All posts by j0n

Amateur Radio, Technology

Amateur Satellites

We know that satellites are overhead as quite a lot of people now have a GPS receiver or have satellite TV. I myself have Sky at home, with its associated dish and receiver.

More recently I’ve become interested in APRS and satellite reception. I know now that is relatively simple to send a short burst of APRS data through the International Space Station (current list here), so I did a bit more reading and listening.

My antenna set-up at home isn’t adequate enough for reception of satellites, so I also tried listening in my car but I could only barely make out that there were stations there (a uhf pre-amp may help in both situations, but I’ve not got my hands on one yet).

While digging through my junk the other day looking for an old network card, I found an Arrow antenna which I lost quite a while back. Just what was required. So, last night, armed with the arrow, a Kenwood TH-D7, a headset, (required for full duplex operation) a blank piece of paper and a pen. I sat on the step at my back door and waited for Saudisat 1C to come over the horizon. (I knew when to listen as I had run a satellite tracking program earlier in the day.)

After a few minutes of what could be best described as ‘waving’ the antenna around, in the general direction of were I ‘thought’ the satellite was going to come up over the horizon, I finally heard some stations calling ‘cq satellite’. I pressed the ‘push to talk’ button and called ON5NY, to my absolute shock he replied to me. I forgot to write most of the details down, but he emailed me afterwards to confirm them (the time was 19:17 UTC) and he included some pictures of his ‘shack’. OZ1MY and PD5DJ called me immediately afterwards. It was quite a buzz. I also knew that AO-51 was scheduled to pass overhead later on so I listened out for that and managed to (briefly) speak to Graham, G7HEJ at 20:39 UTC. What a blast!

We are having a meeting of Tipperary Amateur Radio Group this evening that co-incides with a pass of AO-51, so I’ll hopefully be able to demonstrate to the other members how easy it is to use these satellites. I would recommend anyone to try it, its great fun (and when the neighbours see you waving an antenna about they WILL think you have lost it completely!).

General

In Moray Firth, East Scotland.

We’re in Moray Firth with about 40 miles to go to Inverness and the entrance to the Caledonian Canal. This canal cuts across Scotland through Loch Ness and The Great Glen, and will have us out on the Scottish west coast.

Continue reading here.

General

In the fishing town of MALOY and a Rocket Launch

Northabout
We know it’s 6 days since we sent any word, but we didn’t want to appear complaining, and wished to send good news only.

The good news is that Maloy is a very nice place and the people we have met couldn’t be more obliging. There was one good day, we plotted for Scotland and measured the distance to the Caledonian Canal, and Westport, in days. Not to be.

Read the rest here.

A Rocket Launch at Sunset. An explanation

General

Sustainable Energy Ireland

logo_sei_large.gifBernard alerted me to the fact that Sustainable Energy Ireland launched their new website, combatclimatechange.ie in conjunction with the beginning of Energy Awareness Week.

The more people that follow the 10 Energy Saving tips the better for everyone. It does however annoy me, ever so slightly, that given there can be a fairly large initial outlay, there are no incentives for home owners to do more, i.e. Solar Heating, Solar Power generation (even with current, relatively ineffecient technology), and even wind power.

I quote
There are currently no general grants available to the consumer for the installation of renewable energy or energy saving measures. SEI’s allocated funding and resources are not sufficient to support this. At present SEI provides information on energy systems for consumers. The House of Tomorrow programme provides support for large scale housing developments – where solar panels can be supported – in order to encourage best practise in the building industry.

The government is regularly updating its policies of support. The latest policy update is likely to be a change to the price support mechanism for electricity generation from wind and biomass. The relevant department is the Sustainable Energy section of the Dept of Communication, Marine and Natural Resources. It is the primary body charged with the implementation of EU Directives on energy such as:

Directive on Electricity Supplied from Renewable Energy Resources
Directive on Liquid Biofuels
Directive on Combined Heat and Power
Directive on Building Services

General

Northabout

I emailed Brendan Minish (EI6IZ) last week as I heard he was looking for me to to a talk on APRS at the Mayo Radio Experimenters Network annual Radio Rally (Sunday the 20th of November). So I replied to him saying that I it should be no problem. In his reply he said that he was in Tromso, Norway, waiting to join Northabout. A quick google gave me that link.

