March 2010 - AMSAT-BB - mailman.amsat.org

Hudson Valley Satcom Group Net At 8PM EDT Tonight March 18 On N2EYH-L
by Cotejaune2＠aol.com 18 Mar '10

18 Mar '10

Hello all. Hopefully we will be on Echolink tonight. I have not been able to contact our club Director of engineering to confirm Echolink will be up. Hope to hear you there. 73 Gary/WA2AQH

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Low AO51 pass from Hawaii
by Robert Smith 18 Mar '10

18 Mar '10

Aloha All If my software is correct I see a 1.0 degree max. el. pass of AO51 at 0146Z this afternoon. That should provide nice coverage of the western portion of the US for me. I've had either fantastic results or no results whatsoever on these ultra low passes. No QSOs if I dont try tho! So, I will pack up my gear and try to be at the beach in time for the pass. If you do not have BL11 yet you might give me a call. Mahalo and 73. Respectfully, robert NH7WN

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Re: Presentation in Illinois
by Clint Bradford 18 Mar '10

18 Mar '10

>> ... What is this "100 mile" limit that you speak of? Nothing written anywhere, Patrick. Heck, I'm driving to PACIFICON later this year to give my show, and that's 400 miles each way. And San Diego this Fall is more than 100 miles each way. Actually, my accountant put that number in my head. When she realized that I was leaving the house at 3 or 3:30 to beat traffic for an engagement, and getting home 'bout 11pm or so, she asked me to think of a "100 mile" number. I didn't understand what she was trying to get at. But she treats me well, and helps me with all this stuff come tax time. Clint, K6LCS

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Effective Presentations
by Clint Bradford 18 Mar '10

