AmateurRadio.com

My CQ WWDX results are insignificant.  I spent probably a half hour at the most (more like 20 minutes) behind the key last Sunday morning. 

I am used to the contest being held on Thanksgiving weekend.  Since November 1st was a Friday this year, that meant that this year, the contest was held the weekend BEFORE Thanksgiving.  I have way too much to do the weekend before Thanksgiving, getting the house ready for the guests who will visit on Thanksgiving Day.  I didn’t have much time to breathe, let alone sit behind the radio for an extended period of time. When the contest is held on Thanksgiving weekend (like next year), the house has been cleaned, for the most part chores are done, it’s the one weekend that grocery shopping is a real quick trip – ideal for sitting behind the radio and giving out points. 

As I said earlier, I managed to sit down for about 20 minutes on Sunday morning before leaving for church and worked these stations:

OP4A
G2F
S52OP
OC4CW
LX1NO
ED7A
T7T
G4BJM

And it looks like T7T was a pirate, a fake …… I got “slimmed” as they used to say. T7T shows up in none if the callbooks and shows up on DX Summit and the Reverse Beacon Network maybe once or twice.  So it was either a fake, or someone whose fist was so shaky that I totally got it wrong.  It was suggested to me that perhaps it was TM2T, but man – even that’s a stretch. If I heard it wrong and got the number of dits wrong, MAYBE it could have been TM5T, because – – …  (7) sounds a lot closer to – – . . . . . (M 5)  than – – . . – – –   (M 2). But I kept listening for a while, even after I made my QSO and it sure sounded like T7T to me.  In any even, it was a busted QSO that I am not including in my official log. 

72 de Larry W2LJ 
QRP – When you care to send the very least! 

Larry Makoski, W2LJ, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

My confirmation of ICube-1 successful deployment was featured on the AMSAT-UK website on Sunday.

Screenshot of the Amsat-UK webpage

My very quick and patchy decode of the CW beacon was sufficient to identify and verify ICube-1 but I had only been able to decode the words ***ISTAN and CUBESAT. For my own pride I wanted to decode more of the CW message "iCUBE-1 First CubeSat of Pakistan"

I had the IQ file from SDR# so could process it as much as I needed and have used a couple of Morse/CW decoder tools before, but find the free ones often struggle with the faint Doppler shifting CW, just a little too much noise and not enough signal.

Audible decoding isn't an option (yet) but I can visually decode, but the signal going up the waterfall shows the dots and dashes but is too quick for me, and ideally I would like it horizontal rather than vertically.

Then I remembered I had installed Spectravue a few years ago, Spectravue is a powerful spectral analysis/receiver program primarily for use with SDR devices, it was the program used to calibrate my first FUNCube Dongle.

Spectravue is able to take the IQ file and play it back at varying speeds, it can demodulate signals and importantly allows pausing of the playback and easy access to the section of interest, something SDR# is sadly lacking, also it allows a horizontal waterfall display and the ability to save images.

I set about processing and decoding and as you can see from the screenshots below, I managed to identify most of the message (the letters have been added later) The FUNcube-1 telemetry signal can be seen at the top of the images, along with some QRM.

Partial decode of ICube-1 CW beacon

Partial decode of ICube-1 CW beacon

During the process I also spotted two further signals from Velox-PII (145.980 MHz) and the First-Move Cubesat (145.970 MHz) - both of these were recorded in the first decent pass over the UK after deployment  (10:21 on 21 November 2013) the incorrect time shown on the bottom of the screen shots comes from the fact the files processed were copies and the file time stamp had been altered in the process.

I can only wonder when the first reception reports were made? Then again I shouldn't be greedy, one first-to-report is probably enough ;-)

Velox-PII Telemetry/CW beacon

First-Move Telemetry and partial ICube-1

VELOX-PII is the first Singapore picosatellite to operate in low-earth orbit, and was developed under the Nanyang Technological University’s Undergraduate Satellite Program. Details here including how to read the telemetry message.

FIRST-MOVE built by students at the Technical University of München. MOVE stands for München Orbital Verification Experiment. Details here
Andrew Garratt, MØNRD, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from East Midlands, England. Contact him at [email protected].

Just before the weather got cooler and the snow fell I was able to take my manpack setup outside in the backyard and do some pedestrian mobile communications, this was the week of Nov 11-16 2013. 10 and 12 meters were in great shape and 10 meter FM simplex was even better.

My manpack consists of a frame I bought on eBay from China, it is attached to my Alice Pack. In the frame I have a FT-857, LDG AT-100 PROII tuner, PBox LiPO batteries(x2) ran in parallel. My antenna for HF is a Chameleon Hy-Brid Mini with a V1L whip or a PRC-271 10’ whip. Power out was typically 10 watts for all contacts. I worked into TX and CA on 29.600 FM Simplex with a 60 over report. I worked Northern Ireland and South Africa as well.

