April 2011 - AMSAT-BB - mailman.amsat.org

SATPC, IC910 & Doppler
by w4upd 19 Apr '11

19 Apr '11

I may missing something obvious, but when tuning the IC-910 on FM satellites I noticed that under normal SQF files for AO-51, as an example, both uplink and downlink do doppler adjustment. In the case of FM or AO-51 in this case, I want the uplink to stay the same and only the downlink to doppler adjust. I also find that if I select the mode of downlink only, when the tracking and doppler starts the mode changes to downlink & uplink and then blanks out so you can no longer change it. I have found a way to prevent this but it means manually setting the uplink frequency. If I edit DOPPLER.SQF to have downlink only and an upplink of 0, it prevents the uplink from adjusting. However, I had to manually set the uplink to the frequency I wanted. This works, but I feel I'm missing something simple. Also, I've gotten use to using the IC-910 for 2-mtr band A and 70cm band B and only band A transmits. Unable to do this in SATPC. However, no big deal as the "Satellite" mode all works well, except the doppler adjustment of the uplink. Anyone with an idea what I'm missing here? This is the first chance to really use SATPC as I have been normally doing manual tracking and the "AFC" on the downlink which works quite well on the IC-910. Regards, Reid, W4UPD AMSAT: 17002

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Maritime Mobile Lessons Learned
by K5OE 19 Apr '11

19 Apr '11

For hams that want to try working Maritime Mobile, the very first stop should be N5AFV’s very informative how-to guide(s): http://www.qsl.net/n5afv/cruise.html This was my second attempt at this and I can add a few lessons learned to the subject that may help future cruisers. 1. When a satellite has multiple frequencies available, and your radio has all of them pre-programmed, be careful of relying on the alpha identifiers. For example, on my FT-51R, 145.920 and 145.880 are both identified as “AO-51.” I guess I don’t have to explain why this is a lesson learned. 2. Allen mentioned his attempt to stay away from the ship’s antennae. I learned from experience on this trip that the intermod was far worse on the bow than the stern, and non-existent from the stateroom balconies. If you can get the captain to steer the vessel so that you can see the entire pass from your stateroom, it is easy to hear the bird(s) and you don’t have to brave gale-force winds at night. 3. Transcribe your QSOs right after the pass onto a log. I seemed to have gone back to bed one morning and completely forgot to log one pass. I only became aware of this when I got three QSL requests for the same pass! I used an mp3 player and still had it, so the only loss was the embarrassment of declining a QSL and then realizing I was wrong. 4. I only recorded my own voice (not a perfect system, but simple and easy). Still, out of 235 contacts, I still have about a dozen calls I am not sure of in my log (95% accuracy, or almost 2 sigma for you statisticians out there). I actually had a few more garbled in the audio but was able to pick them out of the K8YSE online recordings, but since his QTH is far north of where I was, the recordings did not cover my entire pass (or all of the passes). A better setup, for those inclined to do more work, would be to also record the speaker output from the radio. And, as a general recommendation to stations wishing to work a MM op, please always use phonetics (no intent to incite another riot) as it is sometimes very difficult to hear onboard, with extremely high wind noise, intermittent IM, fading, etc. The official stats by satellite were: AO-51, 11 passes and 148 contacts AO-27, 5 passes and 65 contacts SO-50, 3 passes and 22 contacts ARISSat-1, not heard. Equipment used was an FT-51R with an Arrow from the stateroom balcony and a Pryme AL-800 when on the deck (most of the passes, as the ship was predominantly heading at 135 and 310 degrees and not conducive to "seeing" a whole pass). Ancillary equipment was a portable GPS and an mp3 recorder. Thanks again to Allen, the AO-51 crew, and to all the patient ops who gave me their calls two and three times :-) 73, Jerry, K5OE

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Re: RF Quiet my digital recorder
by Bill W1PA 19 Apr '11

19 Apr '11

My Olympus DS-2 is pretty bad. In either play or record mode, I get wide processor noise on both 2m and 435 if it gets within a foot or so of the Arrow (in any direction). It sounds like power-line buzz noise. If I use a direct line-in (FT-530 ear to DS-2 Mic in), it's there all the time -- really bad. My goal is to "y" the stereo mic in, one side to the FT-530 audio coming from my headset, and one side to an external mic (so I can hear the difference in play-back between what I say, and what I can hear on the downlink). With the FT-530 in one hand, the Arrow in the other, pen and paper is not an option. I also want to download the recordings (.wma or .mp3) so an analog recorder, although "rf quiet", is not an option. I plan to try shielding the recorder.... encasing it in either metal mesh, or maybe an aluminum fly-lure box, and then wrapping the line on a toroid core. In the mean time, is anyone using and can recommend a portable digital voice recorder with a mic-in jack (preferably stereo) that is "rf quiet"? Bill W1PA

