Now a days? It has always been like that, even when the "S" in SAREX meant "Shuttle". I've been skunked many times from shuttle crews too, due either to low interest, or heavy workloads. There are few "hams" like Owen Garriott, Tony England, Valery Korzun, or Bill McArthur... but many others have still done a fine job (no, not their "job" obviously) of getting on the air and making random QSO's. We realize they have "real work" to do onboard, and if they have more interest in looking out the window, or shooting photos, or phoning home to their family... they're entitled to spend their free time as they wish. But we very much do enjoy when they take the time to make random contacts with us earthbound hams. It raises our spirits, as we hope it raises theirs, to make this special radio connection.
A very good example of bad split-frequency operation (that is, inexperienced hams) was the crew of Expedition-4 (Bursch and Walz). On Christmas Eve 2001, I copied one of them calling CQ for a whole pass, with absolutely no contacts. I tried every uplink known to me (all pre-programmed in my rig) and they just were not hearing anyone, it seemed. I seriously don't think they couldn't "sort out the QRM" but rather that they had their radio left on one of the secret splits used for school (or other private) contacts, and therefore they just got dead silence, as if no one cared to call them and talk to them, and maybe wish them a Merry Christmas. They never got on the air again either, except for school contacts. That was a shame.
One last comment, back to the Shuttle Amateur Radio EXperiment: they used FIVE voice uplinks, and you had to "win the luck of the draw" to jump between them to try to get them to respond to you. Talk about a QRM generator!!! Things were simplexer, er... simpler, with Mir.
Best regards, Stan/W4SV
On 11 Aug 2006 at 20:03, Kenneth, N5VHO wrote:
So one frequency up and down for SSTV, Packet, Voice, PSK-31 and two for the crossband repeater.
I think you need to go back to my posting regarding the reason "theres been very little phone activity from the ISS for many years"(regardless of the up/down frequency scheme). They have other things to play with. Only interested crew members get on now a days and the rest are a horse lead to water issue.
Kenneth - N5VHO
--- McGrane tmcgrane@suffolk.lib.ny.us wrote:
Sorry kenneth but you totally missed the original point----- theres been very little phone activity from the ISS for many years and split seperate frequencies are an unneccesary incumberance to operation.
What good is split operation if the astronauts dont use it????
With simplex, maybe theyll leave the radio on for callers. That states my point simply.
pat
On Fri, 11 Aug 2006, Kenneth, N5VHO wrote:
Split operations allows everyone can hear the astronauts talking back all the time.
Kenneth - N5VHO
--- McGrane tmcgrane@suffolk.lib.ny.us wrote:
Hello again- the astronauts will hear everyone calling whether its split or simplex operation so why not make it simplex!
pat
On Fri, 11 Aug 2006, Ransom, Kenneth G. (JSC-OC)[BAR] wrote:
It sounds like your issue is not that split
frequencies are bad but that
multiple uplinks makes it difficult for the
crew
to listen to one
uplink. ITU region regulations for ground
station
operations are the
culprit. Space has no borders but Earth does
so
have of the problem is
getting everyone to agree on a single uplink.
Not
everyone in the world
has the same frequency allocations nor do they
use
the available
spectrum in their region the same way.
The issue is not the 20-30 miles but the
number of
callers in the 2000
km wide footprint. The station has to listen
to
all of them. Since you
can't hear all of them, it becomes difficult
to
know when someone is
talking or not without guidance from the
station
operator.
In the MIR days, the crew did not have the
luxury
of near full time
satellite communication that provides voice,
communication and an
IP phone that lets them make phone calls. If
the
MIR crew wanted to talk
to someone, they needed to use the ham radio
or
the Russian VHF space to
ground system. The ISS crew has plenty of
options
to choose from when
they want to communicate and it depends on the
personality of the crew
as to which ones get utilized.
Kenneth - N5VHO
-----Original Message----- From: sarex-bounces@AMSAT.Org
[mailto:sarex-bounces@AMSAT.Org] On Behalf
Of McGrane Sent: Thursday, August 10, 2006 6:43 PM To: Manned space BBS Subject: [sarex] further late reply regarding
ISS
simplex
Greetings from patrick N2OEQ
Despite support of the present frequency
scheme
for the ISS I still wish
to disagree with the policy of split operation
with different phone
uplinks.
Back when the MIR was up, the russians
operated
simplex and left the
radio on to listen for callers. On several occasions, I called the MIR
according
to my tracking program
and was rewarded several times with a
response.
With two different uplink frequencies, the
astronauts are less inclined
to leave the radio on to listen for callers.
When there were several callers here on
simplex
responding to a CQ call
from the MIR, we acted civilized and took
turns
and everyone made
contacts so I dont buy the absolute need for
split
operation.
Besides, how many callers could there be
within 20
or 30 miles up to the
horizon.
We've had years of robot like amateur radio on
the
ISS. How about
loosening the ties!
Thanks for the soapbox..... pat
Via the sarex mailing list at AMSAT.ORG
courtesy
of AMSAT-NA.
To unsubscribe, visit
http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/sarex
Via the sarex mailing list at AMSAT.ORG courtesy
of
AMSAT-NA. To unsubscribe, visit http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/sarex
Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam
protection around
Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
Via the sarex mailing list at AMSAT.ORG courtesy of AMSAT-NA. To unsubscribe, visit http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/sarex