AO-73, It’s Been Ages

Posted on May 19, 2016 by robert

My last AO-73 QSO was about 10 months ago.  Part of the reason is laziness — it is time consuming to relocate the uplink offset each time I try to work the bird.  I’ve read that the uplink passband is unstable with temperature changes (like going into eclipse after being illuminated).  The downlink is very stable by comparison.

The good news is I had a QSO with W8IJ in PA tonight.  The better news was I found my signal fairly quickly, only about 1.5 KHz from the Uplink Offset I used last August.

Tonight I was sending a CW signal on 435.161.38 (at the satellite) and hearing it on a downlink of 145.957.42 (from the satellite).  When I say “the satellite”, I mean what the frequency would be at the satellite taking into account Doppler adjustments.  This is critical because the frequencies of operation of a satellite are specified at the satellite.

If you look at FUNcube website, the published info on the transceiver is:

Funcube Specs

Right off the bat you can see something is wrong!  Supposedly the uplink ends at 435.150. But I was transmitting (at the satellite) a frequency of 435.161.38.  According to the published spec, it should have been 435.142.58.  That’s a 19 KHz discrepancy!!!

MANY people have reported this, but I’ve never seen it acknowledged officially — No doubt expert satellite users simply integrate the required offset into their process and never think about it again.  But it sure as heck throws off someone who doesn’t expect it to be that far off.

 

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Log Shows QSOs With Ten Different Satellites

Posted on May 19, 2016 by robert

I went through my logbook since I got back on the air five years ago and discovered a bunch of confirmed satellite QSOs.  In that time I’ve worked the following:

  1. AO-7 Confirmed by eQSL
  2. AO-27 (Four QSOs but no confirmations – bird off air in 2015)
  3. AO-73 Confirmed by LotW and eQSL
  4. AO-85 Confirmed by LotW
  5. FO-29 Confirmed by LotW and eQSL
  6. SO-50 Confirmed by LotW
  7. VO-52 Confirmed by LotW and eQSL (bird off air in 2014)
  8. XW-2A Confirmed by LotW
  9. XW-2C Confirmed by LotW and eQSL
  10. XW-2F Confirmed by LotW

My first satellite QSO was with OSCAR-6 back in 1973

Posted in AO-7, AO-73, AO-85, ARISS, FO-29, ISS, Satellite, SO-50, XW-2A, XW-2C, XW-2F | Leave a comment

A Bit More Satellite DX

Posted on May 19, 2016 by robert

During a FO-29 pass over the Atlantic I worked two European stations:  Francisco EA1JM in Spain, and Graham, G3VKV in England.
EA1JM QSL May 19 2016

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Another Great Satellite Day

Posted on May 18, 2016 by robert

I’m feeling guilty for neglecting DX, but I’ve been having a bunch of fun with satellites recently.

Several QSOs on FO-29 with calibration of both SSB and CW uplink performed.  Not much CW action on these days, but I’ll be using that during FD.

I had a QSO on SO-50 where the 436.795 downlink seemed wrong — had to shift it lower by about 3 KHz to get decent audio.  436.792.  Some publications suggest SO-50 shifts 5 KHz lower from time to time.

I was able to calibrate AO-7 on CW today and heard my downlink loud and clear.  Called CQ for the entire pass (~18:30 UTC) with no responses.  Calibration was also verified on XW-2A (CW) and XW-2F (CW and SSB) but with similar results.

I made a single SSB contact, and verified the CW and SSB uplink calibration on XW-2C.

Attempts to raise AO-85 even at point of closest approach were frustrating today.  Even with the youthful male voice identifying “Fox 1” booming in at S9, things were spotty. Every once in awhile I would get into the bird but there were no responses.  I think I’ve read something about the subtone being hard to trigger.

Finally I added several hundred more data packets to the AO-73 warehouse.

