Hi!
Last weekend's Yuma Hamfest in southwestern Arizona was a fun event to be a part of. For the 8th straight year, AMSAT had a booth at the hamfest. This year, as in 2012 previously, the Yuma Hamfest also served as the ARRL Southwestern Division Convention. This brought more people out to Yuma, along with the great weather and the lower fuel prices in most of the southwestern USA outside of California certainly didn't hurt.
The hamfest ran across two days - Friday (19 February) afternoon, and all day Saturday (20 February). The hamfest site, the Yuma County Fairgrounds, turns into a mix of hamfest, convention, and campground. Campers are able to park on the fairgrounds for the weekend, meaning there's no travel from camp site to hamfest. For the others attending the hamfest, there are many motels and hotels around Yuma, or other campgrounds in the area - plus the desert, a favorite of many spending the winter in this area. The fairgrounds sits across the street from Yuma International Airport and Marine Corps Air Station Yuma. With the military air operations, it was like having a small air show alongside the hamfest with the different types of military aircraft in the sky.
AMSAT had its booth in a section with other groups like ARRL and the Civil Air Patrol. Lots of traffic went past the booth over the two days. I set up tablets running videos showing demonstrations of working satellites, tracking software (SatPC32), and SDR (HDSDR, connected to either an SDRplay receiver or a HackRF Blue software-defined transceiver). Demonstrations were done outside the hall, near a parking lot, on 3 different satellites (AO-85, FO-29, SO-50) using different radio configurations:
AO-85- TX: IC-2730A, RX: SDRplay with HDSDR on 8-inch Windows 10 tablet FO-29- TX/RX: FT-817ND (half-duplex) SO-50- TX/RX: TH-D72A (also half-duplex)
All of my radio configurations used an Elk Antennas handheld 2m/70cm log periodic. For the AO-85 configuration, the antenna was connected through an MFJ diplexer to serve both the IC-2730A and SDRplay.
With the hamfest starting at midday (1900 UTC) Friday, and AO-85's pass times not lining up better with the hamfest, Saturday morning was the only chance I had for an AO-85 demonstration during the hamfest. For the other two satellites, I was on at least once a day on each satellite. One of the FO-29 passes on Saturday afternoon was recorded on video, and has since been uploaded to YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy-G6rD_xl4
Other pictures were posted on my @WD9EWK Twitter feed over the weekend. If you don't have a Twitter account, you can follow this link and scroll back to see other photos I posted from the hamfest:
Outside of the hamfest on Friday and Sunday mornings, I worked AO-85 from the Yuma Territorial Prison State Historical Park, northwest of the hamfest near the Colorado River. All of these locations were in the rarely-heard grid DM22. For all of the AO-85 passes I worked at those two locations, I captured and uploaded telemetry to AMSAT.
With AO-85 being in orbit for a few months now, and more satellites coming during 2016, it makes it easier to talk about this part of ham radio at an event like the Yuma Hamfest. Instead of "it's coming", I can say "we have one Fox-1 satellite in orbit now, and more on the way". Add in the other projects AMSAT is working on currently, and this is a much better situation compared to a few years ago. A good thing. :-)
Thanks to Roger Hunt K7MEX and the Yuma Amateur Radio Hamfest Organization (a not-for-profit corporation whose only purpose is this hamfest!) for allowing AMSAT to be a part of the event. Thanks also to all the stations who called WD9EWK during the demonstrations. Some of them took a little bit of time to describe their location, and even their station setup - things that help the crowds understand how far we can communicate through the satellites, and what others use for their stations.
73!
Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK http://www.wd9ewk.net/ Twitter: @WD9EWK