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Welcome. Good evening, everyone. It's time for
HamTalk Live. It's episode number 143, AMSAT
Through the Years, recorded live on Thursday,
December 6th, 2018. I'm your host, Neil Rapp,
WB9VPG. Thanks for tuning in to this episode
of HamTalk Live. Tonight, we're joined by Keith
Baker, KB1SF, and we'll take your calls live.
in just a few minutes. Last week on the show
Pete Thompson, KE5GGY was here to talk about
the Santa Net over on 3916. Hope you've been
enjoying that and if not stop by and if you missed
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.com or on your favorite podcast app or we're
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silver -plated PL259s from Tower Electronics
be too good for your guests? Those will be fine.
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Don't be caught without PL -259s. Visit Tower
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-2973. They have adapters, cables, antennas,
soldering supplies, and meters too. The early
bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets
the cheese. You're listening to HamTalk Live
with Neil Rapp. Thanks to Scott and Jill at Tower
Electronics for sponsoring the show once again
tonight. They help bring you HamTalk Live each
and every week. They're finishing up their HamFest
schedule for this year. They're in Plant City
near Tampa, Florida this weekend. That's tomorrow
and Saturday. And they'll be taking some time
off and then... Start back on January 5th at
Waukesha, Wisconsin, but you can visit them anytime
you want at PL -259 .com. Keith Baker, KB1SF,
grew up in New Hampshire and attended the University
of New Hampshire at Durham. And after graduation,
he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the
United States Air Force. via the Reserve Officers
Training Corps, or ROTC. He spent the next 20
years as an Air Force officer, primarily in the
Comptroller field, and over half his Air Force
career was spent at Aeronautical Systems Division
at Wright -Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, which
many hams will recognize that that's... in the
Dayton area and a lot of people go by there and
tour the museum there during Hamvention. Well
soon after his retirement from the Air Force
he founded KCB Associates a highly diversified
personal counseling business consulting and corporate
training company and for nearly 25 years he and
his staff professionally trained consultants
and has provided helpful help in the form of
targeted training courses and hands -on consulting
to a lot of small and medium -sized businesses
throughout the US, Canada, and Mexico. He's now
fully retired with the exception of a couple
of volunteer positions. One thing I found interesting
was he's an occasional balloon artist. He fills
in for some balloon artistry and in the 90s he
served as a member of the AMSAT board of directors
and later served as the executive vice president
for several years and then was AMSAT's president.
And in January 2010, he was once again asked
to help out with AMSAT as the treasurer. And
that's his other volunteer position that you
never can get away from. So Keith, welcome to
HamTalk Live. Ah, pleasure to be here, Neil.
Absolutely. Pleasure to be here. You know, we
started talking before the show and And we ran
out of time for our personal conversation here.
But we actually met at Hamvention in 1977. When
you were being touted at that point as the world's
youngest ham. I think you said you were nine
or seven years old or something. I would have
been six at that point. Six or seven, yeah. I
vividly remember shaking your hand at that point.
Wow, what a world this is. And then we just figured
out that in, I think it was 2013, we were on
the QSO radio show right after each other and
we were sitting right next to each other and
didn't even know it. That's it In that while
and they know that that's the wonder one of the
wonderful things about this ham radio Activity
is that you never know Who's gonna be on the
other end of a conversation whether it's on the
air or doing what we're doing or? At a ham fest
or a hamvention or one of those type of meetings.
It's just so interesting to run into the people
that you run into who also share this fantastic
hobby we call AMRADIO. Well, it's been nice to
catch up on things with you here. And we want
to talk a little bit about the history of AMSAT
tonight. And we may get into some current things
since there's some hot news here lately. You
were involved in AMSAT back in the 90s and familiar
with the history of starting AMSAT, so tell us
a little bit about the challenges that AMSAT
had getting started and getting the first satellites
launched into orbit. Well, the AMSAT, which by
the way stands for Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation,
we're a 501C3 non -profit organization. We have
one full -time paid employee, and that's Martha,
our office manager up in the DC area. But all
the rest of us, from the president, the vice
president, the treasurer, all the way down to
the folks that are actually putting these satellites
together, we're all volunteers. And that's an
interesting story in and of itself. AMSAT was
the follow -on organization to an organization
which started on the West Coast called Project
Oscar, which stands for Orbital Satellite Carrying
Amateur Radio. And that came about as a result
of a gentleman who was writing for CQ at the
time, and they were just starting to test out
some distance records or some distance activity
on what was then, well, what is now two meters
to see how far they could make two meters operate.
