Category Archives: VHF/UHF

Getting Ready for Another SuitSat

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FOLLOWING SUIT: Engineers at Microchip in Chandler Plan Work on 2nd Satellite

By Ed Taylor, The Tribune, Mesa, Ariz.

Feb. 18–A volunteer team of engineers at Microchip Technology in Chandler is already planning work on a second spacesuit satellite that they hope will be launched next year.

Two weeks after being released from the international space station, the world’s first orbiting spacesuit satellite — called SuitSat-1 — continues to transmit signals and offer new surprises for the Microchip engineers who built some of the makeshift satellite’s electronics.

Apparently, there are other space suits on the ISS that need to be tossed overboard, so planning is already starting how to do the next SuitSat. While it was disappointing to have such a weak signal from SuitSat-1, the project still created quite a stir in the ham community and the general public. This is rather interesting given that is was just a simple “transmit only” satellite, while we have a number of transponders on the air that are stronger and more consistent….but are not a discarded space suit.

I look forward to having SuitSat-2 orbiting the earth.

73, Bob K0NR

SuitSat Not Dead Yet

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“SuitSat-1” Keeps on Ticking; Low Power Output Eyed as Cause for Weak Signal

NEWINGTON, CT, Feb 13, 2006–“SuitSat-1” remains operational more than a week after being deployed from the International Space Station, but its 145.990 MHz FM signal continues to be extremely weak copy on Earth. Speculation now is focusing on extremely low transmitter output power as one explanation for the faint signal. SuitSat-1’s sponsor–the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) program–continues to seek voice telemetry reports as part of an effort to pin down what might have gone awry. [from ARRL web site ]

Well, it appears that SuitSat is “not dead yet”. Some hams around the world are still hearing the weak signal from SuitSat. I tried to hear it using my FT-817 and an Arrow dualband antenna but had no luck. AJ3U has a nice collection of information and audio recordings of SuitSat on his web site.

– Bob K0NR

Award Certificate for June 2005 VHF Contest

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My award certificate for the June VHF contest from last summer arrived in the mail today. Of course, the results were published a while ago so this was old news. Still, it is fun to see the printed award.

The June contest is a bit more competitive in the QRP (Single Operator Portable) category. (See my comments about the January contest.) The top ten scores in the category were:

K6MI 94,248; KA1LMR 76,920; N7IR 31,719; W6DWI 18,225; KØNR 16,415; N7OEP 14,472; W7KK 7,980; K9GY 6,357; W4RXR 6,210; KG4LEV 4,884

My score of 16,415 netted me 5th place overall, with a first place finish in the Colorado Section and the Rocky Mountain Division. I also set a new record for the Colorado section in the QRP category.

My soapbox comments on the ARRL web site include a few photos of the operation.

73, Bob K0NR

2006 January VHF Sweepstakes

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Last weekend was the ARRL January VHF Sweepstakes, one of the more popular VHF contests. If you haven’t worked a VHF contest, take a look at the basic tutorial on my web site. To me, a VHF contest is really a VHF Activity Weekend as it attracts and concentrates a lot of VHF activity.

For the fourth year in a row, the weather looked pretty reasonable here in snowy Colorado, so I did the Backpack QRP Portable Operation on Mount Herman (about 9000 feet elevation, grid DM79mb). The trail up the mountain is not all that difficult, maybe 1.2 miles distance and 1000 feet in elevation gain. The road to the trailhead is not maintained, so it is usually snow covered in winter and requires 4WD. The last few years there has been little snow in early January and the main obstacle on the trail was a few patches of ice.

This year was different as a recent snow storm dropped about 6 inches of fresh snow on the road and on the trail. No worries, we made sure we had the right gear (boots, Yak Tracks, ski poles, etc.) to slog it up the trail. My wife Joyce KAØDEH hiked up the trail with me, taking our time and enjoying the journey. We were the only people on the trail and we noticed quite a few animal tracks. A deer we called bambi came walking by and gave us a look. It was a very pristine backcountry experience, as the snow makes everything clean and quiet.

