October 2017 - AMSAT-BB - mailman.amsat.org

Re: [amsat-bb] Falconsat-3 and APRS HT's? (reflector ant)
by Robert Bruninga 03 Oct '17

03 Oct '17

The June 2004 QST cover photo shows a few of us holding a piece of rabbit fence bent into a parabola about 2' wide by 1' high with the HT held at the focal point. It makes a great gain antenna and is trivial to build. The HT's rubber duck is at the focal point so there is no coax. This is fine for voice satellites, but not so practical for data satelites which need a laptop and TNC and cables. https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.qrz.com/h/kb9sxh/cover_shot_QST_bmp.jpg Bob -----Original Message----- From: AMSAT-BB [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Zach Metzinger Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2017 2:16 PM To: amsat-bb(a)amsat.org Subject: Re: [amsat-bb] Falconsat-3 and APRS HT's? On 10/03/17 07:07, Roy Dean wrote: > Greg, > > You are going to have a very hard time copying Falconsat with > omni/whip antenna's. Yes, it's a strong downlink, but "strong" for > amateur satellites is misleading... It's nowhere near as strong as the > ISS voice radio, for example, which is easily picked up on my scanner > duckie. > > It's supposed to be over one watt, but I can pick up AO-85 with a > stronger signal, if that gives you any idea. Also, Falconsat has > some really serious polarity fade, so there's another issue. I can > go from roughly S7 to 'nuttin by rotating my arrow 10°. While polarization is still an issue, you might try a square-corner reflector as a starter antenna: http://www.qsl.net/ve3rgw/corner.html Of course, you'll want to upgrade it with a rotator to track the satellite, but aiming it by hand should work fine. Keep the coax loss low, or, for both NF improvement and to make up for coax loss, add a LNA right at the antenna. If you want some historical background on this type of antenna, take a look at this oldie: http://www.arrl.org/files/file/History/History%20of%20QST%20Volume%201%20-%… --- Zach N0ZGO _______________________________________________ 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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Re: [amsat-bb] Falconsat-3 and APRS HT's?
by Roy Dean 03 Oct '17

03 Oct '17

Greg, You are going to have a very hard time copying Falconsat with omni/whip antenna's. Yes, it's a strong downlink, but "strong" for amateur satellites is misleading... It's nowhere near as strong as the ISS voice radio, for example, which is easily picked up on my scanner duckie. It's supposed to be over one watt, but I can pick up AO-85 with a stronger signal, if that gives you any idea. Also, Falconsat has some really serious polarity fade, so there's another issue. I can go from roughly S7 to 'nuttin by rotating my arrow 10°. --Roy K3RLD > Ok, so I must be doing something wrong. I have an RTL-SDR dongle hooked > to a deep-fringe TV antenna in the attic which is my all-purpose scanner > setup. I can barely make out the 9600 baud downlink from FalconSat-3 in > the GQRX Waterfall, seeing a good bit of fading during the pass. At > best it's a faint bar; mostly not there at all. My D74 hand-held, with > a Diamond RH-77B whip antenna decodes nothing, assuming there was > something to decode. Tried this on 3 passes this afternoon. Nada. > APRS traffic on 145.39, by comparison, shows up really well. > I thought I read that the satellite had a nice strong downlink. > 435.103, plus or minus. I've not done much of anything with 9600 baud > packet, so don't have much experience to draw from. What's wrong? > Equipment, operating, or expectations? > Greg KO6TH

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Alternative to M2 LEO Pack
by Lou Michaels 03 Oct '17

03 Oct '17

Greetings, After an 18 month hiatus, I got the bug to put the satellite station back up. I have all the equipment in house (g5500 rotor, antennas, radio, interface, and cables) and can have this up and running in an afternoon - possibly this weekend. Now as most of you are probably aware, the LEO pack contains a 4x4 on VHF and an 8x8 on UHF. What if I wanted a bit more, meaning what might be the next step up in terms of a VHF and UHF circular polarized yagi? I'm also working with a 3ele 6m yagi under the elevation rotor, but I'm not opposed to pulling that down to make room for center-mounted booms. I'm asking because, while I'm leaning back towards satellites, I'd like to retain at least some ability to work terrestrial. The 4x4 CP on 2m ssb certainly seems like a step down from what I'm working with now (7x7 xPol yagi) - I'm not looking for parity, just a slight improvement over a 4x4. As always thanks for your insights and wisdom in advance. See on you on the birds real soon. Cheers, Lou W2LMM <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campai…> Virus-free. www.avast.com <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campai…> <#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>

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FalconSat 3 iGate using rPi and pymultimonaprs?
by Mike Thompson 03 Oct '17

03 Oct '17

I am running a terrestrial APRS iGate from my house using a Comet GP-15 tri-band vertical. RF is fed into an RTL-SDR, connected to my raspberry pi. I am currently using pymultimonaprs to make this all happen, and in Marco Kubon's tutorial (http://www.kubonweb.de/?tag=rtl-sdr) he says it's possible to catch the ISS APRS frames by changing the RTL section of the config file. Does anyone know if I can add in a 3rd frequency to capture FalconSat3 packets? Does this look reasonable? proc_src = subprocess.Popen( ['rtl_fm', '-f', str(int(self.config['rtl']['freq'] * 1e6)), '-f', '145825000', '-f', '435103000', '-s', '22050', '-p%s' % str(self.config['rtl']['ppm']), '-g', str(self.config['rtl']['gain']), '-l', '10', '-E', 'offset' if self.config['rtl'].get('offset_tuning', False) else 'none', '-d', str(self.config['rtl'].get('device_index', 0)), '-'], stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=open('/dev/null') Thanks!

