70cm->2m crossband repeater active. Uplink: 432.550Mhz Downlink: 145.475Mhz (mode FM). You do not have to correct doppler. Other equipment mounted on the balloon. 80m. beacon active on 3.582Mhz (1 watt FSK). 2m. beacon active on 145.450Mhz ATV video transceiver 2330Mhz (with a camera looking to earth). Maybe the message above does not belong in the amsat mail reflector - but I'm sure many satellite enthusiasts (here in europe) might like to trie the balloon repeater. In 2005 I have worked 5 different countries via the balloon x rep. (F/G/ON/PA/DL). More info about this nice event you can see on the official balloon fox hunt website. http://www.ballonvossenjacht.nl/gbtaal.html Check tommorow last updates each time!!! Also check the DX cluster. 73's Cor PD0RKC http://www.pd0rkc.com

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SuitSat-1 return
by Masahiro Arai 09 Sep '06

09 Sep '06

Alititude of SuitSat-1 is decreasing drastically. Its alititude at 1330z 8th Sep was about 150km. SuitSat-1 must have returned the Earth. Many thanks, SuitSat-1!! Masa JN1GKZ Tokyo Japan

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ECHO
by McGrane 09 Sep '06

09 Sep '06

greetings- ECHO has been hugely popular this week with the higher power downlink. Thanks to the ops team for conducting this. It sounds to me like quite a few people are trying to access the satellite during continental US passes. I still hear quite a few regulars and very few new people. How about the regulars take a vacation this weekend so some new people can get their first contact? Thanks, pat N2OEQ

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