November 2008 - AMSAT-BB - mailman.amsat.org

Re: soundcard modems for pactorIII
by George Henry 26 Nov '08

26 Nov '08

Pactor III is a proprietary protocol developed by SCS for the commercial market and is, I believe, patented, so developing a soundcard program to decode it would land one in legal hot water. So, short answer: No, there are no soundcard modems for Pactor III. George, KA3HSW ----- Original Message ---- > From: Mr Jeffrey L Ross > To: amsat > Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2008 1:44:21 PM > Subject: [amsat-bb] soundcard modems for pactorIII > > hi folks, wondering if their are any soundcard modems for pactor III since I > see the modems are very expensive. Also wondering why they would be so > expensive just to change the mode. anyone running pactor III please contact > me offlist. thank you, kc8gkf > > p.s. sry my post is not all about satilites, but topic of modems here.

3 2

Help for Humber College Students with ISS Contact
by Ken Owen 26 Nov '08

26 Nov '08

Hi folks: A student from Humber College (Toronto) has asked me several questions regarding contacting the ISS. One has to do with receiving a beacon, and the other has to do with antenna polarization. I've urged him to join AMSAT and get on the listserv, but in the mean time, I wonder if anyone can help him out with his questions. Please reply directly to him (paul_je(a)hotmail.com) if you can help. Thanks! Ken, N6KTH From: Paul Je [mailto:paul_je@hotmail.com] Sent: Monday, November 24, 2008 1:17 PM To: Ken Owen Subject: RE: ISS contact Say Ken, we've set up our primary station just fine, but I was wondering if I could ask for your advice. Well, you see, we've tested the transceiver that we have (the ICOM IC-V8000), and we can transmit and receive just fine with it on our circular-polarized HyGain 2m antenna. Also, we did a VSWR test and our loss is minimal with the 75W transceiver that the ICOM produces. Ok, so here's the problem. Even with all the proper testing done, we still can't seem to pick up or hear the 166MHz beacon that the ISS produces. My classmates and I are a bit worried/stressed out. I mean, just on last Friday, we did a test and someone drove at least 5km away from out college and heard us fine with the handheld radio he had. We had a signal strength of 3+ out of 5. He could've drove out even further, but we felt that we did enough testing to know that any attenuation losses were very minimal. Well, do you know what the problem could be? Have you heard the beacon? What does it sound like? Maybe we should delay or advance the rotor by a few seconds? We're using NOVA software, and it allows us to send our transmission a few seconds ahead or behind. Ok, so we have a circular polarized HyGain antenna hooked up to our Yaesu G5500. Uhm, this might sound dumb but do you know whether we should be right hand circular polarized or left hand circular polarized? Is the ISS right hand or left hand on 144.490MHz? I'm trying to research this, but I'm having the hardest time to find this information out. Oh, also, since our antenna is circular-polarized, does the way we set our antenna have an effect on our transmission? I know this sounds confusing, but let me explain: If you looked at our antenna from the front so that you could see all the dipoles/elements both vertically and horizontally to your view, well, should they be perfectly aligned with one set horizontal and one vertical? Both the vertical and the horizontal are perfectly 90degrees to each other, however, instead of being a perfect cross to your view, the elements are more like an "X" to your point of view (even though both are perfectly 90degrees to each other). Well, hope to hear back from you. Paul

6 7

GO-32
by John Hackett 26 Nov '08

26 Nov '08

Hello Folks, Prior to my setting up and modding old rigs for GO-32 9600bps operation I though it prudent to enquire whether anyone is actually using this satellite for message forwarding ??. Thank you, in anticipation of any replies. 73 John. <la2qaa(a)amsat.org>

2 1

The passing of time...CW and satellites
by Roger Kolakowski 26 Nov '08

26 Nov '08

In the realm of CW... It is much regret that I received an email of the passing today of George S. Wilson III W4OYI, former president of the ARRL and staunch supporter of the value of CW in Amateur communications. If you could send it in CW, he could receive it... Roger WA1KAT Note from 2001... "...U.S. Astronaut Susan Helms KC7NHZ took the microphone of NA1SS aboard the International Space Station May 31, 2001 to respond to questions from students at Daviess County High School in Owensboro. The contact marked the 15th Amateur Radio on the International Space Station QSO and the second with a Kentucky school..." "...The audience of students and guests included ARRL President Emeritus George S. Wilson III W4OYI who lives in Owensboro..."

1 0

soundcard modems for pactorIII
by Mr Jeffrey L Ross 26 Nov '08

26 Nov '08

hi folks, wondering if their are any soundcard modems for pactor III since I see the modems are very expensive. Also wondering why they would be so expensive just to change the mode. anyone running pactor III please contact me offlist. thank you, kc8gkf p.s. sry my post is not all about satilites, but topic of modems here.

