Technical papers are solicited for presentation at the 26th Annual ARRL
and TAPR Digital Communications Conference to be held September 28-30,
2007 in Hartford, Connecticut. These papers will also be published in
the Conference Proceedings (you do NOT need to attend the conference to
have your paper included in the Proceedings). The submission deadline is
July 31, 2007. Please send papers to:
Maty Weinberg
ARRL
225 Main St
Newington, CT 06111
or you can make your submission via e-mail to: maty(a)arrl.org
Papers will be published exactly as submitted and authors will retain
all rights.
73 . . . Steve, WB8IMY
ARRL
Steve,
I have both a commercial and a homebrew Eggbeater and am disappointed with both, especially in light of its rather high price. Connected to my IC-7000 via an ARR mast-mounted preamp, performance is far less than with an HT and an Arrow. Guess an omni can't cut it, at least not from my QTH.
Maybe if I could get it up higher, clear of all roofs, it would do better. I can make contacts at relatively high sat elevations, but can do just as well with a $10 dual band ground plane. My friend has an Eggbeater and the same preamp at a clearer QTH, and he hears substantially better, down to 10 degrees elevation in some directions.
Good luck and 73,
Bill NZ5N
> > Hi Steve,
> >
> > It is surprising to read that you are not hearing
> anything. I have
> > repeatedly used a 2m and 70cm Eggbeater for the sats
> and have had no
> > problem hearing things. No pre-amp.
> >
> > I was using a short cable (e.g. less than 10 meters).
> The rigs I
> > used were a FT-736r (deaf) and a FT-847 (so-so).
> >
> > 73,
> >
> > Dave
We have met the enemy and they are us. WE need to do something. Yes, $15m is
outta reach, but isn't there a cash prize for the first on-commercial moon
landing?
Dave
DM78qd // KA0SWT
If it weren't for Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of television, we'd still be
eating frozen radio dinners.-- Johnny Carson
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
-----Original Message-----
From: amsat-bb-bounces(a)amsat.org [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of Jeff Davis
Sent: Thursday, July 02, 2009 9:35 AM
To: amsat-bb(a)amsat.org
Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: The Moon is our Future
On Thu, Jul 02, 2009 at 06:48:51AM -0600, Jack K. wrote:
> communications anyway) and move forward... We can put up all the leos
> we want, but until someone makes something like B. Bruninga's cell
> concept work, we are only going to have more of the same, We don't
> need more of the same!
I couldn't agree more - we don't need more of the same.
If I want to sit back and have a two hour rag-chew with someone on the other
side of the planet I will use Skype or my cell phone!
Dreaming about what *might* be in space is a fun exercise. Actually doing
something about it requires sending things to LEO because reality has
dictated that's as far as we can afford to go.
How's about we use some of that frustrated *imagineering* to come up with
interesting new concepts at LEO? We don't need any more FM repeaters buzzing
overhead, but what about more cameras downloading HD images, scientific
payloads that monitor the ongoing climate change, payloads to study the
Earth's magnetic field, etc. etc. Our own 'Twitter' messaging network from
space...?
The Apollo 13 creed of "failure is not an option" has completely infected
the brains at AMSAT and this list. You want something at HEO or on the moon,
cut a check for $15 million dollars and let's get on with it. Been waiting
since 1996 for another AO-13 and I am getting too old to keep waiting.
AMSAT is becoming completely irrelevant as it strives without success for
the impossible mission and exhibits a shocking amount of leadership
malfesance as it stubbornly refuses to recognize and adapt to realities in
the launch business.
I know, I know maybe NEXT year someone rich will die and leave us a boatload
of cash. Or the bankrupt US government will suddenly cough up a billion
dollars for some orbiting emergency communication system. In the meantime we
have to stifle the truth because it might blow yet another *secret* deal
that's in the works and *almost* a done deal, so let's not complain publicly
and ruin it.
Heard the stories, heard the lies, got all the t-shirts and ball caps.
Whatever.
--
Jeff, KE9V
AMSAT-NA member since 1994,
Skeptic that we will ever go back to HEO since 2002
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There are some of us out here who are trying to bring a little order to
the chaos and help AMSAT, but we are all not working on ARISSat-1.
Our effort lies in the following vectors and scalars:
- Change needs to be EVOLUTIONARY not REVOLUTIONARY.
- Chaos can be harnessed with the correct application of traceability.
- The future leads through the correct application of effort
There are clouds of dust on the horizon . . . . . with the sound of many
hoof-beats in the distance . . . . . is that a bugle call-to-arms I hear
on the wind?
Those who know, understand. Those who need to know will find out soon
enough.
I will leave you with these two thoughts until next time . . .
* Look to the Empire State near the Harvest Moon.
* A gift may arrive near the ides of May.
*Dobranocz*
I just thought I'd drop a quick note here about some fun I've been
having today with satellite orbit prediction in Python. When I
started mucking around with satellites, I used "predict", which was
pretty good, but at some point I wanted to answer some questions which
weren't easy to answer using predict. Questions like "when will
AO-51 be visible from both my home in CM87 and locations in Hawaii",
or "what was the radius of the circle of visibility for AO-7 compared
to ISS"?
Luckily, I'm a programmer. In fact, I'm a programmer who programs
for fun. So, I did a bit of research, and then coded up a version of
G3RUH's "Plan 13" algorithm in Python, and then wrote some scripts to
download elements from celestrak, and then a simple one to print data
on the next pass of any named satellite. And, they worked pretty
good. I've used them for the last year or so to do all my pass
predictions. But there are still a couple of minor issues with the
library. It didn't handle geosynchronous satellites very well. It
implemented only the most basic of orbital models. I was never
confident that the "is this satellite in eclipse" stuff working
exactly right.
