June 2012 - Amsat-dc (INACTIVE)

Does anyone have an LVB tracker locally?
by Stephan Greene 25 Jun '12

25 Jun '12

As in a reasonable distance from Northern Virginia/DC area. I am going to add automated tracking to my station (G5400B az/el rotors), probably one of the LVB Trackers AMSAT-NA sells. When I tried a rotor controller back in the AO-13/40 days, (I do not recall which controller - may have had a serial or parallel port dongle), I recall there was a problem with the signal from one of the rotors (azimuth?) causing the controller to go into a reset mode and traverse to pointing south - possible an intermittent in the position sensor. The analog meters on the Yaesu controller do not show any problems, and the rotors have been working well over the past several weeks and the just-concluded Field Day. If possible, I'd like to verify my rotors and an LVB will get along well together before making the purchase, by testing the controller with my system. I can bring the rotor and a PC to your QTH, so you don't even have to let yours out of your sight. Replies to ks1g(a)amsat.org. 73 Steve KS1G -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Greene ks1g04(a)gmail.com <kay ess one gee zero four>@gmail.com -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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AMSAT-DC RE: IC-821 and SatPC32 weirdness solved
by Kilroy, Patrick L. (GSFC-5680) 18 Jun '12

18 Jun '12

Hi Steve, Thanks for the follow up. Very helpful! Good luck in the contest! Cheers, Pat N8PK -----Original Message----- Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2012 3:00 PM To: amsat-dc(a)amsat.org RE: IC-821 and SatPC32 weirdness solved (Stephan Greene) From: Stephan Greene <ks1g04(a)gmail.com> Re: my message from the other day....problem was in the radio. Somehow the satellite mode had become set such that the repeater offsets (+600 kHz or -5 MHz depending on band) activated on my uplink whenever SatPC32 sent a doppler frequency change during transmitting. Made it hard to find my signal, let alone make QSOs with computer control of frequency. Manual control of the radio worked fine. Go figure. Full reset of the radio has solved the problem. Easily found my downlinks and made QSOs on AO-7 Mode B and VO-52 Mode B earlier this evening with computer control of my radio. Boy - do I wish I took the time to figure out how to do that! Lesson: Problems with computer control of a radio are not always the fault of the computer or software. For those who have seen my old garden-cart backyard portable AO-13 system, I'm reusing pieces of it. Same Yaesu G5400, but on a sawhorse this time, bottom section of the 70cm HyGain satellite antenna, and a 4 element KLM yagi I had for 2M. Landwher and ARR preamps, although I don't really need it on 2M and using it results in a S5-6 noise level on 2M when the antennas are pointing at my house or the neighbors. Now if I could just do something about all the trees my everyone (including me!) planted over the past 10+ years. Nice to be back on the birds! 73, Steve KS1G ks1g(a)amsat.org --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Greene ks1g04(a)gmail.com <kay ess one gee zero four>@gmail.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Equipment Racks Available
by A.J. Farmer 07 Jun '12

07 Jun '12

All, I have several 42U equipment cabinets which are suitable for rack mount radio equipment or desktop type equipment on a shelf; perfect for a repeater site or for organizing your radios or test equipment. They are also good for server and networking equipment (their original intent). Dimensions are 24" wide x 40" deep, by 78" tall. I have them for sale on eBay, Craiglist, and local classifieds, but I am more than happy to donate to a club or individual that needs one. Let me know if you have any interest as they are going fast. Available for pickup in Hollywood, MD A.J. Farmer, AJ3U

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IC-821 and SatPC32 weirdness solved
by Stephan Greene 07 Jun '12

07 Jun '12

Re: my message from the other day....problem was in the radio. Somehow the satellite mode had become set such that the repeater offsets (+600 kHz or -5 MHz depending on band) activated on my uplink whenever SatPC32 sent a doppler frequency change during transmitting. Made it hard to find my signal, let alone make QSOs with computer control of frequency. Manual control of the radio worked fine. Go figure. Full reset of the radio has solved the problem. Easily found my downlinks and made QSOs on AO-7 Mode B and VO-52 Mode B earlier this evening with computer control of my radio. Boy - do I wish I took the time to figure out how to do that! Lesson: Problems with computer control of a radio are not always the fault of the computer or software. For those who have seen my old garden-cart backyard portable AO-13 system, I'm reusing pieces of it. Same Yaesu G5400, but on a sawhorse this time, bottom section of the 70cm HyGain satellite antenna, and a 4 element KLM yagi I had for 2M. Landwher and ARR preamps, although I don't really need it on 2M and using it results in a S5-6 noise level on 2M when the antennas are pointing at my house or the neighbors. Now if I could just do something about all the trees my everyone (including me!) planted over the past 10+ years. Nice to be back on the birds! 73 Steve KS1G ks1g(a)amsat.org -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Greene ks1g04(a)gmail.com <kay ess one gee zero four>@gmail.com -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Need SatPC32 troubleshooting help
by Stephan Greene 05 Jun '12

05 Jun '12

Getting back onto the satellites in prep for Field Day (and I've had my 1st QSOs on AO-7, SO-50, and this evening, VO-52 - yay!). Running into weirdness now with SatPC32 controlling the transmit frequency on my Icom 821. This is one of those, "well' I think it WAS working correctly" situations (and no I don't know what I did, if anything, to bugger it up). Or it may have always been there and I didn't notice it until I started trying more passes and closer to max elevation/max rate of doppler shift. While transmitting, when the program sends the radio a frequency correction (due to any combination of doppler and uplink tuning via the screen controls), the transmit frequency shifts 5 MHz down on 70cm (at least on AO-7, down from 435.x to 430.x) and up 1MHz (145.x to 146.x) when the uplink is on 2M. Goes back to normal after I stop transmitting and wait for the next correction, or toggle CAT control off and back on. So far, I've seen this on at least AO-7 and VO-52, and confirmed it on the FO-29 settings. Frustrating - I now have to switch off the radio control and find my d/l the old fashioned-way. Radio is otherwise responding to CAT commands normally. The RX frequency is unchanged throughout. Radio is configured in satellite-R mode, main band as d/l and sub-band as u/l. I've tried different settings of baud rate and CAT command delay without effect. I also tried a 100% uninstalling and reinstalling SatPC32 (pretty sure everything cleared because I had to reconfig the program from scratch) without stopping this behavior. Version is latest (SatPC32 12.8b), registered (AMSAT-NA of course), running on Windows7 64 (run it as administrator from my user account). CAT control of the radio is otherwise fine, addresses for main & sub bands appear correct, CAT baud rate is 19k2, and CAT delay is 70, "use sattelite mode" box is checked. Slower baud rates and longer delays did not clear the problem. RF feedback into the control cable (USB with built in serial converter) is plausible (I get some pickup on the PC speakers on 2M, full power), not sure I have a good way to test for that. Assuming I don't find and fix the problem 5 seconds after I hit "send", any suggestions to fix? The problem is very repeatable and very frustrating. Thanks & 73 Steve KS1G -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Greene ks1g04(a)gmail.com <kay ess one gee zero four>@gmail.com -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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