Oh, back to the contest. We made the summit a little after noon, ate a quick lunch and set up the QRP station. My main rig was the Yaesu FT-817, a great little HF through UHF portable QRP rig. For 6 Meters, I used my trusty old dipole, strung between two conveniently-located pine trees. For 2 Meters, I used a new SOTA beam which is available from the UK. The name SOTA refers to the Summits on the Air awards program that originated in the UK. This beam is amazingly light in weight and it is easy to assemble. I will be doing an article about this antenna in a future issue of QRP Quarterly. For 70 cm, I just used a vertical BNC-style antenna, nothing fancy. I also brought along a 222 MHz FM handheld rig with rubber duck antenna and made a handful of contacts on it.

My results for the contest are 52 QSOs, 72 QSO points, 8 multipliers and a score of 576. This is not all that great but it would have scored 6th in the nation in last year’s contest. A closer look at the 2005 results shows that I scored 864 from the same location and similar operating time last year.

2005 Contest Results (QRP):
KA1LMR 23,058; W6DWI 8,208; N8XA 4,200; KG6EE 2,486; KØNR 864; KA1VEC 585 (NM1K,op); NØHJZ 464; WB2AMU 396; KI7T 198; KØSM 16

So we see that last year, a 16 point score netted 10th place….uh, that was probably only a handful of contacts. We definitely could use some more activity in the QRP (I mean, Single Op Portable) category. In the mean time, I’ll be out hiking to my favorite mountaintop and playing with radios.

73, Bob K0NR

Astronaut Bill McArthur KC5ACR Earns WAC & WAS

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AMSAT News Service Bulletin 022.01
From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
January 22, 2006
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-022.01

Last weekend, January 14-15 UTC, Astronaut Bill McArthur aboard the
International Space Station operated on the UHF band exclusively. A
report received from Keith, ZS6TW in South Africa indicates that Bill
has completed a sweep of Working All Continents on UHF.

Keith wrote on the ISS Fan Club site, http://www.issfanclub.com, “Bill
was active on UHF voice over RSA on the January 14, 20:00 UTC pass.
Bill contacted me followed by Greald, ZS6BTD in Johannesburg. He said
that our contacts had just completed his worked all continents. It was
a pleasure speaking to him again. 73’s Keith, ZS6TW.”

The UHF frequency NA1SS is 437.55 MHz simplex when this mode is active.

This is the first time an ISS crew member has worked all 7 continents
on the 430 MHz band. McArthur had previously worked all continents on
145 MHz to be the second ISS crew member to complete that feat. Mike
Fincke worked all 7 during his tour as Science Officer on Expedition 9.

Be sure to send in your QSL cards so Bill can claim his award. Refer
to the ARISS QSL page for information on how to QSL:
http://www.rac.ca/ariss/oindex.htm#QSL’s

On January 21, Ed, KL7UW; Dale, KL7XJ; and Kevin, KL0RG worked NA1SS
on pass #41012 so Bill has now completed WAS from space on the 2 meter
band.

Congratulations Bill and thank you for all the time you give to talk
on the radio!

[ANS thanks Kenneth, N5VHO for the above information]

KC5ACR (NA1SS) Still Going Strong

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The commander of the International Space Station (ISS), Bill McArthur, KC5ACR, just can’t seem to get enough of ham radio operation. Previous ham astronauts have participated in widely varying levels of activity (like “none” to “some”) but Bill is hitting it really hard.

More significant that than, he seems to have caught the DX bug. He has achieved Worked All Continents (WAC) on 2M and is now trying to get WAC on 70 cm. I don’t recall any ham astronaut firing up the ISS rig on 70 cm, so this is new and cool. For Worked All States (on 2M), he still needs to work Alaska. It seems that the combination of the ISS orbit and the relatively sparse population of Alaska has caused it to be the last state that Bill needs to work. I suspect with the publicity around his goal, he should be able to nail it shortly. According to the ARRL, Bill has about 50 or so DXCC countries logged.

