Successful AMSAT Presentation Using Zoom

Posted on April 4, 2020 by Bob Beatty

I’m fortunate enough to be an AMSAT Ambassador, and from time to time, I get an opportunity to present to groups of hams that are interested in learning about how they can start using the dozen+ Amateur Radio Satellites.  This morning was one such occasion.

I was invited to give a presentation by the Rochester VHF Group (400+ members) and to members in other clubs throughout the area.  Ev, W2EV was the host and did a wonderful job.

Prior to the meeting, Ev and I tested both WebEx and Zoom, and found that the audio and video quality of Zoom was much better.  Their free account wasn’t quite up to the task because we knew the meeting would run more than an hour.  One of the participants had a paid “Pro” version (which costs $15 a month — can be turned on/off at will).  With that we had unlimited time and were allowed up to 100 users (we had 41).

Things went very smoothly with Ev’s help as the moderator (he also monitored the “Chat” for questions while I was giving the PowerPoint presentation).  After the presentation we unmuted all participants for a group Q&A session.

No doubt this can be a valuable tool for hams to continue their meetings and other activities, even while sheltering-at-home.  I will be using Zoom for my next Technician Class, which starts on April 21st at 5:30 PM.

Ev, W2EV, from Rochester VHF Group moderating presentation using Zoom

Posted in AMSAT, Presentations, Satellite | Leave a comment

A Ham has no end of things to do…

Posted on March 27, 2020 by Bob Beatty

With much of the world self-isolating during the COVID outbreak, some folks are understandably getting cabin fever.  My family and I try to reduce that as much as we can by getting outside in the fresh air on sunny days (sort of rare in RI now, during our rainy season; so lots more 40-50 degree days with grey skies).  But of course, being a ham, I have no problem filling all those rainy days with radio activities.

Still sometimes I have to pay the piper on a sunny day.  Today was spent changing the oil in my Honda Generator (EU2000i).  I purchased that at the end of August 2011, just in time to lose power for about a week after Hurricane Irene smacked Rhode Island.  Since then it has been used dozens of times for power outages and various Winter and Summer Field Day events.

The last time I changed the oil (bad Bob, bad), was in June of 2019, right before Field Day.  So today was the oil change day, plus putting the snowblower away and getting the lawnmower ready for spring.  Despite using the generator for less than 30 hours, the oil was fairly dirty as you can see in the photo below.

Please note the use of an accessory oil change tube (milled out of aluminum tubing) to keep oil from dribbling all over the inside of the generator when changing it.  Also note the very low tech oil changing stand!

Changing the oil in a Honda EU2000i

Posted in Alternative Power, COVID-19, EU2000i | Leave a comment

Thank you VP8PJ Team!

Posted on March 7, 2020 by robert

I am always amazed when I think of the logistics and costs of putting on a major DXpedition.  When you couple that with remote and downright dangerous locations, we all owe a debt of gratitude to the teams that put them on.

It is a tribute to the skill of the operators that I was able to work VP6PJ on five bands and all three mode.  I spent quite a bit of time listening on 15/12/10 and 160 meters, but never heard them (only wire antennas here).

 

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Surprise From VP8PJ – Early LotW Confirmations

Posted on March 1, 2020 by Bob Beatty

I had a nice surprise this morning when I checked LotW; three confirmations from VP8PJ.  Still hoping to work them on some additional bands.

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VP8PJ FT8 Success 18.095 MHz

Posted on February 27, 2020 by Bob Beatty

It took slightly less than 30 minutes to work VP8PJ on FT8 this morning around 9:30 AM local time (14:30 UTC).  There pretty much was a wall of EU stations (understandable), but despite occasional deep fades, eventually I got through with 100 watts.  Now to look for them on other bands/modes.

Waterfall for 18.085 MHz around 14:30 UTC

VP8PJ Contact made on FT8

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Use Propagation Tools but check outside times too!

Posted on February 26, 2020 by Bob Beatty

Just worked VP8PJ on 10.105 MHz at 21:45 UTC.  Propagation chart says very small chance of working them now.  That said, their signal is 3 to 4 S-units above the noise floor.  I worked them with 100 watts on CW. (Did take me 15 minutes of listening to figure out the operator pattern, then a 5 minutes of calling where I guessed they would be listening)

Just a word to the wise — use HF propagation tools as a guideline, but propagation often works better than you might think.  Check before and after the recommended times!

The above is the Short Path Reliability for RI to VP8PJ generated today using VOACAP.  Note the 30-meter segment is just starting to show some happiness around 21:00 UTC.

 

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AMSAT DMR Net (Wed 10 PM ET on TG98006)

Posted on February 18, 2020 by robert

My thanks to Walter, K5WH, who was nice enough to confirm that my DMR Radio was working on the AMSAT Talk Group 98006.  Walter also indicated that there is a 10 PM Eastern Time net that meets every Wednesday run by Mitch, AD0HJ as the Lead NCS.  Didn’t find that on the AMSAT Website.

 

(Edit: Just wanted to say the 10 PM ET AMSAT Net was great.  It was run very well by “RJ”, WY7AA, and lasted about 45 minutes.  Lots of talk about upcoming roving and various station projects. There were 31 participants by my count.  Also learned that the net is on Yaesu System Fusion 11689.)

Posted in AMSAT, DMR, FUSION | Leave a comment

Some Tweaking for HuskySat-1

Posted on February 4, 2020 by Bob Beatty

Despite having the specified 435799.7 KHz frequency at the satellite for the Beacon Downlink in my Doppler.SQF file, I still wasn’t able to automatically decode the satellite telemetry using FoxTelem.

I did a bit of thinking, and am guessing that the BPSK carrier is 1500 Hz at the bird, which would mean I would have to tune 1500 Hz lower.  So I actually need to set my Doppler.SQF file entry as 435798.20 KHz.

