It appears the signal is making it to the Dashboard but nothing
seems to happen.
Hi Tom -- just checking real quick, from your pic, it shows that the
actual data stream from the sat is being picked up in the FCD
dashboard, but the signals are right up against the zero line on the
left, and
Excellent point, Drew -- SDR's can visualize and record the entire
passband. I posted screenshots of the AO-07 and VO-52 passbands
during field day last year, they're on my blog at:
http://kb5wia.blogspot.com/2013/06/arrl-field-day-2013-satellite-fun.html
Have fun!
Dave KB5WIA
On Wed, Jun 25,
Thanks Rick!
I'm still scratching the mosquito bites from that trip, ha!! Just
kidding -- that grid expedition was a fun adventure!
73 de Dave KB5WIA
On Wed, Jun 11, 2014 at 8:26 PM, Richard Tejera saguaroas...@cox.net wrote:
Last time I recall that grid being activated was 7 Aug 2011, when
I also can confirm that SO-50's actual downlink is lower than
published, by about -5 to -10kHz.
Dave KB5WIA
On Sun, Jun 8, 2014 at 6:19 PM, Tom Schuessler tjschuess...@verizon.net wrote:
I will say that the fact that the actuality of the 5KHz lower than published
frequency (Known for years)
Real quick also -- can someone verify that the N2YO applet showing on
the warehouse.funcube.org.uk site is reporting accurate positions?
I've been running the downloaded keps and my home station has been
tracking / decoding just fine, along with nice S9+ audio with AOS and
LOS matching expected
Congratulations on a spectacular achievement, John!!! Outstanding!
Dave KB5WIA
On Thu, Aug 22, 2013 at 11:08 PM, John Papay f...@papays.com wrote:
Some of the active grid chasers on the birds are aware
that KA6SIP just gave me my last USA grid when he operated
from CN72 in Oregon. And I
I actually use the sun for aligning the antennas. SatPC32 comes with
a program called SuM, which can point the antennas directly at the sun
(or moon!). To align the antennas, I look at the shadow of the
antennas on the ground, and adjust until the shadow is minimum size.
It's really easy, (and
Oh, I didn't measure the rotation speed of the motor during my rebuild,
unfortunately. In all the research I did prior to the rebuild (=scrambling
to find an equivalent motor) I didn't see any published specs on the unit
either. I'd think Domenico's calculations would probably be the closest,
Hi John,
Last night's VO-52 pass (around 0315z??) was normal signal levels.
Only unusual thing was about half way through the pass (as sat was
over northern US) it seemed to be picking up some sort of interference
... I was watching the entire downlink passband on the SDR waterfall
and there was
Hi Floyd,
Domenico's advice is quite good. I also wrote a section on aligning a
g5500 az rotator from scratch, its at the bottom of this post:
http://kb5wia.blogspot.com/2012/03/az-el-antenna-system-new-70cm-yagi-and.html
73 de Dave KB5WIA
On Aug 3, 2012 6:18 PM, i8cvs domenico.i8...@tin.it
Hi George,
I had a lot of difficulty finding this information as well -- in my
case, as to whether a G-5500 could directly use G-5400 parts. Yaesu
says no, and it was hard to find those with direct experience in
parts swap.
It may be possible to overhaul the rotor yourself, depending on what's
Hi Bob,
See my web page at http://kb5wia.blogspot.com for details on a
complete teardown and rebuild of a G5500 azimuth rotator; the G5400
azimuth will be similar but won't have the limit switches. There's
also a link in there for two websites that have info on rebuilds of
the elevation rotator
Hi everyone,
If anyone is interested in step-by-step photos from my recent repair of the
Yaesu G-5500 azimuth rotator motor, here is the link:
http://kb5wia.blogspot.com/2012/03/yaesu-g5500-rotator-motor-repair.html
The reason I rewound the motor was twofold - Yaesu parts is out of stock,
and
If the uplink power is in the order of 10 to 20 watt into a 10 dBi RHCP
antenna than the Dutch transponder is not overloaded.
Yes, it's important not to run too much power to prevent overloading. I
have found that just 300 mW into a 16 dBi vertically polarized antenna
works beautifully through
Hi Everyone,
Here's a quick update on my G5500 Azimuth rotator story. (Recall that
three weeks ago I stalled the rotator after switching antennas.)
Yaesu Parts USA is still backordered on the replacement motors,
possibly some will arrive from Japan in a few more weeks (or possibly
not). The
Hi Greg,
Hey, thanks!