See NA1SS Active From Space for more information.

73, Bob K0NR

KØNR Works NA1SS

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I am doing my part to help Bill KC5ACR get his Worked All States award….I worked him on Dec 5th. Someone just sent me a link to an audio recording that a ham made on the 145.80 MHz downlink. So we know that he has worked Colorado.

Listen to the audio here, with my call heard about 1 minute 30 seconds into the recording.

73, Bob K0NR

ISS commander shooting for WAC, WAS

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This is way cool. Bill McArthur KC5ACR is very active on 2 Meters from the International Space Station. The ARRL is reporting that he is working on Worked All Continents and Worked All States! Hey, shouldn’t be that difficult given that he is orbiting the planet.

– 73 Bob K0NR

QST de W1AW
Space Bulletin 009 ARLS009
From ARRL Headquarters
Newington, CT December 16, 2005
To all radio amateurs

SB SPACE ARL ARLS009
ARLS009 ISS commander shooting for WAC, WAS and maybe DXCC from
space

ISS Expedition 12 Commander Bill McArthur, KC5ACR, has proven to be
one of the more active Amateur Radio on the International Space
Station (ARISS) operators among ham radio operators who have
occupied the space station. In fact, McArthur’s having so much fun
operating from space that he’s hoping to complete Worked All
Continents (WAC), Worked All States (WAS) and maybe even DXCC from
space.

“Bill McArthur continues to be active on voice and now has a couple
of personal goals he is trying to achieve,” says ARISS Ham Radio
Project Engineer Kenneth Ransom, N5VHO. “He is trying to talk to
someone in every state in the United States. According to his log,
he has managed to work 37 states so far.” In addition, Ransom says,
McArthur wants to work as many countries as he can.

“He’s off to a good start with 28 DXCC entities in his log as of
December 12,” he said. “These contacts have been with amateur
stations on every continent with the exception of Antarctica.” That
contact could happen this weekend, however. Although the IARU does
not require WAC applicants to have worked Antarctica, Ransom says
that ARISS tradition calls for an Antarctica QSO to achieve WAC from
space “since the astronauts seem to have an unfair advantage.”

Expedition 9 astronaut Mike Fincke, KE5AIT, became the first ISS
crew member to contact all seven of the world’s continents via
Amateur Radio from NA1SS.

States on McArthur’s most-needed list are Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho,
Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Pennsylvania,
Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.

“The list of DXCC entities is just starting to grow, so he needs a
lot right now,” Ransom conceded this week, adding that he hasn’t
included ARISS school group contacts in his counts and hopes
McArthur will achieve his goals without them. “We won’t know the
official results for months after the mission,” he added.

McArthur is about halfway through his approximately six-month duty
tour aboard the ISS. He and crewmate Valery Tokarev will return to
Earth in April.

During Thanksgiving week, McArthur reportedly made some three dozen
casual contacts, most of them over North America and a few over
Europe and New Zealand. He made contacts with stations in the US on
December 6. He also had QSOs with Australia, New Zealand and the US
on December 11.

The NA1SS worldwide voice and packet downlink frequency is 145.800
MHz. In Regions 2 and 3 (the Americas, and the Pacific), the voice
uplink is 144.49 MHz. In Region 1 (Europe, Central Asia and Africa),
the voice uplink is 145.20 MHz. The worldwide packet uplink is
145.99 MHz. All frequencies are subject to Doppler shift. The
Science@NASA Web site provides location information for the ISS
at, http://science.nasa.gov/temp/StationLoc.html.

The Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) program
is an international educational outreach with US participation by
ARRL, AMSAT and NASA. Information can be found at,
http://www.rac.ca/ariss.