This vaguely jogged my memory, then I remembered seeing a documentary about The North West Passage, and it turns out its the same boat. This time they are attempting the North East Passage. They are making a documentary of this trip as well.

Their last reported position is available here. And its you can check their progress reports here.

Looking out at the sunshine outside, I think I would prefer to be on a boat.

PROGRESS REPORT No. 15 (from the site)
Continue reading Northabout →

Amateur Radio

More APRS Stuff

It has been a while since I got a chance to put something on here. Lets see, workwise I’m very busy. I managed to get in a visit to Moss (still recuperating from his very close call), while on a work trip to Spain. We enjoyed a few pints before work interfered ;), and I had to head up the road to University of Murcia for a SEINIT meeting.

Moving away from work, I ordered (and since received) a DTMF Remote Control from NHRC Repeater Controllers. I’m going to use it as a remote switch for a Valemount Networks Wireless Advanced Router (aka WARboard), that I’ve received (thanks Lonnie) and is going to be put into service in the attic. I currently have a Celeron PC serving as my Node, but its a big beast, uses a noticeable abount of juice (and can make quite a racket as well.. just ask Dee 🙁 ).

Also, I was trying to get the Yaese FT-736 in the WIT clubs radio shack up and running as a PCSAT2 groundstation, but unfortunately there is a fault in the radio, so that idea has gone onto the back-burner.

Staying with the radio theme. I’m awaiting the delivery of a PCI serial port controller card. I’m plannig to use it as a) an APRS Igate, while using the radio for the NHRC DTMF Remote, and b) to effect Doppler frequency correction on my Yaesu Ft-847 for UHF Satellite downlinks. At least that is the plan at the moment.

Lastly I’m trying to put together a portable APRS station that I can bring mobile to Australia later on this year. I’ve just got the APRS Igate in the college to send and receive email, so it might come in handy while ‘down under’.

Amateur Radio

PCSAT2

PCSAT2 is operational. I was reading about the requirements for a groundstations here and realised that I had enough bits and pieces lying around that should, if I was lucky enough to have PCSAT transmit while it was directly overhead, allow me to receive PCSAT2 Telemetry.

The problem with receiving data at 437.975MHz is the amount of doppler shift involved. i.e. the radio needs to be tuned high as PCSAT2 is approaching and tuned low as it is moving away. However, for the center of an overhead pass, the signal has zero Doppler and the satellite is about 9 dB closer (higher signal strength) than when at the horizon. The problem with this is that PCSAT2 only provides this geometry twice a day per station and only for 2 minutes or less.

So, I got my TH-D7 and a 2m 1/4 wave antenna and set them up, not really expecting anything, and voila:
# Fri Aug 05 10:04:36 IST 2005
ISSTLM>APRS,SGATE,WIDE:{TPBS4LkOqPjmiQhb2SdF6VYNWYUK6ZP/SbLnmcHomdDrieAASfo1UEo0Eno1U1o0ZEo0lMo2dSo4pVo2Ndo3Voo4Fpo2F1nPKKnf+Im+KLnIiKmjmMmw+LlryO
… along with several more lines

I was stunned, such a simple setup and yet it worked. I’m hoping now to setup some of the equipment in WITs Radio Shack to act as a ground station for the summer (it’s not as if any students will be using the equipment), and with the addition of doppler tuning, it should be able to recieve much more data.

Mapping

OpenEir

I read this great story earlier, a great use of google maps. Anyways what actually caught my eye was the link to Openeir. With a ‘loosely’ associated ‘ weblog here.

“OpenEir is a group for development of an open source map of Ireland using GPS receivers. Its also for the sharing of waypoints, trackpoints and routes.”

What an excellent idea, and I would encourage anyone who does a bit of travelling to contribute. Come to think of it, my dad puts up quite a bit of mileage around the South of Ireland. I must ask him if he would bring a GPS with him.

General

Tall Ships in Waterford

The Tall Ships Race is in Waterford at the moment. If you can’t make it, have a look at Waterford City Council’s two webcams here and here. If you happen to have a radio capable of receiving the Marine Band, most activity is taking place on channels 08, 13, 14 and 16. The city is pretty much locked down for ‘residents only access’ with more Gardaí on the street than I’ve ever seen in the town, and they are running a pretty tight ship (if you will pardon the pun).