It was pointed out that I omitted the most important part., that a monoband VHF radio is all that is needed to make a digital/voice GRID contact via PSAT2. Not a dual band as iis required for APRS.
So Here is the revised announcement.
On Tue, May 4, 2021 at 5:44 PM Robert Bruninga bruninga@usna.edu wrote:
Malking a DTMF grid report is trivial from any VHF radio once you have loaded your grid and callsign into a DTMF memory, All you have to do is set up a split memory channel to TX on 145.980 and RX 145.825 and when the bird is in view,TX the DTMF memory and listen for the VOICE response. The voice response is for other VHF DTMF users also without APRS.
You should also hear the APRS packet response that should be picked up by APRS IGates to place the DTMF report (converted to packet) to make it to the DTMF capture pages on http://aprs.org/psat2.html
.
PSAT2 reports that Grids have been captured from these stations:
2021-05-04 20:19:08PSAT2-1>APOFF,ARISS,qAS,P43L-5: :BLNo-DTMF:r|KI6TSF,YD0NXX,N3CRT,PY5LF,N3CRT,F5VKV,KE4AZZ
The QSO counter is up to 53
To encode your Grid/Callsign into a single DTMF memory, go to: http://aprs.org/PSAT2Translator.html
Bob, WB4APR
On Sat, May 1, 2021 at 6:22 PM Robert Bruninga bruninga@usna.edu wrote:
PSAT2 appears to be operating normally after awakening on 26 April from a 9 month sleep. All VHF and UHF functions are intact. The APRS digi is off to encourage experimentation with other modes. Such as DTMF Grids, PSK31, SSTV relay, HF voice SSB uplink, UHF FM down.
The latest Bulletin from PSAT2 on May 1 shows these callsigns have used the DTMF Gridsquare report or sent a DTMF message. The goal of this mode is to allow anyone with ANY radio to do a digital communication without having to have a specialized APRS data mode. ALl you need is a DTMF memory to store your callsign digits.
PSAT2-1>APOFF,ARISS,qAR,HK4D-6::BLNl-DTMF: f|N3CRT,PY5LF,N3CRT,KE4AZZ,F5VKV,KE4AZZ,KE6BLR,2E0CRV
The latest QSO counter is 25.
Bob, WB4APR http://aprs.org/PSAT2.html