Talk to amateur Satellites!!!!!!

[Andrew_ASC]

Just tuning up beacons on Chinese XW-2A as it passed overhead. Oh my gosh this is so much fun.

https://www.n2yo.com/satellites/?c=18

Some allow talking in ham band!

 

[billdz]

That's correct, I have talked to hams in over 100 countries via amateur satellites. My biggest thrill was talking to an astronaut in orbit, they had a ham radio on the space shuttle. In 2012, another ham and I broke the record for the longest distance contact via the Oscar 7 satellite, 7903 km from Slovakia to Iowa, see https://qsl.net/nz5n/AO7record.htm. Almost as much fun as successfully launching a big rocket.

 

[Andrew_ASC]

Got a beacon ping off of UKUBE1.

 

[MikeyDSlagle]

Out of curiousity, who launches the amateur satellites to orbit?

 

[Andrew_ASC]

Whole bunch o missile complexes did it for USA and Russia despite civil amateur Sats.

 

[billdz]

Most of the U.S. built sats were launched as piggybacks on flights from Cape Kennedy and Vandenberg AFB. Several others were launched from the ESA spaceport in French Guiana and from the Russian cosmodrome. Over 20 countries have launched at least one amateur sat, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio_satellite

 

[ksaves2]

It is an interesting aside to Ham radio. One needs to point a yagi in a general direction of the satellite (or use an omni-directional antenna with more power) and take into account the Doppler effect during the pass.
I believe some who are really addicted use computer pointed antennas on servos to keep the antenna pointed in the right direction for the pass. Some of the "Live via Satellite" broadcasts in the early 60's would make do
with the limited time a low flying satellite would have on it's pass and then carry on without the live picture coverage. Of course that changed with geostationary orbits and inter-satellite relay. Kurt

 

[Andrew_ASC]

China has these little micro-Sats and I’m toying with them as they cross over Tennessee just fiddling with the VX-6R. Their beacons seem real faint compared to the bigger UK and US satellites. Tried to uplink to XW-2A this morning and it merely only left a mic click. It and XW-2C should be back tonight.

 

[MikeyDSlagle]

This is all very interesting indeed. I never knew that there were amateur satellites up there.
Borderline fascinating! Thanks guys, cool stuff.

 

[billdz]

Of course that changed with geostationary orbits and inter-satellite relay. Kurt

Sadly there are no amateur geostationary satellites or inter-satellite relays. In fact, all the currently functioning amateur sats are low altitude and accessible only for less than 20 minutes each pass, with a footprint of only a couple of thousand miles. Years ago, there were high altitude sats, such as OSCAR 10, we could talk for an hour over most of the world. There may not be another like this for a long time. There was once a grand plan to launch 3 amateur sats in linked geostationary orbits, which would have made it possible to talk to any ham at any point on the globe at any time, but it never became reality.

 

[Andrew_ASC]

I only got a click and two static filled replies with various satellites today. Mostly talking to China space junk but glad somebody lobbed it up in LEO to yak to. One reply said no speak Engrish. And I fell over laughing my butt off.

 

[BDB]

Brown University built a cubesat that was launched on an Antares rocket in May. Several local HAMs have been able to contact it.

https://brownspace.org

My father-in-law is getting into HAM right now, so I think we are going to see if we can receive a signal from the Brown satellite once he passes the test and gets his equipment set up.

 

[Charles_McG]

Cross thread reference:
https://www.rocketryforum.com/threa...nstead-of-rocketry.147975/page-2#post-1817484

 

[Andrew_ASC]

Just got downlink on FOX-1D

https://www.n2yo.com/satellite/?s=43137

 

[Charles_McG]

Just got downlink on FOX-1D https://www.n2yo.com/satellite/?s=43137

AO-92. That makes me feel old.

 

[Andrew_ASC]

There were two American HAM ops talking callsigns. One started with Whiskey two alpha. The other was some Kilo and change. Guy said copy that. I didn’t have time to grab a pen a jot down the full callsigns. It was heard then gone.

 

[Andrew_ASC]

So the Fox Series operate on FM CTCSS 67 Hz mode and clarity of signal is so much better with 70cm handheld. The others I don’t know if I’m in the right equipment mode to handle.