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AO-51 is in a bit of a special mode these past couple of days. Instead of Voice, they’re encouraging people to do SSTV over the satellite. This was originally done back in October to prepare for Richard Garriott sending SSTV from the ISS, but it proved popular enough for the AO-51 command team to add it to their schedule for the month of November. This evening I monitored the passes and was rewarded with some great photos:

These were on the 1709EST Pass:

The 1848 pass was a little more crowded with a couple of dead carriers and people accidentally keying over each other. But, I was rewarded with two “DX” stations and I was able to grab some photos once things settled down:

I am absolutely BUMMED that I couldn’t contact VA7VW by voice. By my calculations, he was 2351 miles away from my QTH. That would have broke my existing “longest contact via satellite” record which was to K7WIN in Arizona, a distance of 2268 mies.

I am also disappointed that I was only able to monitor the fun. I do not have the correct adapter to transmit SSTV from my FT-60, so I am relegated to RX only. Perhaps if I sit down and experiment with some adapters, I will be able to jury rig a cable, but I’m thinking it’s more of an experiment for the next time the command team puts the satellite in this mode. I’m hoping I see it on the December schedule.

Previously, when I have been operating the various amateur radio satellites I have been operating out of my car, listening with my FT-60 into a K5OE Handi-Tenna and transmitting with my FT-7800 into a vertical. While this has been very fruitful for QSOs, I have longed for a easier solution not requiring me to head out to my car every time I wanted to operate, something that would give me a little more free range of motion then just hanging my arm out my window, and possibly have something that could be used to pick up the various weather satellites. Plus

There are commercial solutions to my problem, namely the the Arrow II Satellite Antenna who’s name is nearly synonymous with portable satellite operation. However, since I am thrifty (read: cheap) that was way out of my price range. Plus, antennas are just hunks of metal whipped in some kind of strange shape. You’re paying someone to assemble it.

While I have no chance of designing something like that, I thankfully have a friend who is infinitely more talented in such matters. Steve, KB1MEH, the same one who helped me with my original Handi Tenna heard my laments and whipped up a design to rival Arrow’s. Last weekend, he drilled the boom and I cut elements to size and this weekend, we had our first tests.

Unfortunately, we had mixed results. Test #1 was at Fort Taber / Fort Rodman. I tried to operate AO-51 on a 10 degree eastern pass but with no luck. After I failed miserably, we then tried to raise various repeaters. Hit Falmouth with 2W (15mi over ocean). After having a quick QSO and a signal report from KB1QBZ, I tried Fall River with 5W (15mi over land) and then Cranston, RI with 5W (30mi over land). I think I might have done better, but I’ve heard repeated claims of New Beford being in a bit of a Black Hole of RF. After some tuning around, I was also able to pick up, but not raise, Quincy. Which I can not do from my car even outside the “black hole” areas.

Me talking with KB1QBZ

After heading back to my house we tried a better AO-51 pass (74 degrees) and had better luck. While Steve could pick up the satellite better with my older antenna, I was still able to hear it and make two contacts. This was the first time that Steve also ever heard a satellite pass and I think he was surprised at the coverage. I think I was able to raise Quincy, but the mosquitoes were out in force, so further testing was postponed until morning.

It was a mostly successful test run. The 440 RX issue needs to be solved, there are some slight issues with the gamma matches, and I need to buy some kind of handle thingy for the end, but the antenna performed great. It is a fun project and Steve did a great job designing it. Thanks Steve!

With the 2nd repeater on AO-51 active, a repeater that is vastly underutilized I might add, a bunch of us in #amsat tried to all get on the 2nd repeater during one of the middle US passes.

We had moderate success, with KB2HSH, N3CRT, and KI4BKE getting on. Plus, we had Drew, KO4MA come on. Plus, with us using the 2nd repeater, we could actually talk! Amazing!

• Mar 24th, 20:15EDT AO-51 pass (MP3, 10:28, 4.2MB)

I’ve typed up a fairly simple “do’s and don’ts” guide to working AO-51. The guide focuses more on etiquette and operational guidelines rather then technical ideas, because there are already some excellent guides out there for the new user to read up on. That, and my technical setup leaves much to be desired.