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FalconSat 3 added to Sat Reporter
by Andrew Rich 03 Oct '17

03 Oct '17

Falcon Sat has been added to Sat Reporter http://59.167.159.165/ <http://59.167.159.165/> Andrew VK4TEC

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AO-85 Experimenter's Wednesday
by Andrew Glasbrenner 03 Oct '17

03 Oct '17

Just a reminder that Experimenter's Wednesday begins at 0000UTC tonight on AO-85. Please participate by sending and receiving slow scan television (SSTV) images via the Robot 36 mode. More information at: https://www.amsat.org/return-of-experimenters-wednesday-to-ao-85/ 73, Drew KO4MA AMSAT VP Operations

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Falcon sat
by Andrew Rich 03 Oct '17

03 Oct '17

Anyone igating falconsat ? Can you please provide me some sample packets. Andrew Sent from my iPhone

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Roving Again This Weekend
by Ken Alexander 03 Oct '17

03 Oct '17

Well, the "VE3HLS All-Hit Request Line" has been overloaded lately, so it's time to get out and do something a little bigger! *The Plan* ...is to fill in some gaps in some of your grid maps. Thus, I will be leaving Friday morning for Quebec. Night 1 will be spent in Joliette, QC, where I hope to activate FN35/36 late Friday afternoon and early Friday evening. Saturday morning, I will head further east and hope to activate FN56/57 beginning around 1430 UTC. I'll stay there for a few hours, then move on to activate FN57/67 beginning around 2130 - 2200. FN57/67 is my last stop of the day, so I can afford to stay there a little longer. Sunday and Monday are reserved for driving back home. However, I'll be making two brief stops to fulfill some requests, namely FN47 and FN45. I'll try my best to do at least one of these activations on the boundary with FN46 to provide "added value"! I'll likely spend Sunday night in FN24. If anybody needs it then let me know. Otherwise I'll just crash in front of the TV! Potentially 10 grids, if everything goes according to plan. *The Weather** * As of earlier today the weather forecast for the entire destination area sucks. The forecast for Saint Leonard, NB currently says 30% chance of showers on Saturday and worsening on Sunday. I'll go anyway, provided the forecast doesn't get any worse. Standing out in pouring rain and letting my gear get soaked is another matter; I won't do it. I'd rather it snowed. Rain may also slow my travel progress and make me late. *Other Caveats* Traffic could also be a problem. It was miserable on Labour Day weekend. This weekend is Canadian Thanksgiving and the highways tend to be busy and slow. Put all this together and it makes it a little tougher to come up with a precise schedule. What I'm going to do is put together a schedule that includes passes that happen up to an hour or so either side of my planned arrival times. It doesn't mean I'll make every pass, so watch Twitter for updates. And if all my plans go down the toilet then I'll do some landscape photography, another passion of mine! 73, Ken VE3HLS **

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Special ARISS News Release no. 17-01
by n4csitwo＠bellsouth.net 02 Oct '17