NA1SS Active from Space

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There has been a marked increase in the level of ham radio activity from the International Space Station (ISS). Astronaut Bill McArthur KC5ACR has been active on the 145.80 MHz downlink, making quite a few random contacts with hams on earth. Many of the other astronauts with amateur radio licenses have focused on making the scheduled radio contacts with schools and didn’t take time to make random contacts. It is great to have Bill up there making contacts.

I have not made a contact with Bill yet, but have heard him several times now. Of course, quite a few hams can hear the ISS signal and lots of people are calling him. It is critical that hams on the ground use discipline in when they call on the uplink so that Bill doesn’t get totally overloaded by a pile up. More information on working the ISS is available at the ARISS web site.

General information on the ISS space station radio gear is available here. The ISS Fan Club web site is another great resource, as well as the AMSAT web page.

The location of the ISS is tracked in real time on the Nasa web site.

73, de Bob K0NR

Across Lake Michigan on 146.52 MHz

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Last July, my wife and I were walking along the beach on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan in Ludington State Park to the Big Sable Point Lighthouse. While we waited for the lighthouse to open, I was listening to 146.52 MHz on my VX-2R handheld radio. I heard a signal coming through which turned out to be W9ZL calling. This was a special event station, so I figured they were operating from one of the lighthouses or other location close by.

I wasn’t sure where W9ZL was located but I soon found out that it was the Fox Cities Amateur Radio Club operating at AirVenture, the famous Oshkosh, Wisconsin experimental aircraft show. Of course, this was on the “other” side of Lake Michigan, and significant distance into Wisconsin. I worked W9ZL using just 2 watts from the little HT. Later, I calculated that the distance of this QSO was a little over 100 miles, about 60 miles across Lake Michigan and another 40 miles across land. Not too bad for VHF QRP (with FM) !!!

The special event certificate is shown above left. (Click to make it larger.)

D-STAR Discussion on QRZ.COM

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As usual with many topics, there is a lively debate about D-STAR on qrz.com. Unfortunately, there seems to be a bunch of folks that hang out on qrz just to be negative on any new ideas. Here’s the easy-to-read summary of the qrz.com discussion. (I am saving you the trouble of wading through all the QRM.)

VE7TKO (a vocal proponent of D-STAR) starts the discussion with:

D-STAR is probably the greatest advancement ever seen in ham radio to date. D-STAR stands for “Digital Smart Technologies for Amateur Radio”.

Then the opposition comes screaming in:

Objection Number 1: D-STAR is proprietary, not an open standard.

Reality: Not True…D-STAR is an open standard. The system has been developed in collaboration with and is owned by JARL (Japan Amateur Radio League).

Objection Number 2: The commercial / land mobile standard APCO-25 is the way to go, not D-STAR.
Reality: APCO-25 was developed for police/fire/public safety radio. It may be applicable to ham radio use, but D-STAR was designed specifically for amateur use. Amateur radio has a history of adopting commercial standards but it is not clear that APCO-25 will win out over D-STAR.

Objection Number 3: D-STAR isn’t the essence of ham radio, more like a cellphone system.
Reality: It depends on how you define the essence of ham radio. I see it as applying new technology in interesting and useful ways. An open mind is a wonderful thing. 🙂

Objection Number 4: The Internet is bad for ham radio, so connecting the Internet to ham radio is even worse.
Reality: Changes in technology outside of ham radio will continue to affect ham radio. Example: There was a time when we had no computers, now they are common. Ham radio was obviously affected by this new technology (for the better, I argue). To expect new, relevant technologies to not influence ham radio is kind of silly.

Objection Number 5: This system tracks your position for everyone to see. Sounds like “Big Brother” to me.
Reality: Ever heard of APRS? Don’t turn on the feature and you’ll be fine.

Objection Number 6: Only ICOM has D-STAR radios, so it is a one vendor solution.
Reality: Good point. If D-STAR is going to get widely adopted other manufacturers must join in. Kenwood is rumored to be introducing a D-STAR radio.