3 2

CW on FM bird
by Bob Cutter 26 Nov '08

26 Nov '08

How are we sending CW on an FM bird? 73, Bob KI0G

3 5

Re: CW lives
by herr＠ridgenet.net 25 Nov '08

25 Nov '08

Sounds great, count me in for a CW day. 73 Mike WA6ARA

1 0

Re: CW lives - OSCAR Straight Key Night
by n3tl＠bellsouth.net 25 Nov '08

25 Nov '08

Huh ... owning only a really neat Arizona Scorpion all-brass paddle I just picked up recently off eBay, I guess the straight key requirement leaves me out. And I guess using the up and down buttons on my Yaesu hand mic through the keyer wouldn't count either. Dang.... -------------- Original message from k9jkm(a)comcast.net (JoAnne Maenpaa): -------------- > > then we can pick a day and a BIRD and set a time and see how many can > > work each other on a certain pass > > Hello everyone, > There is also Straight Key Night on OSCAR. Below is the announcement that's in preparation for release in the ANS news bulletins and in the next issue of the > AMSAT Journal - now is a good time to get the word out also ... > SKN on OSCAR 2009 All radio amateurs, worldwide, are cordially invited to participate in AMSAT’s > Straight Key Night (SKN) on OSCAR 2009. Participating in SKN on OSCAR 2009 is easy. No rules, no scoring and no need to send in a log. Just operate CW through any OSCAR between 0000 and 2400 UTC on 1 > January 2009, using a straight hand key. In keeping with the friendly nature of this event, all participants are encouraged to nominate someone they worked for "Best Fist." Your nominee need not have the best fist of those you heard, just of those you worked. Please send your nomination to w2rs(a)amsat.org. A list of those nominated will appear in ANS > and The AMSAT Journal. > CU SKN! > Ray Soifer, W2RS > > -- > 73 de JoAnne K9JKM > k9jkm(a)amsat.org > Editor, AMSAT News Service > -------------- Original message -------------- > From: "Jim Danehy" > > > Mark > > > > Tnx for the reply . . . . I look forward to others responding as you did . . > > . then we can pick a day and a BIRD and set a time and see how many can > > work each other on a certain pass . . . that would be GREAT . . . > > > > How about it you CW addicts ? > > > > Jim W9VNE > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Mark Lunday, WD4ELG" > > To: "'Jim Danehy'" ; > > Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2008 11:25 AM > > Subject: RE: [amsat-bb] CW lives > > > > > > > Jim > > > > > > Although new to the birds, sign me up for the CW Day! I am 95% CW, > > > > > > Mark Lunday > > > WD4ELG > > > wd4elg(a)arrl.net > > > http://wd4elg.net > > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Sent via AMSAT-BB(a)amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. > > Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! > > Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/ams at-bb

1 0

bbsat ideas...
by Mark Vandewettering 25 Nov '08

25 Nov '08

Nice thought provoking question, Joanne. Here's an off-the-cuff idea. I haven't tried to work out any of the numbers, it's just some idle musing. It has occurred to me that we are in the midst of a minor revolution in amateur radio (which will undoubtedly be followed by a more major revolution). In the last 10 years, cheap computing and sound cards have caused a great deal of experimentation with "sound card modes" (the minor revolution), and will ultimately lead to the major revolution (widespread use of SDR). We have a kind of flexibility that we couldn't think of even a few years ago, a flexibility that we gain from Moore's law. So here's an idea: let's do away with the need for Doppler correction entirely. It's not like we don't have decent orbital elements for the satellites that we use. It's not like our ground stations don't have accurate timing information available to them. Even if we didn't, we could still output a (coded?) carrier that our soundcard modem could lock onto, and then transmit relative to that frequency. Given the relatively limited amount of power that we are likely to have in a cubesat, the question then becomes what is the best way to use that power? It seems unlikely that any kind of linear transponder will allow more than just a couple of users meaningful access. I'd suggest it might make more sense to do some kind of digital transponder. I'm imagining a satellite which monitors a chunk of spectrum roughly the size of a current SSB signal, say 2.4khz. Imagine that space was divided into (say) 10 channels, each 240hz wide. We could easily fit a PSK63 signal (or a similar FSK signal, pick your poison) in that space. You could use a bent pipe crossband transponder, or potentially do a simplex repeater (say the sat listens for 10 seconds, then re-echoes for 10 seconds) on the same uplink frequency. If you are a downlink station, you know what you sent, and can tell if your signal got collided with, and if so, you can switch to another of the 10 slots. In the mean time, you can easily monitor all of the other slots as well, and try to pick an unoccupied one. While it might be difficult for a power-efficient controller to actually _decode_ each of the 10 channels, it probably could determine which channels are busy itself by monitoring power in each of the channels. Maybe we can fill unused slots with telemetry? Or can we actually get enough DSP power into a cubesat to decode 10 channels of PSK (or some similar protocol), which would help a lot (the bird only transmits stuff, and what it transmits is free from noise/errors). If not 10 channels, then how 'bout 5? 2? Even one? Then, we basically have a simple digipeater, which can obviously be done, given the existance of 1200 baud modems based upon PIC microcontrollers. Just some lunacy... Mark KF6KYI

5 6

CW lives
by Jim Danehy 25 Nov '08

25 Nov '08

I am a CW op. This morning I had a real treat to work Tony, K8ALM; Stan W3QBK and Mike, W8AB on FO 29 and VO 52 within a few minutes of each other. WOW . . . we missed the regulars : K9CIS and K9QHO. I think all of us are probably retirees. Need to get N3TE and AJ9K on there too. KE7ULS pounds some pretty good brass and when the footprint is out West that nationally known QST photographer, Bob , W7LRD pounds through. Just great to work these guys. Talk about QSK break in . . . .maybe we can have a large CW QSO on FO 29 . . . AO 7 suffers from old age. Just great to work these guys as often as I can . . .Maybe we can have a CW Day on the birds . . . 73 Jim W9VNE EM79tb

2 2