May 2016 - AMSAT-BB - mailman.amsat.org

K4T on SO-50
by skristof＠etczone.com 08 May '16

08 May '16

Thank you to the K4T team on Dry Tortugas for being on SO-50 this morning! Steve AI9IN

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Re: [amsat-bb] QIKCOM-2 Question
by Rick Tejera 07 May '16

07 May '16

Bob, thanks. The concept is intriguing. Looking forward to trying it out 73 Rick Tejera K7TEJSaguaroAstro(a)cox.net623-203-4121 -------- Original message -------- From: Robert Bruninga <bruninga(a)usna.edu> Date: 07/05/2016 17:31 (GMT-07:00) To: Rick Tejera <saguaroastro(a)cox.net>, amsat-bb(a)amsat.org Subject: RE: [amsat-bb] QIKCOM-2 Question You fill in with a SPACE and a SPACE is the first press of the 0 key. So it would have the key code of 1 I think... Bob -----Original Message----- From: AMSAT-BB [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Rick Tejera Sent: Saturday, May 07, 2016 6:01 PM To: amsat-bb(a)amsat.org Subject: [amsat-bb] QIKCOM-2 Question A quick question for Bob Bruninga. I just read your article in the AMSAT JOURNAL regarding QIKCOM-2 and it's DTMF input. The example you use to determine the DTMF string to transmit your call & grid usesyour 6 charachter call. I didn't see anything (unless I missed it) about shot er calls. I presume the receiver on the satellite will be expecting 16 DTMF tones. How do I account for my 5 character call? I followed your example as best I could and came out with the following for K7TEJ & DM33: *173357832154# Did I get it right? If not, what did I miss? Thanks in advance. I'm looking fowarding to trying this bird out. 73DE Rick K7TEJ Rick Tejera K7TEJSaguaroAstro(a)cox.net623-203-4121 _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB(a)amsat.org. AMSAT-NA makes this open forum available to all interested persons worldwide without requiring membership. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author, and do not reflect the official views of AMSAT-NA. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb

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QIKCOM-2 Question
by Rick Tejera 07 May '16

07 May '16

A quick question for Bob Bruninga. I just read your article in the AMSAT JOURNAL regarding QIKCOM-2 and it's DTMF input. The example you use to determine the DTMF string to transmit your call & grid usesyour 6 charachter call. I didn't see anything (unless I missed it) about shot er calls. I presume the receiver on the satellite will be expecting 16 DTMF tones. How do I account for my 5 character call? I followed your example as best I could and came out with the following for K7TEJ & DM33: *173357832154# Did I get it right? If not, what did I miss? Thanks in advance. I'm looking fowarding to trying this bird out. 73DE Rick K7TEJ Rick Tejera K7TEJSaguaroAstro(a)cox.net623-203-4121

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Re: [amsat-bb] QIKCOM-2 Question
by Rick Tejera 07 May '16

07 May '16

Correction on my DTMF string: Should be *1733578353154# Fat fingers, small keypad... Rick Rick Tejera K7TEJSaguaroAstro(a)cox.net623-203-4121 -------- Original message -------- From: Rick Tejera <saguaroastro(a)cox.net> Date: 07/05/2016 15:00 (GMT-07:00) To: amsat-bb(a)amsat.org Subject: [amsat-bb] QIKCOM-2 Question A quick question for Bob Bruninga. I just read your article in the AMSAT JOURNAL regarding QIKCOM-2 and it's DTMF input. The example you use to determine the DTMF string to transmit your call & grid usesyour 6 charachter call. I didn't see anything (unless I missed it) about shot er calls. I presume the receiver on the satellite will be expecting 16 DTMF tones. How do I account for my 5 character call? I followed your example as best I could and came out with the following for K7TEJ & DM33: *173357832154# Did I get it right? If not, what did I miss? Thanks in advance. I'm looking fowarding to trying this bird out. 73DE Rick K7TEJ Rick Tejera K7TEJSaguaroAstro(a)cox.net623-203-4121 _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB(a)amsat.org. AMSAT-NA makes this open forum available to all interested persons worldwide without requiring membership. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author, and do not reflect the official views of AMSAT-NA. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb

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Satellite programs in Linux?
by Larry 07 May '16

07 May '16

I have been reading about SatPC, which seems like a fine piece of software, but it runs on Windows, a serious flaw IMO. Are there any versions of SatPC for Linux? If not, are there any other software packages similar to SatPC for Linux? Thanks in advance from an old keypounder dragging himself into the 21st century, Larry W8ANT

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Re: [amsat-bb] The East will Rise again! (9600?) w link
by Robert Bruninga 07 May '16

