AMSAT President, Rick Hambly, W2GPS will join the Florida AMSAT Net,
Thursday Jan 17, 2008 from 7:30 - 8:30 pm EST to give a short status report
and field questions.
This net links repeaters all over Florida and via EchoLink so there is ample
opportunity for those that want to listen or ask questions. The EchoLink
nodes to connect through are: KG4YZY-R or N4HHA-R.
The net's purpose is to provide a platform for hams with amateur satellite
interest to meet and discuss topics of interest. All amateurs are invited
to check in. Expect other AMSAT Officers and Board members to participate
over the next few months.
--
73 de JoAnne K9JKM
k9jkm(a)amsat.org
Hello everyone,
The http://www.amsat.org web page has been updated with an executive summary
of the EAGLE engineering team meeting we held on Tuesday, January 8.
Goal is to provide general information via the web and mail lists to the
amateur radio community. We plan to publish complete details in the Journal
so paid members receive this as a benefit of signing up.
--
73 de JoAnne K9JKM
k9jkm(a)amsat.org
FYI, there is absolutely NO comparison between Mumble and Team Speak.
Mumble is awesome and Team Speak SUCKS.
It allows you to adjust for the lowest latency your computer can
tolerate. It is so good you can carry on two way casual conversations
as if you were on the telephone.
There is latency, but it is in no way as bad as TeamSpeak.
If we do the Ham Radio server change over with Eric Ellison, Eric will
need to set it up as multiple servers on separate ports, one for each
room. But it is very very light weight. The speex speech quality is
just fantastic.
I am going to run some Flex Radio developer tests, where we get all of
the developers on to see how it scales. I would not want to have all of
AMSAT Engineering change over and it fail when we have the kind of great
turn out we had last week.
Bob
If somebody could help me figure out why I am muted in teamspeak and
can't send or receive, that would be helpful. There is no unmute option
in the menus, but clicking Self/Mute Microphone and Self/Mute Speakers
don't unmute me.
Otherwise, you're not getting an ACP report...
Matt
Tonight at 9 P.M. Eastern time engineering will meet on the Amateur
Radio Developer's Team Speak server.
I didn't realize why Matt hated it so much until I realized the
default password for access to the main system is Flex4U.
;-). It was originally started up by owners and users of the
SDR-1000 by Flex Radio but it is now the default meeting place for
Here are your instructions copied from the password protected
EaglePedia page. I am happy to announce that Dave Hartzell has
volunteered to take on the reorganization of the EaglePedia content.
I am very hopeful that with his leadership and contributions from the
individuals involved, it can meet the clear promise it holds.
I am sitting in the AMSAT Engineering room with away selected.
73's
Bob
N4HY
Getting Started
1. Download and install the TeamSpeak client.
2. Bring up TeamSpeak client.
3. Click Connection
4. Click Connect
5. Right Click Servers
6. Click Add Server
7. In the Label field, enter AMSAT (could be anything you want.)
8. In the Server Address field, enter "70.84.228.202:9274". Include
the colon and port number, but do not include the qoute marks (").
9. In the Nickname field, put whatever you want. Suggest at a
minimum, name and callsign
10. Select Anonymous
11. In the Server Password field, put "Flex4U" as password without the quotes.
12. In default channel, enter "AMSAT Engineering" without the quotes.
13. In channel password, enter "Eagle" as password, again without the quotes.
[edit]
Connecting to TeamSpeak
1. Click connect.
2. In Settings, select Sound input/output settings.
3. Leave everything at the default, except select Push to talk
mode. You'll then be asked to select a key for your PTT switch. I use
the right <CTRL> key (the left one on my laptop); some use the
spacebar. Whatever you like, but you probably want a key which does
NOT go into the keyboard buffer. Note that this is like a PTT switch
on a radio, you must _hold it down_ to transmit.
4. Leave everything else at default; select CLOSE.
[edit]
Once You Connect
This should work; I'll be listening. Amazing how WELL it works on my dialup!
If by chance, I'm not hearing you but you're hearing me:
1. Open your sound card mixer application (varies with windows
version and sound card.) Make sure the microphone is enabled on the
INPUT (may be called RECORDING) side. Probably should be disabled on
the Playback side.
