I'm doing an ISS ham demo for a friend's son who is on the autism spectrum on the 2020-10-07 - 2348 UTC pass. He is obsessed with ISS and space. Apparently he knows the gravitational force of most of our planets. ISS will be visible at -4.4 magnitude. 81 degrees max elevation.
My primary goal is to demo SSTV reception. In between SSTV image transmissions I will try to make a QSO on the digipeater, get a beacon through, or at least receive packets.
I will be using my Kenwood TH-D72 and feeding audio to a laptop. On the laptop I have RX-SSTV and UISS. I will not be using UISS to transmit packets, just to show received packets to my friend and his family.
Therefore, I will use the built in TNC on the TH-D72 to send packets.
I'll be in grid FM06 if anyone needs it, instead of my home grid of FM05.
73, John Brier KG4AKV
On Wed, Oct 7, 2020 at 4:09 PM Patrick STODDARD (WD9EWK/VA7EWK) via AMSAT-BB amsat-bb@amsat.org wrote:
Roy,
I was able to digipeat packets on the last two ISS passes over Arizona, and see packets from other stations. It is easier to hear the downlink with 10W from the ISS, even at lower elevations. I was using my TH-D74 at 5W, along with my Elk log periodic.
I think ariss.net is set up to display packets with RS0ISS somewhere in the packet path. I e-mailed Steve K4HG, who owns that site, to ask him about making whatever change the site needs to display packets relayed through NA1SS.
I was able to search aprs.fi to see some of my packets that were digipeated on the first of the two passes I tried this morning. This means there are gateways still in operation, even if I can't see myself on ariss.net right now.
I have a couple of decent ISS passes tonight. I plan on giving them a try, and see if the 10W downlink helps to overcome interference from lighting on houses around mine. And try to make some QSOs.
73!
Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK http://www.wd9ewk.net/ Twitter: @WD9EWK or http://twitter.com/WD9EWK
On Wed, Oct 7, 2020 at 7:13 PM Roy Dean via AMSAT-BB amsat-bb@amsat.org wrote:
Has anybody gotten it to digipeat? I got NA1SS beacons on the 19:00z pass, but heard no other packets. ARISS.net shows no active packets for 40 days.
--Roy K3RLD
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