Now this is back in the early 60s, late 50s when
there wasn't, you know, transistors were basically
in their infancy at that point. But anyway, this
gentleman wrote a column. I believe it was Don
Stoner. I'm not sure exactly who it was. But
anyway, he wrote a column and said, you know,
we can communicate on two meters over about 100
miles. I wonder if we could do the same thing
going straight up. You know, does anyone have
a spare rocket for orbital purposes? Well, and
that was exactly what he wrote. Well, it was
a couple of folks out. Well, a couple. It was
a group of people on the West Coast. That were
at that time involved in a very top -secret project
called Corona Which was essentially the very
first spy satellites that we were launching at
the time under the cover of a scientific program
called discoverer But anyway one of the folks
who was working on these or a couple of the folks
that were working on these things Said yeah,
we're we're getting ready to launch a whole bunch
of satellites into orbit to go spy on what was
at that time the Soviet Union. And yeah, there's
some extra space in one of these upper stages
that had all the cameras on it. Why don't we
see if we could build a satellite that would
go in there? Well, there was all kinds of conversations
and all kinds of issues going on. And eventually,
yes, we ham radio operators were granted permission
by the Air Force And you also have to remember
that at that time, the only game in town was
the Air Force. They were the only one. Well,
it was the Air Force and the military. There
was no commercial. There was no NASA at that
point that was launching rockets at that point.
So the upstart was And you stop and think about
it. What a fantastic cover for a top secret project
and to stick an amateur radio satellite in one
of these upper stages. And that's precisely what
happened. And Oscar one was launched. I believe
it was on the 12th or 13th launch of the what
at that time was Project Corona, but it was discover
or something. In 1961, now this was only four
years after the Russians had orbited Sputnik.
So amateur radio has been in space since basically
the toddler stage of space exploration. And Oscar
One was a battery -operated satellite. It ejected
from the upper stage. And that's another thing.
We amateur radio operators were the primary operators
of a secondary satellite. Ours, that Oscar I
satellite, was the very first satellite to be
carried as a secondary payload on any rocket
up to that point. And we also used a very sophisticated
thermally balanced spring mechanism that consisted
of a $1 .19 spring out of Sears and Roebuck.
And so that sort of set the pace at that time.
Now Oscar I, it had no solar panel, did not have
a transponder, it was basically just a beacon.
But it launched, it did work, and people heard
it all around the world. And of course that same
type of build it in your garage and basement,
It lives on because that's exactly where, even
today, our CubeSats, our little satellites that
we've launched, and we just launched one earlier
this week that made it to orbit. We can talk
about that later on if you wish. But you might
say we're the Jobs and Wozniaks of the satellite
business because we really, we AMSAT, which was
the follow -on to this organization called Project
Oscar. We build and launch our satellites using
predominantly leftover parts and donated labor,
which presents a problem from a financial standpoint
because we're essentially relying on donations
from members and other ham radio operators to
do what we do. And even though we've had, of
late, had some What you would call free launches
given to us by NASA? We still have to build satellites
and we still have to test them and those that
can become very costly Particularly when you're
buying solar panels and you're doing some of
the testing that we have to do to certify to
the main carrier That we're not going to make
a mess of their multi gazillion dollar satellite
well, I'm looking at a picture of Oscar, one
of the Oscar ones, the card next to it says that
there were three of those that were built. And
the one that I'm looking at is in the hallway
at ARRL headquarters and when I walked into ARRL
headquarters to go to Teachers Institute, that
was one of the first things that caught my eye
and I had to go look at it. Wow, here's one of
those Oscar Wands and it's in the display case
there. It was just so fabulous to actually get
to see one of those. That has its own story because
that was the backup to Oscar One that was donated
to the league. It was used as a prop very soon
after Oscar One was launched. and they used it
as an educational prop. It went around the country
touring with some hams and they were talking
about, you know, here's the first amateur radio
satellite. Along about five or six years ago,
one of the engineers at the league decided to
try and make that thing work. And so he reversed
engineered it to try and get the beacon to operate
on its frequencies. But he didn't have a schematic.
