I used to be a regular user of the ISS digi exchanging one or two messages a pass and grids from keyboard to keyboard. It was a fun, quick activity.

I went away for a while and when I can back two mid Atlantic stations were beaconing up to every 3 seconds with occasional keyboard use. I tried for a couple of weeks and shut it down.

If you print your log or maintain rolling hard copy it is fun to treat it as a background "news" service of pass times and your antenna pattern.

Beacon every 1-2 min is probably fine during usable passes....maybe more often with a btext saying you are at the keyboard looking for contacts. Stations should adjust for activity.

Jmho

Roger WA1KAT

"E.Mike McCardel" mccardelm@gmail.com wrote:

I have made QSOs through the ISS digipeater. More often than not I use the digipeater to simply send my coordinates to test my equipment and make sure I'm tracking and getting through. It is a bit fun to see my transmission on ARISS.net. It's even more fun when I catch my own digipeat.

Usin the digipeater is a great way for beginners to build skills. It's not used often but there is an official ARISS activity where schools can use the digipeater by send a couple lines of code to operate a remote robot some distance from their school. ARISS has also promoted and encouraged its use for schools who are preparing for an ARISS contact to send messages to other schools who are doing the same, so they get a first hand demonstration of space communication.

73 EMike

On Thursday, December 17, 2015, Kevin Deane summit496@live.com wrote:

...

Has anyone made any contacts at all? I doubt it, all shown are beacons which are lame because they wear down the bats on PC-SAT -44 remember that bird?

The packet on ISS is a waste of time maybe they should move the antenna or something...

Kevin KF7MYK

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-- E. Michael McCardel, KC8YLD V.P. for Educational Relations, AMSAT-NA

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