Posts Tagged ‘ISS’
More SSTV from the ISS
February 23rd, 2015 | 
Author: The SSTV activity had been due to last three days starting on Saturday but commencement was delayed by the NASA space walk.
Receiving the signal and decoding is relatively straightforward due to relatively high power used (around 25W) however getting a perfect image is a challenge and dependant on a number of factors.
- The timing of the overhead pass. Due to the time taken to transmit the image and the three minute delay between each image it is possible to only be in reception range for the end of one image and the start of the next.
- The ISS is moving quickly and so the transmission suffers noticeable Doppler shift. FM is more immune to the effect but for optimal performance adjustment of the tuned frequency is required especially on high elevation passes (more information).
- The ISS moves position, both in direction and elevation as it moves across the sky and will show up the peaks and troughs in a static antennas radiation pattern. This leads to bands of noise when the signal level falls. The use of a rotatable (and if possible tiltable) antenna (or even an handheld one) is the dirigour mode of operating satellites (and the ISS) for serious enthusiasts.
- Noise and local interference will also obviously affect the image.
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| Mission Control |
I opted a two pronged approach, the Yaesu FT857D connected to my rotatable four element YAGI which is mounted horizontally for SSB and the old TRIO/KENWOOD TR9000 was connected to the X50 dual-band collinear mounted vertically.
I had two copies of the MMSSTV program running on separate laptops The TR9000 was left running largely unattended tuned to 145.800MHz, while the FT857D was tweaked to the optimum frequency while the YAGI antenna was rotated to the correct azimuth during the pass.
All adjustments were done manually and I use the Orbitron program for prediction and under the Rotor/Radio tab the frequency and azimuth are shown and updated during the pass (as can be seen in the screen show below)
I missed the first low elevation at 11:07UTC, but was able to monitor and decode images on all the remaining passes during the day, with some excellent results, the images show the full images decodes on both radio set ups as a comparison.
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| FT857D - Yagi |
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| TR9000 - Collinear |
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| FT857D - Yagi |
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| TR9000 - Collinear |
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| FT857D - Yagi |
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| TR9000 - Collinear |
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| FT857D - Yagi |
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| TR9000 - Collinear |
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| FT857D - Yagi |
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| TR9000 - Collinear |
I was especially pleased when one of my best images was featured on the Amsat-UK and the Southgate Amateur Radio News websites.
What was slightly worrying and it also happened during the last SSTV activities were some operators transmitting on the downlink frequency even during a pass, what sounded like someone keying up was responsible for the single noise line on another perfect image. I even received an unexpected SSTV image, complete with a call sign while the system was waiting for the next pass. I won't publish it here as everyone makes mistakes.
The experiments are continuing today but I am in work so will just leave an automated set up running on the collinear.
Judging by the messages on social media these SSTV activities seem to have captured the imagination of a lot of operators and several members of my local club South Kesteven Amateur Radio Society (SKARS) had their first go with some excellent results and are hooked! The images can seen on the SKARS Facebook page
Long may the activities continue, hopefully started to transmit some live images from space.
Sending Christmas Greetings to the ISS
As luck would have much of the UK had a crystal clear sky and I even managed to get my 80 plus year old Mother-in-law out in the garden to watch the spectacle. She was impressed and it was great to overhear lots of excited children coming out in the nearby homes to watch Santa as he flew overhead.
Back in October 2013 after becoming a newly licensed radio amateur I managed to send APRS packets to the International Space Station which were digipeated and received back on earth by other operators. Back then I used a lowly Baofeng UV5R handheld and I decided to repeat the exercise this time using the FT857D (this time running around 20W) to talk to Santa!
The computer I used back then has been decommissioned so on the laptop I installed the UISS program from ON6MU which makes easy work of APRS to the ISS and instead of the cumbersome AGWPE I used the excellent soundcard modem from UZ7HO.
I attempted to send a message on the pass at 15:43 but failed completely, discovering I'd got my soundcard incorrectly set up. I corrected this and left the autobeacon mode running in UISS during the Santa pass and checking back much later could clearly see I'd sent and had a message repeated back from the ISS.
Checking the ariss website (www.ariss.net) I could see the repeated message had been received by another station and my position was showing up on the map (M0NRD)
I have successfully done it again today on Christmas Day! As the raw packets below confirm.
M0NRD>CQ,RS0ISS*,qAR,DM2RM:73' Happy Christmas from Andrew IO93OB
M0NRD>CQ,RS0ISS*,qAR,MB7USS:=5304.08N/00048.47W-73' Happy Christmas from Andrew
M0NRD>CQ,RS0ISS*,qAR,HG8GL-6:73' Happy Christmas from Andrew IO93OB
It was a nice achievement and another nice Christmas present was achieved early this morning while running WSPR on 40m, managing to get received in New Zealand
Anyway enjoy the rest of the festive season and I wish you all the best in 2015
ISS – not
It turns out my recent message purporting to have been sent for the International Space Station (ISS) was not from there at all, but from a tent in Wales! Not quite sure why people get a kick from this? It all seems a bit silly to me. Previously this person’s account was sending out dodgy links and I informed him of this. Be warned – all may not be what it seems.
Email from space?
Just had an email with this at the end:
“Sent from the ISS …-.-“
I am assuming this came from the International Space Station (ISS).
If correct, this is a first for me.
Mentioned in Practical Wireless! and some Christmas stress
This has meant I have had to tackle some long put off home renovation projects. The first was to redecorate the bathroom and what should have been a simple paint job has snowballed into a major project and has sapped a lot of free time. Thankfully it is now all but done.