So fast forward a little bit of time, we had
one of our MSAT symposia out in California in
the Bay Area, which is where all of these engineers
from Lockheed had first done the work on this
Oscar I. And so the fellow was, the lab engineer
was... saying lamenting that he didn't have a
schematic to really set this thing up the way
it was originally done. Until the gentleman that
you've seen the picture of probably is Lance
Gitter comes walking in, he was the original
builder of Oscar One, and he handed a copy of
the schematic to ... To the engineer. So yeah
it again, you know, this is the nature of what
we do in terms of building the and launching
these satellites is that It's it's pretty heavy
heavy stuff heavy stuff I guess would be the
way to put it But that's a little bit of the
history and that's going all the way back. Well,
of course now we're up to Well, we just hung
the the AMSAT designator on the one that we launched
earlier this week. We're up to AO 92 So, that
means there's 95 satellites that AMSAT and our
sister organizations around the world have launched.
And this doesn't count what the Russians have
launched or what our friends in China have launched.
So, it's prolific. And we've kind of gone from
famine to feast here. There's probably something
on the order of 25 or 30 of these satellites.
They're active right now in all kinds of modes,
whether it's straight FM repeater type mode,
which is one of the things that the satellite
we just launched will do. But there's also what
we call analog satellites, which you can send
CW and Morse code through. We have a lot of digital
satellites floating around with store and forward
packet satellites, and it just goes on and on.
Beacon satellites goes on and on and on. So we've
gone. Go ahead. Go ahead. That's that's that's
going all the way back, Neil. Yeah. Well, let's
forward a little bit to A07 because there's some
cool story here with A07. One of those very early
satellites, and I remember seeing it on the front
page of QST on the cover when I was growing up,
and now it's come back to life. In fact, some
of the Wimploda guys called it the zombie satellite
because it's come back to life. So tell us a
little bit about AO7. AO7 was launched in 1974.
This was in the era when we, AMSAT, were getting
NASA launches. That's because AMSAT became the
East Coast version of the West Coast Project
Oscar Group. A lot of the folks that founded
and were working in the early days of AMSAT were
NASA engineers, worked at Goddard Space Flight
Center or worked in the headquarters in Washington.
and they ended up having to, or got a hold of
some launches with NASA as, again, secondary
payloads. The other thing, as I said before,
is that AMSAT has traditionally relied on leftover
parts and donated resources and donated labor,
and so some of the solar panels that went into
Oscar VII were cast -offs or flight spares from
another NASA satellite, I believe. But anyway,
they were very powerful for the day. They were
very powerful solar panels. So they assembled
a satellite. It was a 2 -meter to 10 -meter and
70 -centimeter to 2 -meter transmitter, transponder,
and batteries and so forth. They launched. It
went up in 74. It lasted until about 1981. When
it went silent, the batteries shorted, and that
was the end of that. Well, a gentleman in England
was tuning around, looking, as he said, for interlopers
on the satellite bands, and that's another thing,
is we do have portions of our frequencies set
aside for satellite communications on two meters
and 70 centimeters and on up the line. Anyway,
he was tuning across the two meter downlink channel
and he hears a beacon. Well, our beacons at that
time were Morse code beacons. So he's hearing
this Morse code coming across in the satellite
bin and he's also hearing the Doppler shift and
that's another characteristic of satellite operation
is that very much like the train whistle exercise
where you hear the train coming towards you,
the pitch is higher as it goes by the horn. drops
in pitch. Well, the same thing happens with satellite
communications and satellite frequencies. Anyways,
hearing this Doppler ship and this Morse code,
you say, hmm, that sounds like a satellite. But
which one is it? Well, it turned out it was Oscar
7. Now, this is 1996. And sure enough, it was
Oscar 7. And what had happened is that because
those solar panels were so efficient, they had
the ability to overcharge the batteries. But
now that one of the batteries shorted in the
open position, it meant that whenever the sun
was shining on the solar panels, the transponder
pops on. And that's what happened. So, Oscar
7 now is semi -operational, I guess would be
the way to put it. When it's in sunlight, its
transponder pops in. Sometimes it comes up on
one transponder the 2 to 10 meter transponder
and the other time it comes up on the 440 to
2 meter transponder and as long as it's in satellite
launch it's in sunlight it works We kind of call
it the Timex watch and those folks may remember
the one of the Advertisings many years ago was
the old Timex watch takes a licking and keeps
on taking So that's really what Oscar 7. Now
here's another little unknown fact. Not only
did we amateurs produce the first satellite to
be carried as a secondary payload, but Oscar
7 right now has the record for being the longest
living working satellite that's still in orbit
of any satellite ever launched then or since.