02 Oct '17

Special ARISS News Release no. 17-01 Date: Oct. 2, 2017 For Immediate Release ARISS One Step Closer to Flying New Equipment to ISS On behalf of the ARISS International team, I am proud to announce that on Friday September 29th the ARISS team submitted the InterOperable Radio System (IORS) Safety Data Package to NASA for review! Our next step in this process is the Safety Review, which is planned for November 2. Submitting this was a phenomenal accomplishment!! Particularly since the entire Safety Data Package was developed exclusively by our ARISS volunteers---something we have never done before. Prior to this submittal, all safety packages---from Owen Garriott's in the early 1980s to today--were developed with contractors from NASA, ESA or Energia. And might I say at substantial expense. I am pleased that the ARISS team did it ourselves! Why is this important? Two reasons: 1) This is a very major IORS milestone. We cannot get to orbit without successfully completing the safety review process and getting our hardware certified for flight. 2) Developing the safety package exclusively with volunteers is an innovative and gutsy approach to keep costs down and get the hardware flown sooner. Otherwise we probably would have to slip launch 1-2 years while we acquired additional funding to get this done. NASA Human Spaceflight Safety Certification is a four-step process---Phase 0, Phase 1, Phase 2 and Phase 3. The material we submitted covers the first three of the four phases. As part of Phases 0, 1 and 2, we need to make sure NASA understands our design. And we need to show NASA that we understand all the potential hazards that our hardware systems could introduce to ISS and how we have mitigated (or prevented) these hazards. One example is to demonstrate to NASA that our IORS was designed with electrical wiring and circuit breakers that possess adequate features and sufficient margin to prevent an electrical shock or fire on-board the ISS. Critically important stuff! The final phase (Phase 3) will be complete when we have completed all testing and NASA inspection of our flight hardware and NASA deems it flight worthy. At that point the IORS will be flight certificated and we can fly! Currently we are looking to March-May 2018 for flight readiness. For those not following ARISS hardware development very closely, we are developing the IORS to replace most of the on-board radio hardware. It is called "interoperable" because it is being designed to be operated anywhere on ISS. But specifically, it will be used in the two areas with ISS Ham legacy antennas: the Columbus Module and the Russian Service Module. Interoperability allows us to leverage existing ISS power cables, it can be moved between modules in the event of on-orbit failures, and it supports common training and operations. The IORS is the most complex in-cabin hardware system we have ever designed, built, tested and flown as a volunteer team. We will remove the 3 watt Ericsson handheld radio system, initially certified for flight in 1999, and the Packet module--both of which have recently had issues-and install a brand-new, specially modified 25 watt JVC Kenwood D710GA radio to enable a multitude of new or improved capabilities on ISS, including voice repeater and better APRS operations. A key development is the Multi-Voltage Power Supply (MVPS), which interfaces with multiple electric outlet connection types on ISS and provides a multitude of power output capabilities for our current and future ARISS operations and amateur radio experimentation. It will also allow our Ham Video system to have a dedicated power outlet, eliminating the outlet sharing we have now, which shuts down Ham Video at times. This effort would not be possible without the dedication and persistence of our IORS development team of volunteers. They have been working tirelessly behind the scenes to provide an outstanding amateur radio experience for all. Our IORS development team includes: Lou McFadin, W5DID, our Chief Engineer; Kerry Banke, N6IZW, the MVPS lead designer; Bob Davis, KF4KSS, the MVPS Mechanical enclosure designer; Ed Krome, K9EK, supporting IORS thermal control and cabin noise dissipation; Dave Taylor, W8AAS, our JVC Kenwood D-710 development liaison; Bob Bruninga, WB4APR, our APRS and D-710 operations expert; Shin Aota, JL1IBD, and Phil Parton, N4DRO for all their phenomenal support from JVC Kenwood; Kenneth Ransom, N5VHO, our operations lead; and our safety package team-Ken Ernandes, N2WWD, and Gordon Scannell, KD8COJ. Kudos to all on a fantastic effort! Designing, building and testing the IORS is a huge undertaking and *very* expensive. We need to build ten (10!) units to support flight hardware, flight spares, testing, and training across the international team. Hardware parts, development tools, fabrication, testing, and expenses to certify the IORS are expected to cost approximately $150,000. And the hard part (i.e. most expensive part) is just now starting. So please consider making a donation to ARISS to take our hardware system from dream to reality. You can donate to ARISS directly through the AMSAT web site at: http://www.ariss.org/donate.html. ALL donations go directly to ARISS. Thank you for all your support to inspire, engage and educate our youth to consider wireless communications and amateur radio, and to pursue STEAM careers through our exciting human space exploration and amateur radio endeavor! Ad Astra! To the Stars! Sincerely, Frank H. Bauer, KA3HDO ARISS International Chair and ISS Ham Radio Principal Investigator ------------------------ About ARISS: Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) is a cooperative venture of international amateur radio societies and the space agencies that support the International Space Station (ISS). In the United States, sponsors are the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT), the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The primary goal of ARISS is to promote exploration of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) topics by organizing scheduled contacts via amateur radio between crew members aboard the ISS and students in classrooms or informal education venues. With the help of experienced amateur radio volunteers, ISS crews speak directly with large audiences in a variety of public forums. Before and during these radio contacts, students, teachers, parents, and communities learn about space, space technologies, and amateur radio. For more information, see www.ariss.org, www.amsat.org, and www.arrl.org. Thank you & 73, David - AA4KN --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

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Falconsat-3 and APRS HT's?
by Robert Bruninga 02 Oct '17

02 Oct '17

I was confused. I thought FALCONSAT-3 was a PACSAT protocol store and forward system because I thought I saw people trying to get the old PB and BG code, But the AMSAT web page says it is 9600 baud GMSK up and down. https://www.amsat.org/falconsat-3/ 435.103 MHz down and 145.840 up DIGI call of PFS3-1. While of course setting 5 memores to chase the Doppler the full 20 KHz during the pass. So I am surrprised that I havent heard of anyone making contacts with any ole' APRS HT or Mobile... All of these radios can do 9600 baud and APRS natively.. Im under Kitchen arrest until 1st grandkid arrives soon and cannot play. If I missed something, ignore me. Ill go back under my domestic rock... Bob, WB4APR

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