Good question about how long it takes the windings to degrade.
Haven't tested this myself, but I'd seen a post a while back where
someone measured current draw on the motor, and found that it's
actually almost the same between normal operation and a full stall.
That also
Hi Ken,
A couple of things to check. The resistance of the motor should be same
for both directions, ie between red and black should be around 3.5 ohms as
well as green and black. Total series resistance of motor should be around
7 ohms. When mine stalled, the motor overheated and one winding
Hi Ken,
Yes, that green to black value of 2.5 sounds suspicious - the two winding
halves should have pretty similar resistances. If the brake is okay,
likely the motor is shorted, unfortunately.
Dave
On Mar 4, 2012 3:52 PM, Ken Swaggart k.swagg...@charter.net wrote:
Dave,
Thanks for the
Hi Mike,
13.2 dBd sounds a little optimistic for a 4.7-foot UHF yagi. My older
9-foot Diamond A430-S15 yagi was rated at 12.7 dBd, and the 9-foot
highly optimized M2 432-12EME antenna is rated at 14.3 dBd.
I'd ballpark a 5-foot yagi at around 10 dBd or so myself ... maybe
they misprinted dBi ad
Hi Clive,
I haven't heard of failures of the controller or software directly, but
this could happen. A more common problem might be mis-calibration, in that
if your elevation rotor reads only 175 degrees and your software and
controller is trying to send it to 180 degrees, the thing will keep
Just a quick update -- Yaesu Parts just emailed me and advised that
they don't think any of the motors from other rotators are directly
compatible with the G5500 azimuth motor -- the estimate on arrival
time of more stock is uncertain, possibly 4-6 weeks or longer.
I haven't sourced a direct
Hi Everyone,
Well I'll be QRT from the sats for a little while!! After replacing
my UHF antenna on the backyard satellite array, I managed to catch the
(slightly longer) new antenna on the house roof and jammed the Yaesu
G-5500 rotator, ugh! Even though I had replaced the normal 2-amp
fuses in
Thanks Drew, Dee, and Kevin!
Yes, I definitely plan to add a thermal switch to the replacement
motor on the rebuild -- hopefully to prevent such a thing from
happening again, ugh!
Mike WA6ARA suggested a company down in LA that rewinds motors -- I
sent them a description, and they wrote back at
Hi Thu,
Happy New Year to you as well!
I don't have a TS-2000 myself, but that rig should be fully capable of
working the ARISSat-1 transponder, many hams use the rig for AO-07 and
VO-52 which work essentially the same way as ARISSat.
The challenges (above copying the downlinks as you're doing
Hi Everyone,
I've finally had time to write up a short article about a technique I
use when operating the satellites portable -- hand-drawn radar
plots.
Normally I use a netbook computer running HRD software to show the
position of the satellite in the sky in real-time, but there have been
Here's what I do, it works for me for any off-screen windows:
* Click on the taskbar to make sure your off-screen window is selected.
* HIt Alt-Space to bring up the window minimize/maximize/close/move dialog.
* Choose Move.
* Hit any arrow key (important - this starts the move process).
*
Hi Trevor,
Just FYI, I've posted a detailed description of how to set up a
station for working the SSB (and also FM) sats on my web page at:
http://kb5wia.blogspot.com/2010/10/satellite-portable-station.html
The station consists of twin Yaesu FT-817ND radios and an Elk antenna,
and a number of
Hi Myles,
I use the LVB + G5500 and it works well. I have mine set up with the
G5500 as a North stopping rotator, and have it set for 360 degrees max
az. I also just used the front buttons on the LVB to program it,
found it much easier following the on-screen menu prompts than
entering
Hi Burns,
My 2 cents -- sounds like things are mostly okay (your recieving setup
is obviously good if you can hear others in the transponder passband).
The big factor that I can see is lack of gain on the uplink. I've
successfully gotten into ARISSAT with my 5W QRP radio, but that's
using a 13
On Mon, Oct 24, 2011 at 12:32 PM, Jeff Welsh jhwe...@gmail.com wrote:
Did anyone notice the apparent reset of ARISSAT yesterday during it's
mid-afternoon US pass?
I was in the process of setting up for telemetry reception when the bird
seemed to drop out completely and come back online about
Hi Richard,
. I am using a yeasu g-5500 rotator with the AMSAT controller and ham radio
deluxe. Kenwood ts-2000 for the rig and a 8 element 440 and a 4 element 2
meter antenna. The antennas are currently linear polarized since my phasing
cables still have not arrived from the manufacturer.