Now I'm not talking just amateur satellites.
I'm talking about any satellite that's ever been
launched Oscar 7 holds the record for Having
their having the longest -living Satellite now.
This is again something that was built in our
one of our people's basements and garages So
like I said, that's I said, you know where the
was the accident the Apple founders Apple like
founders I guess would be the way to put it for
amateur radio but that's the story and it's a
it's an interesting story of what we hams can
do that's a great story well we're up for a break
but first you're the treasurer so I have to throw
in the fundraising plug here you bet this is
this is not a cheap thing to do And so how do
you get the money to pull this off? Well, it's
donations. Membership, of course, in AMSAT is
one way to support us. And we have several different
ways that you can become a member of AMSAT. We'll
talk about our website maybe a little later on
in the program. It's www .amsat .org. But most
of our funding comes directly from amateur radio
operators and other donors who are interested
in what we're doing. And we're not even talking,
we haven't even talked about the work that we
do with ARIS, which is the amateur radio in the
International Space Station. And that takes a
chunk of money as well because of all the interfacing
we have to do with NASA and all the testing we
have to do with NASA to get the equipment. tested
and approved to fly on the International Space
Station. So even though in some cases we're getting
donated launches from NASA under a program called
Ilana Educational Launch of Nano Satellites,
it still costs us hundreds of thousands of dollars
to build and test our satellites, and that's
not counting the labor, that's just the out -of
-pocket costs for testing, transportation, and
parts to put them together. So yeah, we do have
a funding campaign going on right now with the
launch of now AO80, excuse me, 95, which you
can partake of by going up on our website. We're
offering at the moment a digital copy of our
Getting Started with Amateur Radio Satellites.
with any new or renewing membership. So that's
kind of, it's an excellent book written by several
of our people who are hand -schooled on operating
amateur radio satellites. So if you're interested
in getting started, that's a good way to do it.
All right, well, we do need to take a break here,
but we're gonna come back, we'll talk. little
bit more about some of this stuff and Hopefully
we'll sneak in a little update here on the latest
on Fox one cliff or actually a o 95 I was talking
to Drew while ago and it's like yeah, I keep
flipping back and forth too, but a o 95 now we
have to call it and We'll talk about that when
we come back and we're gonna take your calls
and give away some shirts. So We'll do that and
be back with Keith right after this word from
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Join the conversation. Give us a call at 812
-NET -HAM -1. That's 812 -638 -4261. Now, here's
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Time, right here at HamTalkLive .com. Well, it's
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That's 812 -638 -4261. Or you can tweet us at
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HamTalk Live listeners a peaceful and calm Christmas
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crew. So we're gonna give away two of those to
audio callers tonight. So give us a call at 812
-638 -4261. 812 -638 - 4261 to ask your AMSAT
questions and comments about things going on
with the satellites. So Keith, we were kind of
teasing here that we might give a little update
on AO95. So what's the latest on it? Well, as
far as we know, it's progressing. The orbital
checkout is progressing very very nicely One
of the well we were one of 64 I believe satellites
that were launched off of this single SpaceX
Falcon 9 rocket out of Vandenberg, California
and It took quite a while once the upper stage
reached Its intended orbit it took quite a while
to unload all those 64 satellites I'm not exactly
sure where we were in the stack but the other
part of the problem was is that When we are ejected
from the launcher by decree It trips a timer
that's on the satellite Because you don't you
can't launch the satellites in a position because
there's a concern that you would interfere with
other payloads or the main payload. So there's
a timer that's built into our little CubeSats,
and they essentially, what that happens is as
soon as it comes out of the little launcher box,
which is very much like a jack -in -the -box,
I don't know if you remember the little jack