The second was to turn the third bedroom back into an actual bedroom rather than the study/computer room/indoor radio shack it had become. Again this involved more work than planned including dismantling and remodelling of a home-made desk and the removal of piles of collected radio/computer junk and books.
The upshot of all this work and de-cluttering is my outside workshop has turned into a bomb site! Most of the junk has been dumped in it and it is very untidy with tools scattered everywhere. I also had a minor catastrophe when trying to retreive a workmate when my beloved 2Meter YAGI, fell off its perch breaking off the reflector and a director! Thankfully Justin at InnovAntennas was able to sort me out some replacement boom insulators
With all this upheaval, combined with work pressures I have been unable to really do any radio or electronics for most of this month. Do I sound like the Grinch?
Despite this I have been able to capture the odd FUNCube-1(AO73) pass and have nearly reached 1000 telemetry packets.
It came as a pleasant surprise was finding out I was mentioned in the January issue of Practical Wireless magazine. Tim Kirby (G4VXE) reported on my ISS SSTV capture and APRS experiments. Tim the magazines VHF/UHF editor has his own blog and is someone I converse with on twitter (@G4VXE)
I realised I didn't blog my SSTV capture back in October, but did post it on twitter feed (@nerdsville)
Not sure what it is, but this SSTV image just received from the ISS with completely the wrong antenna! pic.twitter.com/5uka2aHfic
— Andrew Garratt M6GTG (@nerdsville) October 28, 2013 Here is a scan of my mention and the picture.. I can forgive Tim misspelling my name, it happens a lot! It also seems I might get mentioned in the February issue to following my ICube-1 reception report. |
| From Practical Wireless - January 2014 Issue |
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| From Practical Wireless - January 2014 Issue |
My APRS broadcasts received by the ISS
I screen capped the evidence from the website http://ariss.net which documents Amateur Radio data digipeated by the ISS. In order to appear on the page, a position report in a valid APRS format must be received and then digipeated through the ISS system, then be heard by an internet gateway station, which then forwards it on to the APRS Internet System.
Okay it sounds a bit more impressive when put like that ;-)
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| The map showing received stations, M6GTG is me! |
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| The detail of my report |
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| List of stations with time stamps, showing me! |
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| List of digirepeated messages |
It consists of a small embedded PC running embedded XP, the sound card output was connected to the microphone input of my Baofeng UV-5R+ operating in VOX mode set to 145.825MHz. The radio was connected through my power/SWR meter in to the X-50 antenna. I used the UV-5R+ instead of the UV-3R since it has a little more power and better audio. I had a SWR of around 1:1.2 and outputting 4W.
The software I used was UISS from ON6MNU and the AGWPE packet engine. It has taken a little time to work out how to setup UISS into auto-beacon mode and putting in the time of the next decent pass (approx 45 degrees elevation) I set it to broadcast position and text data messages every 30 seconds.
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| The embedded PC running UISS |
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| UV5R+ in VOX mode on 145.825MHz |
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| The power meter showed 4W output, SWR about 1:1.2 |
I stood out in the dark, hoping to see the ISS pass over but the cloud cover was too thick and monitored using a handheld scanner. I heard my transmissions obviously and the ISS broadcasts as it repeated received messages, but I didn't know if any were mine till I got back to the PC.
Do You Have The Right Stuff?
I’m not a fan of New Kids on the Block, but this title just jumped out at me when I saw the story over at ARRL.ORG that NASA is looking for more astronauts. Currently there are only 59, where a decade ago, there was 150. Since the retirement of the Shuttle, the numbers have been going down.
Photo Courtesy of NASA/APOD
It takes 2 and a half years to train to be an astronaut, on top of the years of college getting a degree. Then there is the 31 weeks of working in Russia to learn how the Soyuz craft work and learning Russian. It’s a pretty big commitment, but from what I can see, it has some big payback and perks. I mean, who wouldn’t want to fly a few hundred nautical miles above the Earth in micro gravity?
But currently, the Soyuz is grounded because of the crash of a supply ship in August, while Russian space agency investigators troubleshoot what went wrong. This could lead to a short abandonment of the International Space Station if Russian officials find the problem quickly. But still, the need for astronauts for the manned space flight program is still there.
From the ARRL.ORG story:
NASA has said that it expects to send four to six astronauts to the ISS each year for six-month rotations. But the August crash of a Russian re-supply rocket has grounded the Soyuz, the only vehicle capable of flying crew members to the station. NASA noted that the Russian crash might lead the agency to temporarily abandon the ISS this fall unless the Russians quickly troubleshoot the problem. “We will understand, to our satisfaction, the anomaly, what is believed to be the cause and how they resolved it,” said NASA ISS Program Manager Michael Suffredini in a press conference after the crash. “If we’re not happy, we won’t put our astronauts on the Soyuz.” In April, NASA awarded $269 million to four companies developing craft to deliver cargo and crew to the space station.
This along with the time needed to train, could lead to a shortage in 5 years. So NASA is looking now. But I doubt you’ll find a posting for the job on Monster.com or Regionalhelpwanted.com. Still, if you possess a pretty hefty degree and are in good physical shape, you could be the next NASA astronaut. And having a Ham Radio license is also a plus. Right now there are 4 Hams on the Space station. Ron Garan, KF5GPO (NASA), Mike Fossum, KF5AQG (NASA), Sergei Volkov, RU3DIS (RKA), and Satoshi Furukawa, KE5DAW (JAXA). And you can check out AMSAT or the ISS Fanclub for more info on working the ISS.
