Hi all:
I guess I should have used the word “Transponder” rather than the word “Repeater” in my last memo. The device on ISS appears to act more like a Transponder, rather than a true FM repeater. The Transponder will repeat any signal it hears on the input and retransmit that signal on the output. At the end of this memo I attached an email from the person that provided the recording made last year.
[SCPC-FDM,SAT DX] 143.625 ODD CommsTuesday, July 8, 2008 11:12 PM From: "Jody" Add sender to Contacts To: [email protected]
This morning, sometime before 12 EST time local here I copied some strange comms from the ISS frequency of 143.625. The modulation mode was WFM. Other known ISS frequencies were active with data transmissions at the same time. Attached is a link to a recording I made of the 143.625 Frequency. You can tell at the start of the recording I was tuning in the Narrow FM mode, 5.5Khz bandwidth, after switching to wide FM mode on my Icom R8500 I was able to copy the comms. For some reason the crew was retransmitting aircraft comms. In the clip you hear a center controller and some other aircraft. One aircraft heard in the clip was Cessna 38 Uniform. it appears that aircraft was based in Colorado from a registration lookup. Also the center controller made references to Memphis center. It sounds very much like someone was tuning around the airbands and it was getting retransmitted. I was told by one that it could been a possible Comm test for a upcoming EVA. Take a listen and see if you can pull anything more from the recording. I was using a Icom R8500 and a discone antenna. No chance of intermod. Poor signal quality due to the antenna not being resonant, it’s was 225-400Mhz mil discone being used.
Link to audio: http://www.savefile.com/files/1655618
One aircraft in recording: http://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/NNumSQL.asp?NNumbertxt=38U&cmndf...
Jody North Georgia
***********
The DCI filter was a custom Job for Space Station Mir.
Picture of Filter http://www.flickr.com/photos/36403622@N06/
The problem: When the VHF-1 Transmitter was active, the Amateur radio station would go deaf. The Russian crew used the VHF-1 transmitter frequently over the USA during joint American missions. This would manifest its self by seeing the Kantronics KPC-9612 packet system send out a consecutive series of 7 Retries to the person that was last logged in. No other packet would be seen coming down. It was just like someone was logged in and then the receiver was turned off. If you switched over to the VHF-1 frequency you could hear a strong down link signal and voice.
I tested this theory again with a phone patch to Jerry Linenger and his brother in Detroit. The first few seconds of the phone patch went good via the Kenwood TM-733, then Jerry could not hear my signal any more. I quickly checked the VHF-1 channel and found the Mir crew members talking to Moscow via the Houston VHF-1 ground station. I was finally able to punch through the interference for a few seconds while Mir was directly over my house. I was using a Yaesu FT-736R, M2-CP22 antenna, AZ/EL rotor and EIRP 2-5 kW.
I was finally able to convince ARISS the filter was a needed project and they agreed. ARISS generate the appropriate paper work and Russia flew the filter to Mir in the spring on 1998, just in time for Andy’s mission.
The Solution: Ralph at DCI used one of this stock 4 cavity filters and added a 5th cavity. The extra cavity contained a Notch filter aimed at the frequency of VHF-1. The Notch filter provided an additional 20-25 dB of attenuation. With the new filter the Kenwood radios could be used to receive down to the 145 MHz range, while the VHF-1 transmitter was active.
At the present time ARISS does not believe their is any noticeable de-sensing problems with the Amateur Radio station on ISS, so the DCI project for ISS is on hold until we have proven there is a need.
Special thanks to Jody at the Yahoo SCPC-FDM,SAT DX group for providing the recordings from ISS
And thanks to Kenwood for building radios that can survive for years inside a manned space station.
73 Miles WF1F Marex, (4 project in flight an growing)