-in -the -box that we all had as kids, some of
us had as kids, where you turn the crank and
then the little pop comes up and the little guy
comes out. Well, it's the same idea. These boxes
that they launch are these little cube sets in,
which, and that brings up another story, but
it's very much like a jack -in -the -box. It's
a big spring. You push the satellite down inside
this box, and then you close the trap door, and
then at the appropriate time, the trap door pops
open and out pop the satellites. And as soon
as that happens, there's a timer that kicks in
for about 45 minutes to get you away from all
of the other satellites. that are being dropped
off in the same orbit. And at that time, it trips
a little piece of monofilament line with a resistor
that burns the monofilament line and it unfurls
the two antennas that are on the satellite. And
at that same time, it pops on with a beacon that
says, this is Fox One Cliff in safe mode. Well,
all of that happened down over the the ocean
the southern Pacific Ocean Where there's no hams
so it took us a long time for that first Word
that we even had an operating satellite I believe
the first person the first group group that heard
it was right on the eastern tip of South America
and another one of our engineers was the first
to actually get telemetry, so we knew that it
was working. So as far as we know, I was talking
on our AMSAT meeting the other night. Jerry Buxton,
our VP of engineering says all is well. They're
progressing through their checkouts, extensive
checkout to make sure everything is working properly.
But so far, it seems to be doing just fine. And
that's the other thing is that once the satellite
achieves orbit and the builders ask for an Oscar
number to be assigned once it achieves orbit
and turns on it's eligible for an Oscar number
and That person who's doing that assigning is
is drew our ko4 ma Drew glass better who you've
had on your program anyway, Drew is our keeper
of Oscar numbers and He dubbed Fox One Cliff,
which was named for one of our larger benefactors
who passed away, Cliff Buttshart. But anyway,
Fox One Cliff is now AO95. So, doing well as
far as we know. It's going to probably take another
two or three weeks before it's completely checked
out. And at that point, it'll be announced that
it's open for amateur radio conversations. And
if you want the story behind the voice on the
recording, tune in to Amateur Radio Newsline.
I just finished up Amateur Radio Newsline before
HamTalk Live and we've got a little story on
AO95 in there and that comes out in the morning.
So check out arnewsline .org. for a little bit
more on AMSAT and this newest satellite, Fox
One Cliff, now noted as AO95. I won't give it
away. Yeah, I won't give it away. Don't give
it away. It's an interesting story of how that
was done and why it was done. the way it was
done. So your audience is going to have to tune
in to find out, as Paul Harvey used to say, the
rest of the story. The rest of the story. Yep,
that's it. Well, 812 -638 -4261 is the phone
number to call, and we're giving away t -shirts
tonight too to callers. So give us a call, 812
-638 -4261. We've got Jerry KB1SF on the line
for a little bit longer tonight, so give us a
call. And I know there was something else you
said we might get to later and escaped my mind
to what it was. Yeah, I forgot to. I don't forget
the things I remember, Neil, but we're getting
to the point where things are just gone. If I
don't write it down, it's gone. Yeah, so maybe
we'll think of it. We'll think about it. Yeah
some of the You know ways that people can help
we've talked about the fundraising and donating
and and of course Eris has the the whole other
you know fundraising going for the power supply
going up and and getting that all certified and
everything and up there, but How are some other
ways that you can help out with AMSAT about volunteering
to do certain things? We're always looking for
help. As I said, we're a totally, with one exception,
volunteer organization. If you ever wanted to
get into an organization and help out to do something
that's very much on the cutting edge of what
we do as ham radio operators, and that brings
up another story too, is that a lot of times
when, even though you may not be interested in
satellites per se for your own operation, a lot
of times when it comes time for international
bodies to allocate frequencies that we all, some
cabs, take for granted as part of our amateur
radio heritage. There's a lot of pressure right
now for frequency spectrum, particularly in the
VHF and UHF and SHF realms from all of the proliferation
of cell phones and all the rest of this stuff.
