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Digi modes on Oscar100
by charlie＠sucklingfamily.free-online.co.uk 14 Feb '19

14 Feb '19

Hi All There has been some digital activity today on Oscar 100. I had to change uplink LO yesterday to a non-locked crystal controlled source, which has some small drift. This is making it impossible for me to use narrow tone spacing modes such as FT8 and JT65A. During a QSO with OZ1CTZ we were struggling with him decoding me on JT65A and he switched to JT65C after which the QSO proceeded perfectly. My drift problem on transmit is probably similar to that which would be experienced by unlocked Octagon users, so choosing a digi mode that is more immune to drift seems desirable. I did some testing here earlier using the Goonhilly SDR to feed audio to WSJT-X on a second PC and found also that JT9F (Fast) works extremely well with 100% reliable decoding. I've been testing with 10s periods mainly, but 5s also works. With these faster modes, drift will have less effect. JT9F is available in WSJT-X and needs to be run with VHF and up features enabled to access the 'Fast' checkbox. For JT65 users, I would recommend WSJT-X v2 over earlier releases, as the JT65 decoder was improved recently to cope with larger drift rates. If anyone is interested in trying this out, pse PM me and would be very happy to try it. 73 Charlie G3WDG

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Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule as of 2019-02-14 04:00 UTC
by aj9n＠aol.com 14 Feb '19

14 Feb '19

Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule as of 2019-02-14 04:00 UTC Quick list of scheduled contacts and events: College Park School, Lloydminster, Alberta, Canada, direct via VA5ISS The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be NA1SS The scheduled astronaut is David St-Jacques KG5FYI Contact was successful: Wed 2019-02-13 20:10:09 UTC 64 deg (***) Faith Christian Academy, Orlando, FL, direct via W9DWJ The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be NA1SS The scheduled astronaut is David St-Jacques KG5FYI Contact is go for: Thu 2019-02-14 14:30:29 UTC 42 deg Watch for live stream at https://live.faithassembly.org/ ARISS Contact Applications (United States) The ARISS-US program’s education proposal window should go open in the spring of 2019. The ARISS webpage is at http://www.ariss.org/ Note that there are links to other ARISS websites from this site. The ARISS webpage is at http://www.ariss.org/ Note that there are links to other ARISS websites from this site. ARISS Contact Applications (Europe, Africa and the Middle East) Schools and Youth organizations in Europe, Africa and the Middle East interested in setting up an ARISS radio contact with an astronaut on board the International Space Station are invited to submit an application from September to October and from February to April. Please refer to details and the application form at www.ariss-eu.org/school-contacts. Applications should be addressed by email to: school.selection.manager(a)ariss-eu.org ARISS Contact Applications (Canada, Central and South America, Asia and Australia and Russia) Organizations outside the United States can apply for an ARISS contact by filling out an application. Please direct questions to the appropriate regional representative listed below. If your country is not specifically listed, send your questions to the nearest ARISS Region listed. If you are unsure which address to use, please send your question to the ARISS-Canada representative; they will forward your question to the appropriate coordinator. For the application, click here. ARISS-Canada and the Americas, except USA: Steve McFarlane, VE3TBD ARISS-Japan, Asia, Pacific and Australia: Keigo Komuro, JA1KAB, Japan Amateur Radio League (JARL) ARISS-Russia: Soyuz Radioljubitelei Rossii (SRR) ****************************************************************************** ARISS is always glad to receive listener reports for the above contacts. ARISS thanks everyone in advance for their assistance. Feel free to send your reports to aj9n(a)amsat.org or aj9n(a)aol.com. Listen for the ISS on the downlink of 145.8Ø MHz. ******************************************************************************* All ARISS contacts are made via the Kenwood radio unless otherwise noted. ******************************************************************************* Several of you have sent me emails asking about the RAC ARISS website and not being able to get in. That has now been changed to http://www.ariss.org/ Note that there are links to other ARISS websites from this site. **************************************************************************** Looking for something new to do? How about receiving DATV from the ISS? If interested, then please go to the ARISS-EU website for complete details. Look for the buttons indicating Ham Video. http://www.ariss-eu.org/ If you need some assistance, ARISS mentor Kerry N6IZW, might be able to provide some insight. Contact Kerry at kbanke(a)sbcglobal.net **************************************************************************** ARISS congratulations the following mentors who have now mentored over 100 schools: Satoshi 7M3TJZ with 135 Francesco IKØWGF with 132 Gaston ON4WF with 123 Sergey RV3DR with 112 **************************************************************************** The webpages listed below were all reviewed for accuracy. Out of date webpages were removed, and new ones have been added. If there are additional ARISS websites I need to know about, please let me know. Note, all times are approximate. It is recommended that you do your own orbital prediction or start listening about 10 minutes before the listed time. All dates and times listed follow International Standard ISO 8601 date and time format YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS The complete schedule page has been updated as of 2019-02-14 04:00 UTC. (***) Here you will find a listing of all scheduled school contacts, and questions, other ISS related websites, IRLP and Echolink websites, and instructions for any contact that may be streamed live. http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/arissnews.rtf http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/arissnews.txt Total number of ARISS ISS to earth school events is 1291. (***) Each school counts as 1 event. Total number of ARISS ISS to earth school contacts is 1234. (***) Each contact may have multiple schools sharing the same time slot. Total number of ARISS supported terrestrial contacts is 47. A complete year by year breakdown of the contacts may be found in the file. http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/arissnews.rtf Please feel free to contact me if more detailed statistics are needed. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ The following US states and entities have never had an ARISS contact: South Dakota, Wyoming, American Samoa, Guam, Northern Marianas Islands, and the Virgin Islands. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ QSL information may be found at: http://www.ariss.org/qsl-cards.html ISS callsigns: DPØISS, IRØISS, NA1SS, OR4ISS, RSØISS **************************************************************************** The successful school list has been updated as of 2019-02-14 04:00 UTC. (***) http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/Successful_ARISS_schools.rtf Frequency chart for packet, voice, and crossband repeater modes showing Doppler correction as of 2005-07-29 04:00 UTC http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/ISS_frequencies_and_Doppler_correction .rtf Listing of ARISS related magazine articles as of 2006-07-10 03:30 UTC. http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/ARISS_magazine_articles.rtf Check out the Zoho reports of the ARISS contacts https://reports.zoho.com/ZDBDataSheetView.cc?DBID=412218000000020415 **************************************************************************** Exp. 58 on orbit Oleg Konenenko David St-Jacques KG5FYI Anne McClain **************************************************************************** 73, Charlie Sufana AJ9N One of the ARISS operation team mentors