This was more or less concieved one night in #amsat while discussing the operational issues on AO-51. The satellite is a very good, very easy satellite to get into, however, the more people jam on, the harder it is for people to use it. So, myself, John (KB2HSH), Charles (N3CRT), and Mark (KF6KYI) all tossed around ideas on what is more a less a good “code of conduct” for AO-51 operation.

• The Courteous Ham’s Guide to AO-51 PDF (35K)
• The Courteous Ham’s Guide to AO-51 DOC (38K)

Share and Enjoy!

Two more satellite passes from Saturday. The 5:52 pass was very nice, as I chatted with VA4SF/HI, who was on the sunny shores of the Dominican Republic, which was my first Caribbean QSO.

• Mar 1st, 17:52EST AO-51 pass (MP3, 8:02, 4.2MB)
• Mar 1st, 19:30EST AO-51 pass (MP3, 6:30, 3.8MB)

Just some recordings from the past few days of AO-51. Not the best quality, as on the 22nd I had a snow plow clearing the parking lot around me, and on the 25th, it was a low pass to the west.

I’m coming to the conclusion that I can work lower elevations on eastern passes then I can on western passes, I assume it’s because the main thing to the east of my QTH is the Atlantic, while to the west is the rest of the US. At least that’s my current guess. I could just be talking out of my ass again.

• Feb 22nd, 18:10EST AO-51 pass (MP3, 8:02, 3.2MB)
• Feb 25th, 19:32EST AO-51 pass (MP3, 6:30, 2.6MB)

Some more passes for your listening enjoyment:

• Feb 9th, 07:12EST AO-51 pass (MP3, 8:16, 2.3MB)
• Feb 9th, 08:54EST AO-51 pass (MP3, 6:54, 4.1MB)
• Feb 9th, 18:25EST AO-51 pass (MP3, 10:51, 4.3MB)

The AO-51 command crew has decided to shut off the 2 meter uplink and turned on the 1.2GHz uplink between Tuesdays and Thursdays during the month of February. This gives me a break from my addiction, which I guess is a good thing.

I’ve started to set up an online logbook. Which is a bit buggy and spartan, but a start. It’s also handy to keep statistics.

I had a nice blog entry describing all the saturday passes I worked, but Pants ate it.

Here are the recordings, I’ll type them up later.

• Feb 2nd, 08:30EST AO-51 pass (MP3, 5:31, 2.3MB)
• Feb 2nd, 18:03EST AO-51 pass (MP3, 9:56, 4.1MB) (Warning, GSM noise due to my mobile phone)
• Feb 2nd, 19:44EST AO-51 pass (MP3, 8:40, 3.6MB)

I was delayed slightly this morning leaving the house which made it impossible to catch the train. This was OK, as I could drive up to the subway in Quincy and enjoy a relatively high pass of AO-51.

As the pass neared I was driving up Rt. 24. What worried me was I wanted to make sure I would be in one grid square during the pass, so I had to get past a certain latitude in order to move from FN41 to FN42. Thankfully, I was well into FN42 by the time of the pass. I patiently listened to the radio waiting for the satellite to come overhead…

Nothing. No sound. I could tell something was there as the squelch had died down, but there was no voices. The rule of thumb for satellite operation is that you shouldn’t transmit until you hear the satellite. This is usually easy on evening passes because there are tons of people exchanging contacts; not so much this morning. I decided to thrown caution into the wind and tossed out my callsign, despite me not sure if I was “hearing” the satellite…

… and I was promptly greeting by AA4FL in Florida. We exchanged grid squares and we had a lovely conversation regarding the lack of people on the satellite, the upcoming Super Bowl, and the pass the Tuesday night previous. We were very surprised it was just us and paused for other stations to come in if they were waiting. In short order though, I was going down a hill and was losing the signal. I signed off with him, and continued listening another 4-land station work him, but I couldn’t make out his or her callsign and the satellite was definitely too low for me to work.

That was an enjoyable QSO. It would have been fun to get a few more people on the satellite, but I was very happy to have some kind of conversation with someone over it and not have to worry about squeezing in between other stations in an attempt to be heard.

Stations Worked:

• AA4FL - EL89 - Hawthorne, FL