Experimenting with that on a pass around noon local time, I found that the optimal frequency is more like 435797.98, some 220Hz lower still.  As I have not calibrated my IC-9700 yet, that sounds reasonable.  Time to break out the frequency standard.

Incidentally, I’ve heard that the latest IC-9700 firmware requires the 10 MHz reference to be available all the time — that’s a big ask, so I might not  upgrade the firmware and just do the TCXO calibration against it instead.  (The reason for this is mostly the L-Band folks running FT4, and discovering that the transmitter heating causes the TCXO to drift too much.  Additional cooling avoids the issue too.)

Over the course of the path I saw a shift from carrier of 435.797.983 down to 435.797.783, or a gradual lower drift.  This has to be due to errors in the TLE set.  But the good news I picked up 19 packets in automatic mode.  So I’m going to set my Beacon Downlink to 435.797.883 and see how that works through the day.  (Keep in mind the intentional downshift of 1500 Hz due to the audio tones at the satellite, so the carrier is actually 1500 Hz greater — 435.799.383)

Posted in FoxTelem, HuskySat-1, IC-9700, SatPC32 | Leave a comment

Configuring SatPC32 for an Icom IC-9700

Posted on February 3, 2020 by Bob Beatty

After ensuring that the latest Icom USB drivers have been installed (before plugging the radio into the computer), the following are the basic steps for configuring the radio and a new installation of SatPC32:

On the 9700 – Menu/Set/Connectors/CI-V.  As the 9700 has some new features, both standard CI-V as well as USB and LAN CI-V, we have to make some adjustments.  I set the

  • CI-V Baud Rate to 19200 (we aren’t using that port, but just for good measure)
  • CI-V address set to the default (A2h).
  • Set the CI-V USB Baud Rate to 115200 (highest)
  • Set CI-V USB Echo Back ON (that’s a critical setting, without that you will see the 9700 update frequencies a single time, then not again).  The default setting is OFF.

Within SatPC32 – Setup/Radio Setup

  • Pick Icom, Model IC-9700.  Ensure proper COM port for the USB cable between the radio and computer.  I saw two COM ports installed, and I chose the lower port, COM3 in my case).
  • Pull down the Baudrate setting and ensure it is 115200
  • Pull down the Addresses Setting and set both to $A2 using the up/down arrows.
  • “Store” the settings

Within SatPC32 – Use the ?/Auxiliary Files function to edit files

  • For DOPPLER.SQF, add “HUSKYSAT-1,435799.7,0,USB,,0,BPSK Beacon” and File/Save
  • For AmsatNames.txt, add “45117 19071G   HUSKYSAT-1” about the 99992 entry for AO-85
  • I happen to like the map being fixed on the Observer, so remember to set “Z1” as the zoomed in maps will always follow the satellite.

In my distribution of SatPC32, Satellites/tle-new.txt had the HUSKYSAT-1

 

The above appeared to work, but given some frequency differences,  I was back to manually adjusting for Doppler and only captured 11 frames, but at least I am sending data.

(From https://www.amsat.org/tlm/leaderboard.php?id=0&db=FOXDB):

(From https://www.amsat.org/tlm/ground_station.php?id=6&db=FOXDB&station=WB4SON ):

Posted in AMSAT, HuskySat-1, IC-9700, SatPC32 | 2 Comments

First Decodes of HuskySat-1

Posted on February 3, 2020 by Bob Beatty

A new satellite, HuskySat-1, was launched this past Friday, from a departing Cygnus Supply Vehicle.  After leaving the ISS, the Cygnus was boosted into a higher orbit, then the 3U HuskySat-1 was launched.  Basic details are:

HuskySat-1
———-
Uplink:    145.910 – 145.940 MHz LSB/CW
Downlink:  435.840 – 435.810 MHz USB/CW (inverting)
Telemetry: 435.800 MHz 1K2 bps BPSK
24049.00 MHz (U of Washington experimental downlink)

The latest version of FoxTelem software to decode the 1200 bps BPSK
beacon is available at: https://www.amsat.org/tlm

On Sunday, Doppler measurements made by Nico PA0DLO indicated that HuskySat-1 is NORAD Object 45117 (2019-071G).  The actual beacon frequency is 435.79971 MHz.

I had purchased an IC-9700 months ago, but was so busy that I hadn’t unboxed it until this weekend.  In addition, my trusty ToughBook CF-30 laptops were having issues updating Win10 beyond the 2018 Feature Update (due to old graphic cards and no support from Panasonic).  I had purchased a used CF-31, which was MUCH faster and so far has kept up with all the feature updates.  So I figured I would configure it for the IC-9700.  Thus my Saturday, and non-SuperBowl time on Sunday was spent gathering and installing all the various software tools.

When I ventured downstairs today, I noticed that there was a pass around 18:02 UTC for HuskySat-1, so I quickly downloaded FoxTelem and scrambled through the settings to get things ready to go for the pass.

Even though I was tuning the BPSK signal by ear, and manually adjusting for Doppler (I don’t have HuskySat-1 setup in SatPC32 yet), I was able to decode 30+ packets.

The Audio Tab of FoxTelem showing eye pattern

A Sample of the decoded Health Telemetry

Congratulations to the University of Washington team for a successful bird, and to AMSAT as well.  The satellite is currently being commissioned and will be running a Pulsed Plasma Thruster experiments along with 24 GHz high speed data & imaging for the next month or so.  At the completion of the experiments, the satellite will be turned over to Amateur use with a 30 KHz wide linear Mode VU transponder.

 

Posted in AMSAT, FoxTelem, HuskySat-1, IC-9700, SatPC32 | 2 Comments