Hi Jan,
Be sure the baudrate is set correctly in your SatPC32. It's under
Setup Radio Setup then in the dropdown list next to your radio,
change Model to Baudrate and make sure it matches what your radio
is using. It's not always obvious that the little drop-down there has
a second menu
they'll be using an Elk antenna and an HT, and they plan to try
two AO27 and AO51 passes. I'll be listening out for them!
73! Dave KB5WIA
-- Forwarded message --
From: charlie sikes charliesi...@me.com
Date: Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 6:30 AM
Subject: Fwd:
To: David Palmer KB5WIA kb5
Hi Everyone,
Well, I'm back from the CM79/CM89/CN70/CN80 grid expedition. It was
quite an adventure! Operating ham radio from the CM79 corner
certianly is difficult -- but it was really rewarding to actually make
contacts from up there. I made a total of four trips up and down the
mountain,
Hi Everyone,
In case you missed me at CM79 this last weekend, the Sonoma County
Radio Amateurs are going to be there this coming weekend August
12-14th. Charlie KZ6T reports that they'll be active on HF, 2m, 6m,
but also will try for a few satelllite passes on Saturday August 13th
signing as
Hi Everyone,
Here's an update on the CM79/CM89/CN70/CN80 plans.
CM79 is not an easy grid to work from. Aside from being physically
remote, and being a strenuous hike (800' climbing) from the nearest
road, the actual topography of the grid is difficult for radio
operations. The actual grid
by the population density of nearby trees.
Have fun!
73,
Jim, ND9M / VQ9JC
Ardmore, OK / EM14
Message: 1
Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2011 12:42:53 -0700
From: David Palmer KB5WIA kb5...@amsat.org
Subject: [amsat-bb] KB5WIA California Lost Coast Expedition
(CM79/CM89/CN70/CN80) August 7-8, 2011
To: AMSAT
Hi Everyone,
Just a reminder (and before the flood of ARISSat emails in the list
tomorrow!), this weekend I'll be heading out to the California Lost
Coast to work the satellites from that rare grid CM79. CM79 has no
roads, no power, no houses, nothing but lots and lots of ocean and a
small
Indeed!
I'll be sure to ask! I've just been in touch with ARRL HQ regarding
VUCC rules. We all want to be absolutely sure that the configuration
of the operation position (4 grids at once!) complies with the
requirements.I'll be sure to ask them about the QSL cards while
I'm at it!
Dave
Hi Everyone,
This weekend I was able to sneak in some satellite operating during a
camping trip with my XYL. We went up to Eagle Lake in Lassen National
Forest, which is in Northern California and grid CN90. I had no idea
if satellite operation would even be possible from that location
Hi George,
Arrows are great antennas -- when I first put up my az/el system in
the backyard I used an Arrow 4-element 2-meter yagi for the uplink,
and it worked just fine. One thing I noticed was that after a month
in the elements / rain, the studs connecting the aluminum elements
together had
Hi Everyone,
I'm about a month away from my planned grid-expedition to the rare
grid squares in California's Lost Coast. If all goes well, I'll be
QRV from the grid intersection of CM79, CM89, CN70, and CN80 on Sunday
August 7th and Monday August 8th. As usual, I'll try for as many
linear and
Here where exactly are you going? I from Garberville and hung around
Shelter Cove often. have a lot of fun.
73
Jeremy Widner
K0PDX
Yep, will be just south of Shelter Cove on Chemise Mountain. I'm
looking forward to it - this area will be a new one for me!
73 de Dave KB5WIA
Jerry's correct. If you only adjust your transmit frequency, such
that your receive frequency appears to stay the same -- then you're
automatically correcting for your own downlink doppler, but not for
anyone elses. Other hams in the footprint will still have to chase
you. The only way to stick
AO-51 was in great shape as it passed south above the Pacific Ocean
this morning (6/3/2011 1410z). No one else was on, but I had a nice
S9+ full quieting downlink on my uplink for the entire pass.
The birds footprint was still in daylight when it went LOS, so even
though it was 1000mi west of
Hi Everyone,
I was contacted by a local ham recently who'd like to find a good home
for a sat antenna currently located at their emergency comms site.
The antenna appears to be a M-Squared 149T-CP14 circular polarized
antenna. It has the following measured specs: Boom 118” (9’ 10”),
Driven
46 matches
Mail list logo