But one of the things that's always held up at
these international meetings when it comes time
to justify our continued access to amateur radio
frequencies is the satellite program because
we can point to all kinds of things that we take
for granted today were a direct result of the
work that's been done by our experimenters in
AMSAT and Project Oscar before us. Transponders
on a satellite, you know, even these television
satellites that are out at the geosynchronous
that we watch on our TVs on, I mean all of that
had its roots in amateur radio and in particular
in amateur radio satellites. So there's a big
heritage. We were the first to fly CMOS, CMOS
transistors and that sort of thing into space.
So you can go on and on and on carrying the secondary
payloads which are taken for granted. The other
thing is that this whole CubeSat, that may have
been what we were, was going to talk about. Oh
yeah, it was actually. The gentleman who invented
that CubeSat standard, one of the problems that
we were having for many many years was there
was no standard for the size of a satellite and
up until the early 2000s when we were building
our amateur radio satellites the form of the
satellite was based on what rocket it would fly
on. You know, how we would tuck underneath into
a space on a secondary payload launching platform,
for example. But this gentleman, Bob Twiggs,
is the gentleman's name. He got together with
another gentleman out at Stanford University.
He was working there in their space department.
Bob's a ham radio operator. Bob is also or was
an AMSAT member. But you know, he said you know,
this is kind of silly because Why don't we standardize
the size of these satellites? So that they will
fit on a variety of different launchers and can
go on a variety of different launches well fast
forward and now this CubeSat standard which is
about Three and a half inches on a side. It looks
it's about the size of a liter of water if you
would because it's exactly a liter volume These
things are prolific and everybody's getting into
the act now, whether it's a university or whether
it's the government is actually flying these
things now. We're talking about stacking two
or three of them together and sending them out
to the moon and beyond. And again, this all started
in the brain of Bob Twiggs because Bob had been
doing some work earlier. on some of the satellites.
He and his team at Weber State University in
Utah were working with a satellite called the
WeberSat that was launched back in the early
90s and was a small satellite for its time. It
was nine inches on a side. But since we've come
the next step with cell phone technology and
all of these little teeny parts, a CubeSat now
can do essentially what a microsat did back in
the 90s in terms of its power and its ability
to listen to and to transmit. So, yeah, there's
another example of where AMSAT and amateur radio
have really contributed to the radio art by inventing
this standard. So, cool stuff. Sitting next to
you there on Ted waiting to come on Ted Randall
show with one of those Prototypes of a CubeSat
and I was just amazed. You know, I could pick
it up with my hand. I mean it just yeah, honey
Yeah, yeah, and that's just amazing. That's that's
that's the thing too. Is that the less mass you
have the easier it is to find a launch. And if
you have to pay for it, you're not sending up
empty space and lots of mass. It's fairly light
in that sense, which translates into less money
that you have to pay if you're going to launch
it. So this is why The CubeSats have been so
prolific, is that universities and private organizations
that want to do research in space, and that's
how we've hooked our rides into orbit, is through
this CubeSat initiative that NASA has offered.
Essentially, if you look at the inside of those
little CubeSats, they're built in a stack arrangement.
One board is the transmitter, the one above it
would be the receiver. The one above it would
be the internal housekeeping unit, which is the
brains, the computer. And then you've got the
little batteries. And by the way, good old NICADs
are what we use for batteries, because that seems
to be the ones that tolerate the environment
of space much better than anything else. So we
fly regular old NICADs. And then above that,
there's a couple of boards which we call TSFR,
this space for rent. And that's where we will
tuck in our university experiments. For example,
Vanderbilt University in Nashville were carrying
a couple of their experiments. They're measuring
the radiation resistance to off -the -shelf electronic
components. That's their experiment. We've flown
a camera on one of our satellites from another
university, from Virginia Tech. And in fact,
there's a camera on board, the one that was just
launched this last week that has a little bit
better resolution than the first one. So, you
know, this is how AMSAT cuts its costs and also
has an opportunity to advance the state of the
art in space and advance the radio art in space.
And of course, measuring radiation tolerance
for off -the -shelf components is directly related
to communications in space. So again, here's
an opportunity or here's a situation where amateur
radio is not just a bunch of hobbyists sitting
around talking. We're actually contributing to
the future of electronics and the future of radio
communication, not just in the US or North America,
but throughout the world. That's some pretty
cool stuff. Yes, it is Keith We're out of time
It flies by so fast and and we didn't get any
calls tonight, so we're gonna keep We're gonna
keep the the prize booth rolling here. We're
gonna we're gonna keep trying to give these shirts
away. So next week maybe we'll get some calls
and we'll give them away. But I did get a tweet
here from, I want to mention, WI4T said, great
show tonight. I did not know the history of AO7.
