Satellite Activity - 10th March, 10

Another eventful evening pass for the HAMSAT today @ 2148IST.

Was able to access the Bird as it was coming up at around 15 deg elevation.

Then it was only my signal until the satellite came up to about 40 deg elevation when VU2GUR came thorugh strong with a 59 Sig. Then on the doppler shift, I was able to hear VU2TQC OM Jayant from Mumbai with a 59 signal but am not sure if he heard my report - I could hear him call me and Guru - but not report.

Then for a short burst, I heard VU2ZUB - OM Subu from Bangalore.

In the "AFTER Satellite QSO" on the local repeater, it was reported that OM Daya - VU2DPE was able to copy VU2GUR, me and another stan with the call letters JE in the call sign giving me a call - unfortunately, I did not hear that station. Om Subu was able to hear Guru, but unable to hear me. And Guru was unable to hear VU2TQC and VU2ZUB. The vaguories of Satellite communication. !!!!!!!!

Unfortunately missed the SO-50 Pass at 2035 today - Guru was able to hear his voice on the downlink freq. but no QSOs

By the way, VU3VOC - OM Rajesh Nambiar from Ottapalam, Kerala is listening to the satellites using the "IOio" antenna (above)

More reports to come from him in the near future.

VU2TQC - contacts DX on AO-51

Yesterday evening, on the AO-51 18:24 IST pass, OM Jayant - VU2TQC reports that he had a QSO with UO0UDN with a 59 copy.

Although, he says he may be confused with the call-sign as he did not find details on QRZ.com as indicated the the other station.

Anyone having any ideas if there is any error in the call letters copied by Jayant?  He is eagerly awaiting confirmation.

Any way good show Jayant - Keep it up.

AO-51 survives scare - Near Miss

Southgate ARC newsletter for 08-Mar-10 narrates a near Miss for one of the popular OSCAR's AO-51.

Details can be had at

http://www.southgatearc.org/news/march2010/ao51_survives.htm

Now all is fine and AO-51 is in good health.

Satellite Activity - AO-51 - 07 Mar 10

Successful Pass for the AO-51@ 1645 IST (1115 UTC).  It was a fairly low angle pass @ 24deg Elevation on the Eastern Hemisphere going from South to North.


At around 1648 IST (1118 UTC), I started hearing E21EJC (OM Kob) along with other Thai stations talking in their local dialect.  Then could hear Guru - VU2GUR calling Kob. Kob came back with a report.  I immediatley called Kob who gave me a 59 report.  Then another Thai station, HS1IWX (OM Amnat ?) was contacted with a 59 both ways QSO - a new station. As the satellite went Nortwards and the signals faded for us - I could feebly hear HS1EAX.

VU2GZ OM Hari also reported having heard Guru and me during the usual "after-pass" QSO on the local repeater.

The set up for this QSO was
Equipment:
TX : Kenwood -TH 255A - 5 W O/P - VHF
RX: Wouxun - KG-UVD1P - UHF

Antenna:
VHF - Moxon Rectangle

 UHF - Centre Fed - Collinear

Now the Moxon has been tested for both Tx and RX - Fully Certified for efficiency even for low angle passes !!!!!!!!!

The other antenna that I use is the bozooka - currently horizontally polarized.  It is mounted on the same boom as the Moxon antenna and fed by a seperate Cable.

Satellite Activity - VO-52 - 28nd Feb, 10 - evening

VO-52 evening Pass @ 2145 IST was a rather unsuccessful experience as generally it was found that the downlink side was rather noisy today.

In-spite of this, the other stations heard on the VO-52 today were VU2GUR, VU2GZ, VU2ZUB, VU2SWG were heard independent of each station i.e, most stations heard most of the other stations - BUT NO 2-WAY QSO REPORTED. I heard VU2GPS for only one call and then nothing heard.

Surprising phenomenon.  Better luck tomorrow.

Saudi Sat - SO-50

 

(Source: www.amsat.org)

Owned by the "King Abdulaziz University for Science & Technology" , the SaudiSat-1C was launched from the Baikanur Cosmodrome, on 20th Dec, 2002. It is classified as a micro-satellite weighing 10 Kgs. It is placed in an elliptical orbit ranging from 603  (nearest - Perigee)- 713 Kms (farthest - Apogee) from the surface of the earth.  It takes just under 98 mins to complete one orbit around the earth

SO-50 carries several experiments, including a mode J FM amateur repeater experiment operating on 145.850 MHz up link and 436.800 MHz down link. The repeater is available to amateurs worldwide as power permits, using a 67.0 Hertz PL tone on the up link, i.e. your rig must be capable of transmitting with CTCSS, for on-demand activation. SO-50 also has a 10 minute timer that must be armed before use. Transmit a 2 second carrier with a PL tone of 74.4 to arm the timer.

The repeater consists of a miniature VHF receiver with sensitivity of -124dBm, having an IF bandwidth of 15 KHz. The receive antenna is a 1/4 wave vertical mounted in the top corner of the spacecraft. The received Audio is fed to the 250mW UHF transmitter. The downlink antenna is a 1/4 wave mounted in the bottom corner of the spacecraft.

This has been one of the satellites with a consistent signal and  a good footprint.

Capsulated details again
UPLINK
Trigger - 145.850 (74.4Hz CTCSS Tone - activates the satellite for a 10 min slot.)
QSO - 145.850  (67.0 Hz CTCSS Tone)
DOWNLINK
Listen on 436.795 +/- for doppler shift.

All the best

Satellite Activity - VO-52 - 28nd Feb, 10

The VO-52 Pass at 0930IST at 73Deg elevation wrt to Bangalore once again was a succesful one with lot of activity during almost the entire pass period of about 13 minutes. First signals that I heard was from VU3TYG  -Nitin from Bangalore at around 0931 almost immediately followed by VU2TQC - Jayant from Mumbai and they had a successful 2 way QSO.

Then came in VU2SWG Shankar from Bangalore followed by VU2GUR - Guru also from Bangalore.

I was able to have successful 2 Way QSO with VU2TQC (59/58) and VU2GUR (59/59).  Although I called Nitin and Shankar I was not able to hear any reply.  There was also one other station calling me but did not get the callsign

Another interesting aspect of the activity today, was that Guru was giving a Demo at the SJR Science College, Bangalore for the students from over 100 colleges participating in a Science Exhibition organised there.  Guru was operating from the rooftop of the college and was using a rubberducky initially before switching over to a HB9CV antenna.

Great Show Guru.