Objection Number 7: I don’t see the clear, compelling benefit to using D-STAR.
Reality: Another good point. It is still fuzzy how the average Joe Ham will benefit from D-STAR. Meanwhile, some of the technie hams are experimenting with new D-STAR systems.

Objection Number 8: D-STAR radios cost more than analog FM radios.
Reality: Yes, for now anyway. The price will have to come down for it to be successful, which is common for new technologies.

For more information on D-STAR see http://www.icomamerica.com/amateur/dstar/dstar2.asp

New Rocky Mt Division QRP Record in June VHF QSO Party

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The results are in for the 2005 ARRL June QSO Party (“the June VHF contest”). I already knew that I acheived my personal best for the QRP category in that contest, but I also set a new Rocky Mt Division record and placed 5th overall.

From the ARRL web site:

With the growth of the Single-operator QRP portable category, there are several new section records. John, K6MI put a 10 band station together and amassed 94K points to win first place in this category and set an SJV section and Pacific Division record. Chris, KA1LMR, in second place, doubled his previous top score from 1992 to set a NH section record with 77K in a 6 band effort. Gary, N7IR placed third with 31K while Robin, W6DWI was in 4th place with 18K from ORG and Bob, K0NR captured 5th place and a Rocky Mountain Division and section record with 16K from CO.

My comments and a few photos can be found here in the “soap box” page at arrl.org.

Digital Voice Modes for VHF/UHF Ham Radio

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Ham radio already makes use of many digital modes such as RTTY, PSK31, AX.25 Packet, etc. Another wave coming is a true digital voice mode, especially for the VHF and higher bands. Currently, most of the activity on the VHF and higher bands is FM (or SSB), both analog modulation. Virtually all of the mobile phone formats have gone digital and good old analog FM is being phased out. Many land mobile users such as police and fire radio are also moving to digital. I suspect it is a question of when (not if) ham radio VHF/UHF will go digital.

The two competing formats emerging in the ham radio world are D-STAR and APCO 25. D-STAR is a digital radio standard developed by the Japanese government under the direction of the JARL. ICOM is the leading proponent of D-STAR and has several transceivers and repeaters available that conform to the standard. The ICOM web site has the best information on using D-STAR. The ARRL recently did a review of a few ICOM D-STAR products in QST.

Any new technology has to overcome the fear that it won’t be broadly adopted and will die an early death. One concern is that only ICOM has D-STAR radios in the market today. Recently, there have been sightings of a D-STAR radio from Kenwood, which could indicate momentum behind the D-STAR standard. The ARRL has also reported activity from Kenwood on D-STAR transceivers.

APCO 25 is the digital radio standard aimed at police/fire/emergency responders developed by the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) International. APCO calls this format “Project 25” or P25, which is described here. Some hams argue that hams should once again follow the tradition of adopting commercial/land mobile developed standards for ham use. There is merit to this argument as the VHF/UHF FM gear is based on commercial standards. Even today, many repeaters are made up of commercial gear deployed on the ham bands.

Which is better, a standard developed for amateur radio use or one that leverages off commercial standards and technology? The debate is on in the various online ham forums. (Don’t expect consistently brilliant discussion of the topic.) VE7TKO has been a vocal supported of D-STAR on eham.net digital forum and qrz.com.

Stay tuned. This will be a hot topic in the years to come. And it will probably take years for digital to overtake analog….the installed base is just too large and it will take time for it to convert over.

Where is Mt. Sunflower?

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I recently made a long drive across Kansas and eastern Colorado, coming back from a visit to Indiana. Kansas is a really long state (but my wife points out that it is not much wider than Colorado.) OK, so it is a long and flat state. When you drive across Kansas, you have a lot of time to think.