So thanks for coming up with that and thanks
for tweeting into us tonight. So yeah, it's just
it's just a cool story. It just came back from
from nowhere. Yeah Yeah, well and this and I've
said this before is that Satellite operation
is just one aspect of a fantastic hobby called
amateur radio and if you get tired of doing one
thing Whether you're chasing DX or you're working
Community service or you're into contesting or
whatever aspect it is that's your passion within
this thing called amateur radio. Eventually,
you're gonna get tired of maybe doing that. Say,
gee, I'd like to try something else. Well, satellite
operation is something else that you can try
and see if you like it and see if it works and
see if it's something that you'd like to do.
And by the way, while we're, if we have a little
bit of time, let me just give our website out
again. It's www .amsat .com. AMSAT .org. And
if you're just interested or just getting started,
if you click on education, when you go up on
our website, and then click on the submenu, there's
four beginners. And I have posted up there nine
articles which were in our journal, our AMSAT
journal from years ago, that talks about how
to get started. And even though some of the satellites
that we were referring to at the time in those
articles are no longer operating, the techniques
are the same. So if you have any interest at
all and just maybe just want to listen to our
satellites, that can be done, believe it or not,
with a handheld in your backyard. You don't even
need a fancy antenna. You don't need a real powerful
transmitter, receiver, you can just go out in
your backyard with a handheld as soon as you
know when the satellite's coming over and that
can be done on our website as well. There's a
tracking program built right into it where you
just plug in your grid square or your latitude
and longitude and you decide which satellite
you want to listen to and it will print out,
give you a whole printout of when that satellite's
going to be in range of your station. So you
can go out in your backyard and listen to the
ISS or the International Space Station or one
of our satellites can all be done on a handheld
or any kind of other very low -power, if you
will, receiver. Yep, sure can and I've started
doing this in the last couple of years and really
enjoying it. Oh, I do have one question that
just came in here on Twitter also from WI4T,
and it was on my phone, so let me pull it up
here in front of me. Is there a good omnidirectional
antenna that will not break the bank for base
operation? Yes. There's a set of antennas that
are built by Eden Squared, if you want to do
commercial. They're called egg beaters, and you
may have seen these advertised. They look like
a big egg beater. but they're an omnidirectional
satellite antenna. They're specifically designed
for satellite antennas because at the horizon,
they are horizontally polarized, but as the satellite
comes up and overhead, they tend to be circularly
polarized, which is great for satellite communication
because our satellites tend to tumble. But if
you you don't you won't really be able to work
a satellite right down to the horizon But with
an egg beater and I've got a pair in the backyard
and I still use them if you've got a fairly high
angle pass Where the satellite is going to be
up above maybe 45 or 50 degrees at your location
on from the horizon Those satellite antennas
will work just fine for that If you really want
to do horizon to horizon coverage, you're going
to have to have something with a little bit more
gain. Another way to do it is with an antenna
called an Arrow that's built by a gentleman out
in Wyoming at arrowantennas .com or we also offer
them on our AMSAT store. These are handheld antennas
that are made out of arrow shafts and I've got
a couple of them and they work very, very well.
give you a little bit of gain on the uplink and
the downlink, more so than an egg beater, but
an egg beater is really designed for permanent
type operations. So I hope that answers the question.