If you have any questions about TeamSpeak please post them to the
Eagle Mailing list.
This is a proposed agenda for next week's meeting. Poor Howard! If he
cannot make it for that meeting, we will get the report from him
earlier and deliver it.
Please send me your modifications. I will contact each of the proposed
presenters directly.
http://n4hy.org/AMSAT_Engineering_Meeting_2008_i.pdf
Barry Baines is the leader of the meeting and the time enforcer.
Bob
--
AMSAT Director and VP Engineering. Member: ARRL, AMSAT-DL,
TAPR, Packrats, NJQRP, QRP ARCI, QCWA, FRC. ARRL SDR WG Chair
“An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why
must the pessimist always run to blow it out?” Descartes
Many of you have seen my idea of a voltage tunable phase shifter for
Eagle's S2 & C-band arrays. If you haven't, a copy of my paper from the
2007 AMSAT Space Symposium is available for download at
http://mysite.verizon.net/w3iwi/electronic_scanning_antennas.pdf. I
haven't had time to do much on the project the past few months, but in
the initial breadboard I found that conventional varactor diodes simply
create to be a discontinuity at the tap. I've done a little testing with
a resistor in series with the varactors, but I have no progress to report.
Matt Ettus and others have been providing me with a lot of reprints on
NLTL (non-linear transmission lines) used to generate picosecond
risetime pulses, and it is very interesting. The web has a lot of
relevant publications, including the voltage-steerable array described
at http://tempest.das.ucdavis.edu/mmwave/NLTL/NLTL.html. At least these
publications show me that my idea is not totally screwy.
After researching the topic, I have come to realize that what we need
are not varactors used for tuning VHF radios, but rather some diodes
with MUCH smaller junction capacity. This seems to dictate the use of
Schottky Barrier Diodes (SBD) as varactors. Microwave SBDs are used as
parametric frequency multipliers and mixers up into sub-mm wavelengths.
In doing literature searches, I came across the MACOM 44700 series of
diodes (PDF attached) that look pretty good.
I wonder if we have some talent here in the EAGLE group who have
experience with low-capacity (range 0.1-2 pf or so) varactors who can
point the way to some suitable parts we might try.
73 & Happy New Year -- Tom
Hello All,
I think I was invited here by Robert McGwier. I would like to say hello to
all of you, and Happy New Year.
I am David Goncalves (W1EUJ), I live in Lexington, MA, have had some
experience in working on a satellite project (RAFT),
and work by day as an electrical engineer designing hardware for heart
support/replacement devices. I work currently with FPGAs (using VHDL) for
backup control of pneumatically driven blood pumps. I think my skills might
be of use here.
In particular, I offered to help with the PWM control, and possibly other
tasks. I did get an education in LTI systems, DSP and digital design from
Northeastern University, from which I graduated in 2004, so the topics here
are not new to me. I understand that the Xilinx Spartan (I hope I have that
right) is being used here, and I can start by getting familair with that
hardware.
Robert, as I came on to help you, I await your 'command'. To anybody and
everybody else, if there is documentation that I should go read, point the
way, and also good luck in your endeavors.
--
David Goncalves
We will investigate having Eric set up a server. There is no mac
distributable but there is source and details on how to make it. For
the time being, we are sticking with what works. We have to conduct
business and not fight a new system. When we know it works, is stable,
doesn't cause us to lose anyone because it doesn't work on their
computer (which is what TS did for us), we will give it a test drive.
For me, this is off topic as of now.
Bob
Lou McFadin wrote:
> TS seems to work fairly well. I wouldn't wan to switch to anything that
> didn't include a Mac OSX version.
>
> Louis McFadin
> 701 Deerwood Ave. Orlando Fl 32825
> 407 658 8179
> w5did(a)amsat.org
>
--
AMSAT Director and VP Engineering. Member: ARRL, AMSAT-DL,
TAPR, Packrats, NJQRP, QRP ARCI, QCWA, FRC. ARRL SDR WG Chair
“An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why
must the pessimist always run to blow it out?” Descartes