18 Mar '10

CAUTION: I get REALLY WORDY in this post. If you reply, PLEASE edit/trim so that my ears won't turn red from people being mad at me for re-re-re-reading such a long post. Thank you. -Clint Bradford You run into the most pleasant people here and in the field speadin' the AMSAT gospel. I have had three fellow AMSATters contact me in the past week, asking for a copy of the presentation I give on working the sats with handheld radios. My immediate response is that I am humbled that someone would want a copy. But I drafted what follows and passes it along as a reply. And it has opened up great private conversations with fellow educators. >> If you were and wouldn't mind, I'd be interested in having it available for my presentation as good ones are hard to find. And mine is an excellent presentation (grin) ... Never have I given the exact same slideshow to a club ... I am honored that you would want a copy. I was where you are now about five years ago - looking for someone else's presentation. But I found it much more effective to make my own, personalized-to-the-club-I'm-speaking-to presentation for each club. Let me explain. I open up with a title page, then a screenshot of their local newspaper. I have "edited" the newspaper to announce, "Amateur Radio satellite demonstration at XYZ Club tomorrow night!" - with a photo ... it gets the audience IMMEDIATELY drawn to what is going to occur next ... THEN I show THEIR LOGO (from their Web site), and announce on a slide, "It's XYZ Club Trivia Time!" And I have two or three trivia questions regarding THEIR club's history ... How many Google hits for your club name? (That show how effective they are using the Internet). And, "When did you become an ARRL affiliate member club?" That gives me an opportunity to plug the ARRL and benefits of ARRL membership ... OK - that's the first ten slides. Then I briefly remind them of the SuitSat project - and what a marvelous public relations project that was for amateur radio. I ask them to keep that project in mind, as we now watch a video of the United States launching a cruiser-based missle and successfully destroying that U.S. satellite last year whose orbit was decaying. Why do i show that? Because I tell the audience: "When then-vice-president Dick Cheney heard about how expensive it was going to be to blow up that satellite, he came up with his own plan ... " And the next slide has a magazine-cover-quality photo of Cheney firing a shotgun - with the title, "Shoot Sat." NEVER FAILS to get the audience warmed up and laughing! (Totally "apolitical." You don't have to belong to any political party to be amused by Cheney's firearms antics.) I then give my brief bio info ... show a couple magazine articles that covered me ... my AMSAT display booth all set up and pretty ... And that takes us to slide 25 ... Do you see where this is going? The more your presentation reflects YOU - and involves THEM - the more effective it will be. The next slides demolish the common "preconceptions" regarding working the sats (You need a minimum of 100W, expensive rotator, multiple Yagis ... NOPE!!! Expensive radios ... NOPE!!! Tell 'em that most hams already own the necessary equipment ... ) Then I show the AMSAT logo. And amsat.org as our Web site. A slide shows very brief history of AMSAT. Another bullets the five major benefits of AMSAT membership. Advise 'em that you can painlessly contribute to AMSAT by including them in your estate - a painless way to support! NEVER does a slide contain more than just a couple words. Put complete sentences on a slide, and you have lost your audience: They will be reading when you want them to listen. Slides are NOT a speaker's script! For example, my first AMSAT slide looks like this: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - AMSAT logo - 1969, nonprofit - Mission - International - Contributions - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Those five words evoke their own statements ... "We were founded back East in 1969 as a nonprofit educational organization ... " "Our mission is to disseminate information about - and build - amateur radio satellites ... " "AMSAT is international in scope with darned near fifty affiliates and clubs across the planet ... " "Contributions have their tax advantages for you - and AMSAT can be placed in your will - ask your CPA for details ... " Before they get bored, the next slide - my Number 37 - is another trivia question: just the word, "OSCAR" is on the screen. "OSCAR is an acronym - who knows what it stands for?" And I give out PRIZES, too! Trivia question answerers get a local repeater guide ... or a Firestone tire pressure gauge ... or a keychain flashlight - stuff that your local merchants give away as freebies. AUDIENCES LOVE THIS STUFF - and it gets them involved in what you are talking about! A very brief history of amateur satellites is Slide 43. The GLOSSARY is next. Just briefly define the few terms that they'll come across in the sat worls (orbit, Doppler, LEO, HEO, GEO, Uplink, Downlink, Footprint). Then I do an homage to George Carlin bit. Remember Carlin's comparison of "the wonderful, pastoral game of baseball VERSUS the militaristic, aggressive game of football?" Well, I show a slide, "Why use amateur satellites?" Then, "Traditional HF versus Ham Satellites." And I go through these comparisons, a la George Carlin ... Then comes Slide 72, a photo of AO-51. And the Chuck Greene photo in the clean room with AO-51. And photos showing our position on the launch vehicle. And discussion of AO-51's capabilities. Show the other easily-worked FM birds. Show a data screen from a control op for the geeky folks in the crowd. Slide 86 starts showing the "Minimum Requirements" equipment-wise: an HT that can do split freqs - my favorite intro HT is the Yaesu FT-60R ... "Receives 108-to-a-gig, bulletproof case design, strongest belt clip of ANY amateur radio chassis on the market, large display, easy to program, and a GREAT battery situation - when using the optional FBA-25 AA alkaline/NMH case, you have FULL TX POWER available to you! Try that on, say, a Kenwood TH-F6a, and you only hand one-half of a Watt TX power ... all this for about $200 bucks ... " Back to basics - an HT that can do split freqs, a "better" antenna, and either Internet printout of a pass, or a Palm PDA with PocketSat+. Slide 92 shows three antenna improvements for HTs ... -the $50 Diamond SRH-320A -the performance-equal-to-the-SHR-320A Smiley 270A - at a measley $19.95 -the BNC-only AL-800 massive beast One slide compares the should-be-taken-off-the-market Yaesu CN-3 BNC-to-SMA adapter with the adapters made by Stephen Gulyas. One of them protects your radio's SMA connector center pin from being stresses on its circuit board - the other is a $100 repair job waiting to happen ... One slide shows the concept of "getting perpendicular" to the sats ... I throw in a couple graphs showing that - for HT antennas and what we are doing - that longer is better ... I then tell/show what commercial sat tracking programs are available ... PocketSat+ for Palm / iPhone / iPod touch. I even have a screenshot of PocketSat on my new Apple iPad (g). Nova for Windows, MacDopplerPRO for Mac). Briefly explain Keplerian elements. There are others for the different platforms - look for ones that are currently supported ... Explain heavens-above.com and AMSAT.org's tracking systems. If we worked a pass - or will be after the presentation, I take screen shots of the AMSAT tracking data, reminding them to ADJUST FOR GMT !!! Make sure they know there's both COMMERCIAL sat trackers, but also COMPLETELY FREE pass info on the 'Net! Audiences are shown how to "decode" that screenful of numbers that the AMSAT sat tracking page spits out. Then tell 'em the general procedures for working the sats. Yes, it is preferable to work TRUE FULL-DUPLEX, but not absolutely mandatory. Another trivia question: What grid square are we in??? Hand out another prize. I show my programming matrix for AO-51 (in my .pdf handout on my Web site!) Explain Doppler again. Make sure that if they see a programming guide WITH a CTCSS for AO-51, that its old info. Then I show 'em the programming guide for SO-50, and point out the 74.4 there in the middle ... YOU get to be CONTROL OPERATOR if the bird's not up when you KNOW if should be there ... Then Q&A time - which is usually the best time of all. SO ... I am looking at last night's presentation and its 150+ slides ... many are that-club-specific, and I change those for each presentation. But the most important thing you can do is to make the group know you enjoy this aspect of ham radio, and maintain great eye contact throughout the presentation. Let 'em interrupt with a question. If you see anyone writing down any notes, stop yourself and state, "Wow - I am glad you're taking notes. But I have a handout for all of you at the end of the presentation with ALL this information for you! So just sit back and relax!" And I offer 'em my 4-page handout (also on my Web site) that I just had Staples make 50 copies of before the meeting ... You are welcome to use it as a handout ... I use to print it out so that it made a single sheet of paper 4-page booklet. But the type gets too small for my older eyes - so I just print it up two pages, back-to-back. Clint Bradford, K6LCS 909-241-7666 http://www.work-sat.com

