satellite

[rfoverlord]

So do we have any satellite operators here? if so what type of gear, antennas, and tracking software . want to get it set up and want to start doing my homework, (christmas is coming) we can still talk about christmas right? any input good or bad is appreciated. 73

 

[jonbah]

I used to run the birds in the early 90's I'm not sure what's still flying around anymore. I know Oscar 10 is gone and not sure about the RS10, 12 and 15 birds. I'll have to check out the AMSAT site to see what the guys are doing these days.

The equipment I used was a Kenwood TS-790a dual band and a Ranger 2950 for 10 meters, I used a pair of 8 element 2 mtr yagi's with a twist (cp) and a pair of 432 yagi's (cp) and a PDL-II tuned for 10 meter for the downlinks all on a AZ-EL rotor. I can't remember the software I know I used a 286-16Mhz with DOS 4.0 and got the KEP updates off a packet BBS in Harrisburg.

It would be nice to work the SATS again, but it takes a lot of time & dedication.

Have Fun

Jonbah

 

[rfoverlord]

thanks for the reply. i have a FT-847, it's not that great on hf but for everything else it it is great. trying not to buy gear just to find out that it doesn't do what i want it to do.

 

[jonbah]

I know what you mean, but if you want to work the sats you'll need radios and antennas so you can work two bands at the same time, uplinks and downlinks. I think the popular ones are ssb up on 432 and down on 146. Satellite can be an expensive hobby, when I bought my TS-790a it cost me $1650 and the antennas,rotors and cables were about $1000 more. I had allot of fun with it and it was well worth the investment at the time. but I've found that HF is a much less expensive mode to run because the radios are much cheaper and you can work the world on a 135' piece of wire or a modified CB antenna. I've been checking into psk, I don't know to much about it yet but it sounds like fun and cheep. The one thing about HAM radio is that their is a lot of different modes you can get in to and allot of good people that are willing to show you the ropes. I've been playing with this stuff since I was 15 years old and I still find radio very exciting and interesting.

If you want to check into Satellite go to the AMSAT.ORG website they have allot of good information about tracking software and the available birds, maybe you'll be able to get on a frequency and copy a few of them with your 847.

Good Luck
Jonbah

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

A good free tracking program is SatscapeYou can customize it to track up to 500 birds.It will also track visable objects like spent rocket boosters as well.I have used it for several years now even though I am not really into satellite comms.I just dabble a bit in it.