07 May '16

With Link this time: http://aprs.org/ec9600net.html Sending this on AMSAT because we are looking for Packet Radio sites along the East Coast mountains. SAVE your KPC9612’s boys, the East will RISE AGAIN! The Golden Packet team is toying with the idea of making our annual (July 16 th) Appalachian mountain digipeater string from Maine to Georgia permament and making it a 9600 baud network for emergency and ham radio disaster response and play. We already have 4 of the 14 sites with permanent ham access … So, since we have already shown for 6 years now, that this long 2000 mile linear chain of mountains and valleys can support a 2000 mile network with only 14 digis, why not establish a long haul 9600 baud Node chain from Maine to Georgia which could be a significant boost to Packet radio emergency operations. The network would not operate as APRS digipeaters but as KAnodes. As we all knew back in the 1990’s link-by-link acknowledgment was vastly superior to end-to-end. We already have three sites in MD, and PA … But we need more than hikers, to get us access to some existing ham radio maintained sites. We do NOT want nodes to branch off down into the plains. These nodes would bog down the network. No, the main backbone would be to support emergency operations with beams that can point up to the mountains to pass traffic. So, we are splashing this onto AMSAT to see if people have SITE access and/or have unused 9600 baud KPC-9612’s to step up and lets see what we got. Also will need a freq. I’m thinking 145.01 but every time I think of it, people give feedback, and I LOSE or forget the feedback as to what existing systems are already on 145.01, such as DX clusters, etc… Every day we get MORE AND MORE addicted to our wireless infrastructure, which we all know, will be hard to access in a real emergency. We need to keep the Ham radio Plan-B alive… Bob, WB4APR

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The East will Rise again! (9600?)
by Robert Bruninga 07 May '16

07 May '16

Sending this on AMSAT because we are looking for Packet Radio sites along the East Coast mountains. SAVE your KPC9612’s boys, the East will RISE AGAIN! The Golden Packet team is toying with the idea of making our annual (July 16 th) Appalachian mountain digipeater string from Maine to Georgia permament and making it a 9600 baud network for emergency and ham radio disaster response and play. We already have 4 of the 14 sites with permanent ham access … So, since we have already shown for 6 years now, that this long 2000 mile linear chain of mountains and valleys can support a 2000 mile network with only 14 digis, why not establish a long haul 9600 baud Node chain from Maine to Georgia which could be a significant boost to Packet radio emergency operations. The network would not operate as APRS digipeaters but as KAnodes. As we all knew back in the 1990’s link-by-link acknowledgment was vastly superior to end-to-end. We already have three sites in MD, and PA … But we need more than hikers, to get us access to some existing ham radio maintained sites. We do NOT want nodes to branch off down into the plains. These nodes would bog down the network. No, the main backbone would be to support emergency operations with beams that can point up to the mountains to pass traffic. So, we are splashing this onto AMSAT to see if people have SITE access and/or have unused 9600 baud KPC-9612’s to step up and lets see what we got. Also will need a freq. I’m thinking 145.01 but every time I think of it, people give feedback, and I LOSE or forget the feedback as to what existing systems are already on 145.01, such as DX clusters, etc… Every day we get MORE AND MORE addicted to our wireless infrastructure, which we all know, will be hard to access in a real emergency. We need to keep the Ham radio Plan-B alive… Bob, WB4APR

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Upcoming HamTV ???
by Zach Leffke 07 May '16

07 May '16

Hello Everyone, I noticed that the Monday, 20160509, 0926 UTC planned ARISS contact with The Kings School in the UK says to watch for the HamTV transmitter. Does anyone know any more details about the HamTV side of this? More specifically, it looks like just before the UK contact (descending pass) there will be a good pass over the Eastern US (ascending pass). What are the chances that the HamTV transmitter will be active during the pass over the US? Do they turn the HamTV transmitter on early? Also, I know they have 4 downlink frequency options and two operating modes. Does anyone know which frequency and which mode will be selected on Monday? In the same vein, does anyone know of a good webpage or other resource for determining the operating schedule of the HamTV transmitter or is the upcoming contacts page on the ARISS site the best place? We recently got our 3.0m Dish and S-Band receiver systems installed in the VTGS and I was hoping to get up early Monday morning and attempt to record the HamTV transmission as ISS passes over the US on its way to the UK for the planned ARISS contact. Hopefully, if I can get a clean IQ recording of the HamTV transmission, we can use the recording to begin developing our GNU Radio DVB-S demodulators to extract the video stream. Any and all info would be appreciated. Thanks! -Zach, KJ4QLP -- Research Associate Ted & Karyn Hume Center for National Security & Technology Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University Work Phone: 540-231-4174 Cell Phone: 540-808-6305

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AO-73 telemetry received via FO-29
by Paul Stoetzer 07 May '16