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AO-51 close approach
by Mike Rupprecht 18 Mar '10

18 Mar '10

CelesTrak SOCRATES, predicts the following Orbital Conjunction Threats Data current as of 2010 Mar 18 01:00 UTCDate Time SAT 1 SAT 2 Minimum Range Probability--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2010 Mar 18 15:13 UTC ECHO (AO-51) - FENGYUN 1C DEB 54 m +/- 36 m 5.335E-0473, MikeDK3WN

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Locating a Grid Line
by claryco＠aol.com 18 Mar '10

18 Mar '10

Tks Norbert. It was definitely a lot of fun for both of us. To answer your question and even go a bit farther, every grid line and particularly the four-grid point in KS I operated from was measured using a Garmin 60CSX GPS. The VUCC rules indicate that an GPS receiver shows an accuracy of 20 feet or better is required for operating from a grid line or point. Each critical operating position during this trip was identified to this standard. Numerous photos were taken from various angles at every location so that additional identifying references were included. The GPS' display was photographed at close range as well. In most cases, the photos of the set up show the GPS placed directly in front of the rig sitting on the car's hood. (That said, several of the grid line operations were alongside roads with nothing but non-descript crop fields and asphalt as backgrounds, but the pix were taken anyway.) By the way, as I held the GPS at a grid line and directed my XYL, Cori, at the wheel, she'd move the car back and forth until the car's hood was exactly on the line. She found out just how tricky (and annoying!) it can be when the GPS would appear to have stabilized on the line, only for one of us to grab the camera and find that the last digits had changed to .999 or .001. That's only an error of about five feet, but it wasn't good enough, so she'd have to move the car again! 73, Jim, ND9M / VQ9JC Message: 16 Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:06:31 +0000 From: Richard Cubero <taramindo(a)hotmail.com> Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: ND9M Road Trip To: <amsat-bb(a)amsat.org> Message-ID: <BAY141-W15096C0722A8915CDC5FC1A82C0(a)phx.gbl> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" To: Jim ND9M Thanks for a great article, I see you had a lot of fun on your road trip. Quick question, what tool were you using to find the grid lines ? 73s Norbert KP4WK Tampa FL EL 87

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Sat Presentation in Illinois
by Clint Bradford 17 Mar '10

17 Mar '10

I just finished giving my "How to Work Amateur Satellites with Low Power" presentation to a classroom in Southern Illinois. Club president Gregg Sperling, KB9E, contacted me a few weeks ago, asking if I could speak at the March meeting of his Southern Illinois University Amateur Radio Club in Carbondale, IL. NO - I didn't use up my wife's frequent flyer miles. We did it via Skype. Audio AND video. I prepared a .pdf file ahead of time, tailored to the club (I always have a couple club-related trivia questions ... and always have the club's grid square id'd in the program) - and emailed it ahead of time to the tech guy. All slides were numbered, so we could stay in sync. The club used a computer/projector to show the slideshow, and I was able to see and hear the classroom attendees - and they could see and hear me - via Skype. Skype is almost "full duplex," so I could hear comments and questions ... and I could see when a hand raised up for a question. It really worked out well! So, presenters: I guess we are no longer limited to "hundred mile radii" restrictions for our shows! It wasn't as effective as actually going to a site, demo'ing a FM bird, THEN presenting. But it sure got the word out to a club that I couldn't physically get to! We had a great time! Clint Bradford, K6LCS 909-241-7666

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FS: LMR 400 coax run with connectors
by John Geiger 17 Mar '10

17 Mar '10

I have for sale a brand new 75 foot run of Times Microwave LMR-LW400 low loss coax cable with N connectors installed. LMR-LW400 is Flexible Low Loss Communications Coax. The LW series uses a copper clad aluminum shield for a 30% weight savingsover standard LMR (which is already lighter than many similar coax). You can read more about it at http://www.yachtwire.com/webstore/index.html?190.html&1 It sells for $1.60 a foot, I will sell this coax run for $85 shipped in the US, and can take paypal/check/MO. 73s John AA5JG

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How to correctly log multiple grids?
by Michae J. Wolthuis 17 Mar '10

17 Mar '10

Can anyone tell me when Jim (ND9M) says he is in EM00/01 how do I best enter that in N3FJP's Amateur Contact Log program? Currently I have been putting in the grid exactly as EM00/01 but I don't know if that works with eQSO or LoTW or is even appropriate. Should I be making two entries? Also, If Jim says Portable I put it in as ND9M/P or if someone says handheld I put callsign/H is that the appropriate logging method for eQSO and LoTW or should I just put ND9M? Thanks Jim for the grids again tonight! 73s Mike Kb8zgl

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Tickets
by Martha 17 Mar '10

17 Mar '10

For those who are planning to attend the joint AMSAT-TAPR Dayton dinner on Friday, May 14, you can purchase your tickets on line at the AMSAT store. -- 73- Martha

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