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Re: [amsat-bb] Remove hard stop in G5400B?
by Roy Dean 13 Feb '19

13 Feb '19

I now realize that the internal pot would have to be switched out (I suspect....). Probably not as trivial as just drilling the stop rivet out. --Roy K3RLD > Has anybody considered (or actually gone through with) removing the hard > stop in a G5400B azimuth rotator, and setting it up as a 450° rotator (or > whatever the G5500B is)? I'm wondering if this might be a novel way of > getting more utility out of it. I think it may even be possible in the > Fox-Delta and G-Predict to increase these limits more. Obviously coax > management must be considered.

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Re: [amsat-bb] US IC-9700 prices announced
by Alan 13 Feb '19

13 Feb '19

R&L Electronics has announced $1799.95 with free USA shipping. Looking better. No information on shipping date. 73, Alan WA4SCA <-----Original Message----- <From: Alan [mailto:wa4sca@gmail.com] <Sent: Friday, February 08, 2019 12:42 PM <To: 'amsat-bb(a)amsat.org' <amsat-bb(a)amsat.org> <Subject: US IC-9700 prices announced < <Per reports from HamCation, MSRP is $2195. HRO, GigaParts, and <DXEngineering are listing them for $2095 for delivery 2Q. < <73, < <Alan <WA4SCA <

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The Space Race is On--and We're Behind...
by Les Rayburn 13 Feb '19

13 Feb '19

:-) After listening to the WebSDR of Oscar-100 for nearly 24 hours now, it’s easy to imagine how my parents must have felt on October 4, 1957 as Sputnik transmitted it’s “beep beep beep” message to the world. Everything had changed in an instant. A geostationary hamsat is a quantum leap forward—and I confess to feeling a twinge of disappointment that someone other than AMSAT-NA accomplished this feat first. As a teenager, I remember driving a friends brand new, 1974 Corvette Stingray. My first thought was “Man! I gotta get me one of these!” Color me jealous. 73, Les Rayburn, N1LF Maylene, AL EM63nf AMSAT #38965, ARRL Life Member, CVHS Life Member, SVHF Member

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Setting up the D72 for ISS packet?
by Robert Bruninga 13 Feb '19

13 Feb '19

Setting up the TH-D72 for ISS packet: Choose the APRS menu and set your CALLSIGN on the BASIC SET menu. Tune the radio BAND A to 145.825 with a good antenna and minimal coax loss. Turn on the TNC by pressing the TNC key to bring up the little tiny APRS12 lettering in the top of the screen. That’s all y ou need to start receiving ISS APRS packets. (I think) To transmit, you need to turn on your GPS **or** turn it off and manually enter your position using the POS key. Then when you want to transmit, hit the BCON key twice. Everyone, Did I miss anything in this minimal summary? Bob, WB4APR *From:* Gerald *Subject:* Re: [amsat-bb] ISS APRS Signal Quality? (tone skew?) corrected Bob, I have the Kenwood TH-D72A that comes with TNC, but have no idea how to use it. Even the manual is some what vague. Is there anyone on this site that may be able to help me with it? The HT has over 500 menus and I'm still trying to learn all of them. Thanks, Jerry...

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Re: [amsat-bb] ISS APRS Signal Quality?
by Matt Hornsby 13 Feb '19

13 Feb '19

Just wanted to add to the dogpile about ISS APRS signal quality. Myself and others have noticed here in the Seattle area the same deafness since APRS came back online. We've tried on different th-d74s with arrow and elk antennas. I used to be able to reliably hit ISS on 5W with that setup. We've now seen that pumping 45 or 50 watts into one of those directional antennas is relatively successful, but 5W almost never works. Also, in the past, I've had no problem with my kenwood tm-d710 connected to a roof-mounted comet gp-3. 50 watts reliably worked to get digipeated at relatively low passes. Now, not so much. 73, Matt KS9O

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ISS APRS Signal Quality?
by Frank Karnauskas 13 Feb '19

13 Feb '19

Is it me or does the APRS signal not sound as strong as it was before and is it not hearing quite as well? I am having a heck of a time pinging the digipeater and the signal seems to be down a bit. Could entirely be something on my end, but I would appreciate others' opinion. 73, Frank FRANK W. KARNAUSKAS, N1UW N1UW(a)GOKARNS.com

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AO-100
by Michael A. Foster 13 Feb '19

13 Feb '19

How close are we in NA to having this capability? Pretty neat stuff. Thanks Michael –N8iup

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Everyone's Talking About It
by JoAnne K9JKM 13 Feb '19

13 Feb '19

A local club member sent me this link. Even the SOTA people are talking about QO-100: http://reflector.sota.org.uk/t/eshail-2-now-operational/19529/13 -- 73 de JoAnne K9JKM k9jkm(a)amsat.org

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