This is a picture of my setup:

It works quite well and I use a comet antenna for 2/440 on it as well. It has a jack on the front for a morse code key and I have connections on the back for the computer for soundcard digital modes.

A video of the setup in operation can be seen here on YouTube:

I am waiting for a CHA CAP Hat so I can tune on 80 and 160. I use a counterpoise as well of 25’ with a quick connect/disconnect in case someone trips on it or when I am walking I get it snagged. The pack is continually taking on new changes. I have a strip of LED lights I want to use for night operations to lessen current draw and want to put a fold down tray on the pack for my logbook as well.

Hope to work you this winter from the cross country ski trails pedestrian mobile.

Fred Lesnick, VE3FAL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Thunder Bay Ontario, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

I’ve owned my Raspberry Pi for a while now.  I purchased it around the time they were first introduced (early 2012).  Not having a lot of knowledge in the Linux OS, the most I ever really did with it was set it up and play around with it.  However, my reason for purchasing the RPI was to some how use it for amateur radio purposes. 

As I have mentioned before on my blog, I also own a D-STAR Digital Access Point Dongle (DVAP).  I purchased it in 2011 and had been using it connected to an older Windows XP machine.  I wrote a “first look” post as well as one where I was experimenting on the DVAP range away from my QTH.   However, in following my own advice given in my podcast, The Practical Amateur Radio Podcast episode 64 about the Microsoft Windows XP End of Life, I decided it was time to explore how the DVAP might be used with the Raspberry Pi.

In most situations, Google truly is your friend.  Just doing a simple Google search for DVAP and Raspberry Pi led me to more information than I had time to read.  However, the very first search result happened to provide all the information I needed to setup my Raspberry Pi to work with my DVAP dongle.  Special thanks to Bill, AB4BJ who had blogged about his experience in setting up his Pi for DVAP purposes. 

If you have a Raspberry Pi, a DVAP Dongle and a D-STAR radio sitting around your ham shack, it’s very easy to set it all up just as I have done.  In the below picture, I have my ICOM ID92-AD, the DVAP Dongle and the Raspberry Pi setup.  Once configured, the Raspberry Pi will function stand-alone (without keyboard, mouse and monitor).  I can access the RPI via VNC from my iPad if needed. 

Raspberry Pi running Debian Linux and the DVAPNODE and IRCDDB software.  DVAP is connected to REF001A in Aurora, Illinois.  Screenshot from iPad VNC session.

For now, my setup will remain in my ham shack.  I know many build this setup for mobile/portable use.  At the present time I do not have wireless capabilities for the RPI.  I also want to see just how stable this setup is before making any additional changes.   I was pleased to wake up this morning and find the RPI was still running and the OS was stable.  Time will tell…

Until next time…

73 de KDØBIK

Jerry Taylor, KD0BIK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Colorado, USA. He is the host of the Practical Amateur Radio Podcast. Contact him at [email protected].

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnDoq9sRZpk

It’s great to see exposure for the FUNcube project in the major world media. Congratulations to the FUNcube team!

I thoroughly enjoyed G4VXE’s post about his experience downloading AO-73 telemetry. Has anyone else been playing around with this?

Matt Thomas, W1MST, is the managing editor of AmateurRadio.com. Contact him at [email protected].

The temperature has taken a cold turn here in the valley today which meant that I would “tune around” again on the 10 meter band once more. It’s much too cold to be outside.

This contact with ZD8X on Ascension Island marks my second new DX country in just a few days.

Ascension Island is literally”in the middle of nowhere” between South America and Africa in the Atlantic Ocean. It’s primarily a communications hub for several countries and was a relay station for the BBC in it’s heyday. St Helena is in this general area and the place Napoleon spent his last days in exile.

It took me several attempts to work this station at 5,362 miles. There was quite a “pile up” and I was surprised to hear my call sign repeated back to me with the customary 599 report.

John Smithson, Jr., N8ZYA, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from West Virginia, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

The new station slowly being setup

Friday was moving day and I sure did find out I am not as young as I used to be! While at the old place we made a huge effort (so we thought) to reduce what we had as we were moving into a condo and one that was very much smaller than our home. Once moved in it was a SEA of boxes, again we had more "stuff" than room. Up to this point Julie has been working very hard to settle the Kitchen into place. Last night she completed that job! Im sorting boxes, getting the ham gear somewhat placed in the desk (setting it up will be a job for next week). We are on the 6th floor here with south and east

Boxes slowly being dealt with

exposure. I am just itching to get on the radio and either WSPR my signal out or use the KX3 and call CQ and see how the Reverse Beacon spots me. At this point my antenna will be the Alexloop placed in front of our bay window and I will be maxing out at 5 watts or less.
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].