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Re: Field day
by K5OE 19 Apr '11

19 Apr '11

Mark, While I really like the audio on S-band a lot better than U, I think 9600 b packet is a great idea! I know you meant it tongue-in-cheek, but if a real emergency occurred world-wide (you know, like we lost the Internet during the upcoming royal wedding or some other equally cataclysmic event), store-and-forward technology would be a viable and reliable way for hams without HF privileges to communicate world-wide. Reminds me a little of Independence Day :-) 73, Jerry, K5OE --- original message --- Hi Bob, I think it's safe to say that we won't be running S-band. We haven't planned that far ahead, but I expect we'll be in mode V/U simply because of eclipses and the battery. Or we could run 9600 baud packet instead :) 73, Mark N8MH At 11:39 PM 4/18/2011 +0000, Bob- W7LRD wrote: >Field day will be here before we know it.Â Last year we had AO-51 with mode S >activated.Â What if any plans are there for this year?Â With the power >budget as it is what can we plan on? 73 Bob W7LRD Seattle

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LVB Tracker LCD
by Sven Arne Astrup 19 Apr '11

19 Apr '11

Hi! Could someone give a Digikey part number for the LCD module used in the LVB Tracker? 73 de Sven LA6KJ

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multi-sat, chronilogical pass predictions
by Bill W1PA 19 Apr '11

19 Apr '11

Do any of the pass prediction tools (win, dos, or linux) give you a listing of passes for multiple satellites in chronological order? i.e. imagine printing out 3 days of AO-51, AO-27, SO-50, etc and sorting them all together in chronological order. No graphics needed... just AOS and LOS bearings and times and max pass elevation. I have Nova and gpredict, and neither do. Does the original "predict" do this? Bill W1PA

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Re: Field day
by Mark L. Hammond 19 Apr '11

19 Apr '11

Hi Bob, I think it's safe to say that we won't be running S-band. We haven't planned that far ahead, but I expect we'll be in mode V/U simply because of eclipses and the battery. Or we could run 9600 baud packet instead :) 73, Mark N8MH At 11:39 PM 4/18/2011 +0000, Bob- W7LRD wrote: >Field day will be here before we know it.Â Last year we had AO-51 with mode S activated.Â What if any plans are there for this year?Â With the power budget as it is what can we plan on? 73 Bob W7LRD Seattle _______________________________________________ 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/amsat-bb

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XE3DX on EK19
by David Maciel 19 Apr '11

19 Apr '11

Hi All, my problem is solved, now I can work satellites again, I am active from now on EK19 at: Hola a todos,mi problema fue solucionado, ahora puedo trabajar satélites nuevamente sin problemas, desde ahora estoy activo desde ek19, prometo regresar a ek18 en unos días mas.este es mi itinerario próximo de pases.. 19/april/2011 01:58Z SO-50 EK19 19/april/2011 03:39Z SO-50 EK19 19/april/2011 10:52Z AO-51 EK19 19/april/2011 14:04Z SO-50 EK19 19/april/2011 15:04Z AO-27 EK19 19/april/2011 21:52Z AO-51 EK19 19/april/2011 23:32Z AO-51 EK19 David XE3DX EK19

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Re: multi-sat, chronilogical pass predictions
by Helmuth Kump 19 Apr '11

19 Apr '11

I use a spreadsheet method. I use the amsat.org passes predictor, highlight (select) the data from the web page, copy, then paste each bird output into a different tab of an Excel spreadsheet. An Excel macro adds another column that only contains the sat. name. Then I made some more macros to concatenate all that data into another sheet, and sort by date 1st, time 2nd. Not very elegant but it works fine. 73 Doc KT3L

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Field day
by Bob- W7LRD 18 Apr '11

18 Apr '11

Field day will be here before we know it. Last year we had AO-51 with mode S activated. What if any plans are there for this year? With the power budget as it is what can we plan on? 73 Bob W7LRD Seattle

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