I also had my GPS receiver, my notebook computer and a copy of Street Atlas 2005. This got me thinking about VHF grid locators and where the various latitude and longitude lines are located. I had previously created a map of Colorado for my web page that indicates the grid locators (see http://www.k0nr.com/rwitte/vhf_grids.html). At that time, I noted that the eastern border of Colorado (adjacent to Nebraska and Kansas) does not fall exactly on the grid line, which is 102 deg W Longitude. In other words, the eastern grids DM87, DM88, DM89 and DN80 actually extend slightly into Nebraska or Kansas. I watched the GPS receiver as I approached the state line westbound on I-70 and it agreed by clicking over to DM89 while I was still in Kansas. Street Atlas shows the state line at 102 deg 2.8 min.

Since all knowledge can be found on the Internet, I started surfing around looking for confirmation and an explanation of why the state line seems to be in the wrong place. In fact, I found a number of references that simply said that the eastern boundary of Colorado is the 102 deg W longitude line. See http://www.netstate.com/states/geography/co_geography.htm (I guess I could just chalk this up to round off.) Interestingly, the same web site lists the western boundary of Kansas as 102 deg 1 min 34 sec W.

Mount Sunflower is the highest point in Kansas at 4039 feet in elevation. I have never been to Mount Sunflower, but I know it is a good VHF operating spot. I had always assumed that it was located in DM99, based on a cursory examination of the map. As I stared at Street Atlas, all of the sudden it hits me that Mt Sunflower may not actually be in DM99. Street Atlas shows it as 102 deg 2.2 min West (and 39 deg 1 min North latitude), which is clearly west of the 102 deg line. I checked the Peakbagger.com web site and it shows the longitude of Mt Sunflower as 102 deg 2 min W. This same longitude is listed on the America’s Roof web site at http://www.americasroof.com/ks.shtml

OK, so now I wish I would have stopped at Mt Sunflower, got out my GPS and verified its lat/lon. Well, maybe on the next trip. For now, I conclude that Mt Sunflower is in DM89. (Phil N0KE later confirmed that this is correct.)

<

p style=”margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;” align=”left”>I never did find a reference that explains why the state line is not exactly on 102 deg so I can only speculate on the reason. I did find that this situation is not unique to Colorado, in that state lines are often close to but not exactly on integer latitude or longitude lines. In a few places, the reason given is that survey techniques were not that accurate when these states were first defined. Given the survey tools available at the time, I think this is a reasonable explanation. More to the point, the folks that plotted out the state lines back then were amazingly accurate given what they had to work with. I suppose there is little benefit and lots of hassle in trying to correct this problem now.

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p style=”margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;” align=”left”>73,
Bob K0NR

2005 January VHF Contest

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For the January VHF contest, I did a True Backpack Portable QRP Operation from my local favorite high spot (Mt. Herman, DM79mb). I received the award certificate in the mail today that indicates I placed 5th in the ARRL January VHF Sweepstakes (for the US / Canada). This might sound impressive, except for the fact that my score was only 864. Well, I did only operate a few hours one afternoon. First place was KA1LMR with 23,058, second place was W6DWI with 8,208. N8XA scored 4,200 points and KG6EE had 2,486.

My operating info appears on the ARRL web site here. It was a good day to be hiking in the Colorado mountains.

73,
Bob

2004 CQ WW VHF Contest

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Last July, I participated in the 2004 CQ Worldwide VHF Contest in the QRP category. This contest is on two most fun VHF ham bands: 50 MHz and 144 MHz. The certificate just arrived in the mail, which indicates that I scored first place in Colorado for QRP. My score is not that impressive, but it is something to improve on this year.

2004 ARRL June VHF QSO Party

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I just received this certificate in the mail from the ARRL for my contest entry in the June VHF contest. I operated the “Single Operator Portable” category, also known as QRP, and placed 6th in the US & Canada, 1st in the Rocky Mt Division and 1st in the Colorado Section. For more information, see my comments on the ARRL web site by clicking here.