07 May '16

Good afternoon, I was able to decode 9 packets of telemetry from AO-73 via FO-29's transponder at 1647 UTC today. Signals were unusually strong as the satellites were close together, so I decided to try feeding my recording of the pass into the Dashboard. See an image of the Dashboard and a screenshot from SatPC32 showing where the two satellites were at the time here: https://twitter.com/PRStoetzer/status/728631296658944000 I was using just an Arrow antenna, High Sierra Microwave LNAA432 preamp, and an FT-817. 73, Paul, N8HM

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Re: [amsat-bb] Norwegian Pearl Photos and SAT OPs
by Lee Ernstrom 07 May '16

07 May '16

Hi Bob, I thought your call looked familiar. We had two QSOs on Sept 21, 2015, one on FO-29 and one on SO-50. Everyone told me that SAT operations were not allowed on cruise ships, but I heard from someone that they secured a reciprocal ham license from the country of the ship registry and had to jump through some other hoops, etc. So a year ago I applied for and received a Bahamas reciprocal license (C6AQD) in anticipation of operating from the Norwegian Jewel last August when we took an Alaskan cruise. That cruise would take us through some mighty juice grids in CO land. My BIG mistake was calling Norwegian and asking permission to operate. I was told in no uncertain terms that ham radio operations from the cruise ship is prohibited (nothing written in their policy that forbids this), and that any radio equipment that would attempt to bring on board would be confiscated. Well of course that news burst my bubble. A couple weeks before our Alaskan cruise commenced my son, who was going on the cruise with us and who lives in Lacy, Washington, told me that he was taking a set of Walkie talkies and asked if I had a set that I could take so that we could communicate with each other while we were aboard ship but in different locations. I told him I would bring along mine. I figured that if they got taken away from me no big deal. As it turned out the walkie talkies did not get confiscated and my son and I used them all over the ship and none of the ships officers even raised an eyebrow! That made me curious and I began wondering what the real policy was. My daughter and son-in-law who lives in Laveen, Arizona surprised my wife and I with a certificate for an inside tour of the ship so we were able to see how the ship operates so smoothly. The tour ends up with a tour of the bridge where we met captain, first officer, and other ship drivers. When the tour was over and the people on the tour had all left I lingered behind long enough to corner the first officer, a real nice accommodating gentleman from Croatia. I told him I was a ham radio operator and that I have at home Hand held radios and a hand held antenna and I was wondering if it would be permissible on my next cruise to bring those along with me and communicate with my ham friends around the country through orbiting ham radio satellites. I was expecting the worst, but his answer to me blew me away! He told me that the ship operates under international law and if what I would be doing would not violate international law then they would have no problem with this activity! I immediately thought to myself, "Why did I ask permission from the companies bureaucrats!" On this west coast cruise, therefore, I boldly went where no one said I could go, to the back of the ship where I assembled my Arrow Antenna in front of God and everyone else and worked SO-50! It was funny, I heard some lady whisper to her friend, "He must be listening for whales." I smiled at her and shook my head and replied, "The whales are down there." All of my QSOs that I made except those from CN78 were from the back of the ship because from there I could work the complete pass, especially the overhead passes. My wife and I will be taking an east coast cruise this fall and my radios and Arrow antenna will be along with us. 73, Doc, WA7HQD/C6AQD Sent from my iPad > On May 6, 2016, at 8:07 PM, "R.T.Liddy" <k8bl(a)ameritech.net> wrote: > > Lee, > > I followed your exploits on the NCL Pearl with interest since > my wife and I had just taken a cruise on that ship in March > from Miami to PJ2/HK/HP/TI and back. I've never done any > SAT work from the many cruises we've been on, but I've done > plenty of Grid Expeditions - see my QRZ.com page. > > Your QRZ page is very interesting and well-done. Excellent > pix of your SAT operations. > > BTW, I've been friends with K8YSE for almost 40 years and he > was my boss for a bit of that time when we were Engineers at > the Phone Company. We meet for lunch every few months when > he's not in AZ or FL - HIHI. > > Maybe we'll meet on the birds some day! > > 73, Bob K8BL > > > From: Lee Ernstrom <lee.ernstrom(a)rcwilley.com> > To: "amsat-bb(a)amsat.org" <amsat-bb(a)amsat.org> > Sent: Friday, May 6, 2016 6:37 PM > Subject: [amsat-bb] Norwegian Pearl Photos and SAT OPs > > If anyone is interested in seeing some photos of my satellite operation > aboard the Norwegian Pearl please check out my QRZ.com page. I just > finished uploading three photos. > > 73, Doc > WA7HQD > _______________________________________________ > Sent via AMSAT-BB(a)amsat.org. AMSAT-NA makes this open forum available > to all interested persons worldwide without requiring membership. Opinions expressed > are solely those of the author, and do not reflect the official views of AMSAT-NA. > Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! > Subscription settings: http://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb > >

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