All posts by j0n

Amateur Radio, General

Project Argo

Earlier this year (late June/early) I was informed that there was an 8 wheel drive “ATV” type vehicle sitting idle in someones back garden and would I be interested in it (as if I would say no!). I was told it was was sitting on a trailer and both it and the trailer were in need of some work.

It turned out that it was an old ARGO, this one had obviously had a hard life. It was still on its trailer and both were in pretty bad shape, but niether Jim (my dad) or I were brave enough to try towing it behind our cars as it was quite a bit bigger than we had imagined. Tommy, EI2IT, volunteered to tow it with his Jeep. One sunday afternoon in June, Tommy, Jim and I headout out to the site, pumped the tyres on the trailer and headed (slowly) back to Clonmel to my parents house (much to my Mothers delight!).

Unfortunately, I was extremely busy workwise for most of summer, so Jim worked away on it pretty much on his own. The list of things to be done were (not a complete or ordered list):

  • Rebuild the engine (it was seized).
  • Free the chain drives (rusted).
  • Replace the bearings on the drive shafts.
  • Free the brakes (and replace perished seals)
  • Free the Winch

This is the first picture I got to take of it (July 24th, 2005):
Sad looking ARGO

At this stage Jim had it off the trailer, the top off, and had ascertained that the engine and the drives were all seized.

To make a long story short, this is what it looks like today (13th November 2005):
Healthy

All the pictures I took, at the various stages of work are here.

Hopefully, at some stage early next year, EI7TRG will be mobile somewhere on the side of Slievenamon, after getting in some driving practice, and then parking up and operating a portable station for a few hours.

Amateur Radio

Suitsat

“Now is the time to begin preparing your amateur radio station to receive signals from SuitSat, the most unusual Amateur Radio satellite ever orbited. SuitSat amateur radio equipment will be installed inside a surplus Russian Orlan spacesuit.”

What an interesting way to get rid of a surplus space suits, rather than store it in some building somewhere or bury it in a landfill why not use it as an educational tool. Read more about the project here.

Amateur Radio

SSETI Express

SSETI stands for the Student Space Exploration and Technology Initiative, funded by the Education Department of the European Space Agency (ESA). This morning, at approximately 06:52 UTC SSETI Express was successfully launched from Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Northern Russia. So far it seems to be operating within mission parameters.

See here for a BBC news story and here for the project homepage.

Amateur Radio, Bookmark

Amateur Radio in the news

A short article extolling some of the virtues of Amateur Radio and also the difficulties it faces.

“A few months ago, NBC’s Tonight Show staged a race between a pair of ham-radio operators with Morse-code keys and a couple of kids with text-messaging cellphones to see who could communicate faster. The hams won hands down, proving, in the minds of some, that old technology could hold its own against new. In recent days, ham radio was put to the test again by Hurricane Katrina. This time, however, lives were at stake.”

General

eChallenges 2005

[aerial photo]

I’m just back from Ljubljana in Slovenia for the annual eChallenges 2005 conference. This year there are nearly 600 delegates from 46 countries. The conference looks at a broad range of topics, from eBusiness, through eGovernment to Broadband and Mobile technologies. There were a few TSSG personnel present but unfortunately we had very little time to look around. If you are looking for a place to have a few beers in slightly different surroundings, may I suggest visiting The Skeleton Pub quite a busy place, and the owner (who looks like/is a bouncer) was quite interested to hear where we all were from. In those unforgettable words of Arnold…. I’ll be back.

Amateur Radio

PCsat 2 in Shipmate Magazine

Mission accomplished for the Naval Academy’s Small Satellite program. As part of NASA’s recent Return to Flight mission aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery(STS-114),the Academy’s second student prototype communications satellite is now in orbit on the International Space Station (ISS).

The PCSAT2 project is conducted under the Academy’s Small Satellite program with the guidance of Lieutenant Colonel Billy Smith and Senior Research Engineer Bob Bruninga.Resembling a small suitcase,PCSAT2 includes USNA’s communications package,along with MISSE 5,a Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) experiment.Soichi Noguchi, STS-114 mission specialist representing Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency,installed the suitcase on the outside of the ISS,and the satellite is now transmitting data back to Earth.

Read the full article here.

Amateur Radio

Amateur Satellite history and JOTA

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The first amateur satellite (OSCAR-1) was launched on December the 12th 1961. OSCAR while a nice name, does actually have a meaning, Orbital Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio, and there has been more than 70 to date. Next weekend (15th/16th) is JOTA weekend.

The Jamboree-On-The-Air (JOTA) is an annual event in which about 500,000 Scouts and Guides all over the world make contacts with each other by means of amateur radio. It is a real Jamboree during which Scouting experiences are exchanged and ideas are shared, thus contributing to the world brotherhood of Scouting.

Members of South Eastern Amateur Radio Group and Tipperary Amateur Radio Group will be helping out in Waterford helping scouts to get “On the Air”.

Especially for this event, AO-51 will be configured in the Dual FM repeater mode. This will provide two independent FM repeaters (separate uplink and downlink frequencies) for use over the weekend. Both repeaters will be for use by the JOTA activity. This mode will run Monday through Friday before the event to allow amateur satellite stations to familiarise and test this mode. It is planned to operate a portable satellite station on the 15th.

See you on the bird!