Okay, and we've got another one that came in
here real quick, so. Wow. Go ahead and get it
away. We're going overtime here. We may be in
double overtime. I don't know. Anyway, Carl,
KD9HQT says, my dad WB9EWF has an antenna rotor
that was manufactured by Yezu, which was used
for satellite communication, which I guess he
had for years in the pole barn, but don't think
he ever used it for... communicating to satellite
but that was before you know the new ones the
the Fox series yeah it is possible that hams
can contact satellites with antenna rotors that
are designed for satellite work since the design
is more angled unlike most hams would use a handheld
antenna like an elk so how is it different back
in the day when satellite was new compared to
now If it's it depends on the model I know I
believe he's talking about a yesu as L as myth
elevation rotor set There's been a couple of
models of that idea. They think it's called a
g5400 the current one is a g5500 very much the
same I believe earlier models were made by an
outfit called Ken pro which if I'm not mistaken
Yezu bought But yeah, if they're still in operation
and it's still usable, they would certainly work
with the satellite. I'm using a pair of those
on a MFJ tripod in my backyard, and if you want
to see some pictures of what that looks like,
you can go up on my personal website, which is
KB1SF, my call sign, KiloBravo1SugarFox .com.
and just click on station photos and there's
a picture of my setup that I use. And that's
the nice thing about satellite antennas is you
don't need a whole lot of height. Because the
satellite's at 500 miles and 50 feet is not gonna
make a difference. So we have a lot of people
who are restricted or in restricted covenant
areas where they can't put up HF antennas. but
you can certainly do something with satellites.
One of our executive vice president lives in
an apartment in downtown Washington D .C. and
cannot put anything up at all. But he is absolutely
active on the satellites using balcony antennas
and one of these arrow type antennas. So, anyway,
I hope that answers the question. It works. It
works. And I know down at Kennedy Space Center,
they have the egg beaters up on top of the building
and they work. Yep. They do well. Well, I always
say, try and use what you got. Yep. And I've,
I've still, I've gotten narrow, but I still almost
always. Just using the whip on the car Yeah,
yeah, I only do you know, I can only do a o 91
92 and be able to do 95 I assume 85 on the right
day well, but it's a start and Yes, and that's
what I use I use it while I'm driving because
I'm driving all the time and so I can get on
and catch a few passes isn't that slick driving
down the road talking through a satellite yeah
yeah craziest thing well you'd never think that
but you'd be driving down the interstate and
you're on a satellite yeah yeah absolutely it
works such is our such is our hobby yeah well
keith thanks so much for coming on i i hate to
end this but it's it's past time. So we're going
to end it there, but maybe we'll get you back
on the show and we'll just kind of advertise
here too. Drew Glasbrenner, KO4MA, the Vice President
of Ops will be here on December 27th and we're
going to talk about some courtesy and making
the most out of your satellite pass and trying
to be an efficient operator and use it to the
best possible scenario. So that's coming up on
December 27th. So we'll have some more AMSAT
folks on soon. You'll enjoy listening and talking
with Drew. He's quite the character. Yeah, we
enjoyed having him on and Jerry and also the
heiress folks and just real glad to have you
all on and thank you for tonight and we'll have
you back on. Absolutely my pleasure. Alright,
well that is a wrap for this week's edition of
ham talk live. Thanks to Keith Baker, KB1SF and
everybody out there in cyberspace for listening
and typing in tonight. And we're gonna have to
get you calling. We're gonna give away these
t -shirts. We gotta get you calling in. Well,
we're gonna invite you back next Thursday night
at 9 p .m. Eastern time. Steve Narducci, W9SN,
and Fred Denon, WW4LL, will be here to talk about
the Be Loud contest station that's in Maine.
So we'll be talking contesting next week. For
a list of all of our upcoming guests, be sure
to visit HamTalkLive .com. And if you like HamTalk
Live, consider leaving us a review on iTunes
or wherever you listen. That helps others find
us faster. So for now, this is Neil Rapp, WB9VPG,
saying 7 -3, 7 -5, may the good DX be yours.
And we're going to send you out with a little
imperfect pall tonight. Echo halls with vows
of holly. Fa la la la la, la la la la. Tis the
season to be jolly. Fa la la la la, la la la
la. Don we now our gay apparel. Fa la la la la,
la la la la. Throw the ancient yuletide carol.
Fa la la la la, la la la la. See the blazing
yule before us. Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Strike the harp and join the chorus. Fa la la
la la, la la la la. Follow me in merry measure.
Fa la la, la la la, la la la. While I tell of
yuletide treasure. Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Fast away the old year passes. Fa la la la la,
la la la la. Hail the new ye lads and lasses.
Fa la la la la, la la la la. Sing we joyous all
together. Fa la la, la la la, la la la. Heatless
of the wind and weather. Fa la la la la, la la
la la.