 

Posted in AO-7, AO-73, AO-85, FO-29, Satellite, SO-50, XW-2A, XW-2C, XW-2F | Leave a comment

Worked Ireland via FO-29

Posted on May 17, 2016 by robert

Well this is RARE DX for me.  I’ve only worked stations in the USA and Canada before, but FO-29 has a much larger footprint than more recent LEO satellites.  I worked George, MI6GTY, on CW from his location in Northern Ireland (IO64) at 15:20 UTC.

MI6GTY QSL

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Setup Funcube Dashboard Again

Posted on May 17, 2016 by robert

I was getting ready for a decent AO-73 pass, when it dawned on me that it was daylight, and therefore the bird was in the Telemetry mode.  Rather than call it quits, I quickly installed a copy of Funcube Dashboard on my new satellite laptop, changed SatPC32 over to the beacon frequency, and immediately started receiving data.  By the time the pass was over (14:04 UTC), I had captured 59 frames (and probably lost 20 or so from the beginning of the pass).

FuncubeDashboard

My original laptop stopped uploading to the data warehouse for reasons unknown, so I was pleasantly surprised to see frames going up to the warehouse.

FuncubeWB4SON

WB4SON 1723 408

So that is a total of 1,723 frames uploaded, and #408 in the list of contributors (haven’t uploaded anything in well over a year).

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TX Adjusted for XW-2A and XW-2F – 2 more QSOs

Posted on May 15, 2016 by robert

XW-2A had a pass around 22:25 UTC.  I found my uplink to be about 0.5 KHz high again, so I applied the corresponding offset to my SatPC32 doppler.sqf file, and had a good tx/rx relationship for the pass.

At 22:29:06, N8HM gave me a call.  I never heard a return QSL, but hopefully he copied the information.

N8HM QSL May 15 2016 1

Don’t know that I’ve ever worked 3 new birds in one day before.  It was nice having some decent luck…  It was a Satellite Hat Trick!!!

At the next XW-2F pass, I adjusted the TX offset, quite far off (I think I was partially into it when I lost the bird the first time).  I then had a QSO with K4RGK, Daryl, in Roswell GA (EM74), at 23:04:17 UTC (I had heard Daryl earlier on AO-7).

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An Old Friend and Some New Ones

Posted on May 15, 2016 by robert

I used GPredict to plan my day and produced the following “Sky at a glance” chart:

SkyAtGlance

So about 5:15 PM Local Time (21:15 UTC), a decent pass of AO-7 was overhead.  I heard several CW signals (K4RGK was one of them), but I wasn’t able to locate myself on the downlink (either CW or SSB).

I then switched over to XW-2F (Downlink 145.980-146.000 MHz) and heard myself on the downlink, just a few hundred hertz off frequency on SSB.  I didn’t hear anyone else on the bird however.

A pass of XW-2C (Downlink 145.795-145.815 MHz) began about 30 minutes later (21:54 UTC).  Despite being about 0.6 KHz high on my transmit, I made two contacts:

N8HM, Paul, from FM18 (Washington DC) on 435.157 at 21:55:35

N8HM QSL May 15 2016 0

WI9I, George, from EM59 (Springfield IL) on 435.163 at 21:59:28

cas-3c

 

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And a Pair for FO-29

Posted on May 15, 2016 by robert

I had forgotten what a pleasure it is to work FO-29 — stable frequencies, great signal levels, and lots of activity.  But today I was a bit stymied by some QRM noise bursts on the 70 cm receive.  Two stations were patient enough to hang in there with me:

N1RAK, Ralph, all the way over in Bristol RI at 17:10:11
WN9Q, Dave, in Wisconsin at 17:17:23

I also need to get the hang of tuning off frequency signals – using the IC-9100 RIT takes bloody forever.

fo29

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A pair of QSOs on SO-50

Posted on May 14, 2016 by robert

Another good day for satellite action, with a pair of QSOs via SO-50.  K8TL, Tom in EM89 (Ohio) at 16:46:39 and Eric, KB1KMF, in FN56 (Maine) at 16:48:55.

Lots of other stations on the bird.

so-50

 

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