Luckily though, it turns out that someone else has been busy writing a
more complete library: PyEphem http://rhodesmill.org/pyephem/
It's a library whose primary purpose is to calculate the positions of
astronomical objects. I've used it a couple of times to (for
instance) figure out the size of Mars compared to Jupiter, and found
it very easy to use. But today, I realized that it had a full
implementation of the SGP4 and SDP4 orbital models built in, and could
be used to predict satellite passes. As a proof of concept, I
hacked together a 23 line script that could print the details of
upcoming ISS passes. It seems to work great, and is really quite
easy to use.
You can find some of the simple example code at my blog:
http://brainwagon.org/2009/09/27/how-to-use-python-to-predict-satellite-loc…
I'll probably be porting all of my existing scripts to use this soon.
In the mean time, if you have a similar task, you might look to it to
solve your custom satellite prediction problems.
73 Mark K6HX
Hi all,
A quick update to my new project to improving the Arrow antenna, efficiency
wise. I wanted to see how well it would perform on gaining and losing
access during AOS and LOS. AO-27 is not a good choice since the timer is
turned on when it is well above the AOS horizon and it is switched off
before it reaches its LOS horizon. That leaves a dependable AO-51 to test
it out.
With the last setup, the OEM diplexer provided by Arrow Antenna, I would
copy AO-51 about 3 minutes after AOS and lose it about 3 to 4 minutes before
LOS. Not bad, but people were saying they worked the birds when they were 1
degree off of the horizon. I have some pine trees that could be an issue
but they are spaced far enough apart that I can work between them and I also
have to deal with the McCollough Range to the SSE of me here in Las Vegas,
NV. Today, there were 2 passes of AO-51, one at 12 degrees elevation, the
other at 74 degrees. During both passes, I began to copy the downlink about
a 1.25 minute after AOS. A considerable difference from 3 minutes. The
downlink also improved down to about minute before LOS. On the last pass I
worked KG6NUB at 0124z and LOS was 0125z and my downlink sounded fairly
good, though I was fighting desense. (That's another issue I need to
resolve.) Also, on both passes, I never once lost the downlink. No
dropouts or fades. I'm still amazed.
Another issue I came across was how wide the beamwidth is of the Arrow
Antenna between the Arrow diplexer and the new diplexer. I was wondering if
this was going to happen and it did. The reason that this happened was with
the old diplexer, the signal attenuated so much that you had to be pointed
right smack dab on the bird, a few degrees off and you lost the signal.
Now, with the new diplexer, you can point the beam in the general direction
and still copy the bird. In most cases I had to turn the beam 90 degrees
before I completely lost the downlink! Twisting the antenna to make
polarization changes makes absolutely no difference now. This also
attributes to the fact that now I'm copying the entire pass without dropouts
or fades. Makes sense. What I've regained over the lossy diplexer makes up
for any polarization differences, etc. for a better copiable signal.
Next weekend I will have to try more passes and get a feel of how much this
system has changed.
73,
Jeff WB3JFS
Las Vegas, NV
DM26
Hi All,
The house I just bought precludes me from even using my arrow inside as
there must be something un-RF friendly in the walls. Therefore, I was
looking for a roof antenna and the October QST article on the QFH inspired
me to build one. However, after doing some research, I have come up with two
sets of design specs and I'm unsure which one is correct.
I converted everything from you're the 146Mhz QST model to 436Mhz. However,
when I plug that info into http://www.jcoppens.com/ant/qfh/calc.en.php
The values it puts out are different in the "compensated length" field. The
only difference is this model calculates for a full turn as opposed to a
half turn, but the lengths shouldn't be as different as it says. Under the
QST model, I get a wavelength of 688mm, but under the website's model, it
gives me a "compensated wavelength" of 729mm.
The values I used to calculate are:
436
1
1
15
2
.23
Can anyone tell me which specs to use and/or explain this compensated
wavelength issue?
Thank you,
Tim
KI6VBY
Hi folks,
Thanks for the entries so far.
It has been pointed out that I didn't allow much time, so the closing date is now one day later, midnight October 1st
To enter this fun competition send me your best estimate for the re-entry date and time for Cute 1.7 Object 28941
Spacetrack suggests October 10th but I think it will be several days later.
The prize for the closest prediction is a 2.4GHz patch antenna kit as shown on the Amsat-UK shop page under hardware.
73 John G7HIA
Don't forget to work the Thursday evening passes and listen for, and work,
college club stations. On AO-51 we'll be on the QRP transponder. AO-7
should be in mode B that evening. HAMSAT has been little used and is a
great bird, with some nice passes that evening. Activity will be centered
on passes starting Thursday Oct. 1st 22:00 UTC through 05:00 UTC. U of
Kansas (K0KU), Stanford (W6YX), UF Gators (W4DFU) and Rochester IT (K2GXT)
have already confirmed they will be on. Other clubs have been active during
past events including U Michigan, Michigan State U, U Kentucky. U Arkansas,
Naval Academy, and others.
Please give college station priority on the QRP transponder on AO-51 that
evening and let them work everyone they can. No good deed should go
unrewarded.look for an award certificate program in the near future for
working college club stations on satellite. We have asked the clubs to QSL
those that they work and appreciate your patience in letting the club
stations have priority for the evening.
Jay, AA4FL
It's great to see the diagrams of ARISSAT-1 up on the web site:
congratulations to KF4KSS and everyone who contributed. Can anyone
describe the nature of the experiment from Kursk University that is
going to be included in the satellite?
73, Bruce
VE9QRP