This episode of HamTalk Live is brought to you
by Tower Electronics. For connectors, cables,
and more, call 920 -435 -2973 or visit pl -259
.com. goodness it's HamTalk Live episode number
86 getting started with satellites KX9X recorded
live on Thursday October 19th 2017 I'm your host
Neil Rapp WB9VPG thanks for tuning in to this
episode of HamTalk Live tonight if we can get
a microphone to work we're joined by Sean Kutzko
KX9X and we'll take your calls live in just a
few minutes and last week the show Ken Goodwin
K5RG was here to talk about the 50th anniversary
of the NASA Johnson Space Flight Center amateur
radio club and their special event station. If
you missed the show you can listen anytime at
HamTalkLive .com or on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher,
iHeart Podcasts, Google Play, TuneIn, SoundCloud
or YouTube. Hey get your questions ready to go
about satellites and after we talked to Sean
for a while you can call us. via telephone at
812 -NET -HAM -1. That's 812 -638 -4261 and I'll
let you know when it's time to do that or you
can Skype us at HamTalk Live and you can also
tweet us at HamTalk Live on Twitter. So make
sure you do that and participate. We'd love to
hear from you tonight and we're on the air every
Thursday night at 9 p .m. Eastern Time right
here on HamTalkLive .com. Check us out on Facebook,
Twitter, and Instagram. And my apologies, I have
no idea what in the world happened here. As soon
as we started to go to air, my microphone had
no audio at all. So I'm just using the laptop
mic tonight, so I'm not sure how good this is
going to sound. But we're going to get the information
to you anyway. Hopefully you were able to stick
around for a couple of minutes and get with us
here. Well, Sean Kutsko, KX9X, is back with us.
He's the former contest manager and public relations
manager at ARRL. Sean enjoys portable operations,
satellites, and QRP. He's an avid DXer and has
had a chance to be the DX several times. He's
been licensed since 1982 and is originally from
central Illinois and Attended the nearby University
of Illinois and after being on staff at ARRL
for 10 years he's now a public relations and
communications consultant and doing something
he also enjoys which is baking and He's also
the drummer in the world -famous Spurious emissions
band as heard here on ham talk live so Sean Thank
you for putting up with all the technical problems
tonight and welcome back once again. Hey, it
wouldn't be radio without a couple of electronic
weasels once in a while, right? Oh, I guess.
This is a new one. I'm used to Skype giving me
trouble, but I'm not used to a microphone giving
me trouble. I still don't know what's going on.
Drivers? I don't know. We can always, we can
always switch the show to CW or FTA and we'll
do okay. Although, I'm not sure how much information
we're going to get on FT8. We're going to have
to make a lot of QSOs to get all that in on FT8,
but oh my goodness. Well, all right. We're already
late. So let's get talking about some satellites.
I want you to come on and talk a little bit about
getting started with satellites and how to get
into that and what kind of stuff you need. had
somebody ask me, hey can you ask Sean about the
the aero antenna. So why don't you tell us a
little bit about some equipment for working satellites.
Okay, well gladly. So before I even do that,
I'd like to make a kind of a sales pitch as to
why you should get active with satellite operating
in the first place. And there are a lot of really,
really great reasons for it. Number one, it's
an extremely accessible portion of the amateur
radio hobby. Technician class licensees have
access to the vast majority of the satellites
that are out there. Satellite passes are also
100 % predictable. You know when a satellite
is going to be above the horizon weeks in advance.
It's not dependent on good propagation from the
ionosphere in order to make contacts by a satellite.
You got a lot of opportunity to get on the satellites.
There are 14 sideband and CW satellites. There's
two FM satellites. There's three satellites that
allow digital modes to be used through them.
And in addition to that, We just had two Chinese
satellites, had their sideband and CW capabilities
turned on earlier this week, and we're about
three weeks away from another FM satellite, the
Fox 1B satellite, which is a big AMSAT project.
We'll get to AMSAT in a little bit. And that's
going to be launched up around, it's currently
scheduled for November 10th. So there could be
as many as 15 satellites that technician class
licensees and up have access in just less than
a month. The gear is extremely portable. You
can set up a big satellite station at home if
you want, but you can also get by with much smaller
amounts of equipment in order to make it work,
and it's so much fun. If you're interested in
technical challenges, you have access to those
kinds of things. It's extremely enjoyable collecting
maidenhead grid squares, and if you're not familiar
with a grid square, we'll get to talking about
those in a little bit as well. There's a huge
community of helpful people that are willing
to help you learn about getting on satellites.
The AMSAT, the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation,
and all of its members, they have a ton of experience
on getting people interested in operating satellites
and helping get them. started. So I would encourage
anybody who is looking for a new challenge or
wants to do something new in the hobby to definitely
check out satellites. So how's that for a sales
pitch? That's a great sales pitch. Sounds like
it's coming from a PR guy. How about that? So
your initial question before all of that long
sales pitch was what kind of equipment do you
need to get started with amateur radio satellites?
You can get started using the amateur radio satellites
with a dual band handheld HD. and a small portable
Yagi on 2 meters and 70 centimeters. You can
get started with just that little equipment.
There are certainly some nice bells and whistles
that better equipment will give you. including
the ability to transmit and receive simultaneously,
which becomes very, very important when you go
from the FM satellites to the sideband and CW
satellites. But you can get started just using
a simple dual band handheld HT and a small Yagi
that you point at the satellite as it flies overhead.
So that's, you know, you get started for $75
worth of gear. All right, very good and maybe
even maybe even all those Balfangs Did somebody
say Balfang Now anytime somebody says Balfang
we have to play the the clip The song so right
I just had to get that in the the best radio
to use for some of this stuff, but it will certainly
get you by. There have been plenty of operators
that have made lots of satellite QSOs using about
-fang. So if that's what you got, you can use
it. All right, so how do you find out? Well,
now I'm going to switch these up here for a minute.
Sure. Let's talk about Doppler shift for a second.
Let's talk about that because because the Doppler
shift is something that equipment can definitely
help out on. So talk to us about Doppler shift
and how you can solve some of those issues. Okay
so everybody knows about the Doppler effect from
from grade school or junior high with you know
you're standing in one place and the train goes
by and as the train whistle is blowing as it
goes by the frequency decreases it goes down
in pitch so because a satellite is a moving target
it's flying overhead through the sky the received
frequency or Well, let me clarify that. The frequencies
that are used on satellites are affected by the
fact that the satellite is hurtling through space
as it flies overhead. And as the satellite passes
overhead, you have to adjust your, in some cases,
your receive frequency and in some cases, your
transmit frequency in order to keep on track
with being able to communicate through the satellite.
The way the satellites work... You transmit on
one frequency and you receive on a different
band. So most of the satellites in orbit now
you transmit on two meters or 70 centimeters.
And you receive on the opposite band. So if you
if you transmit up to the satellite on two meters,
you listen to the satellite on 70 centimeters.
And in some cases, that's backwards. You would
transmit on 70 centimeters and listen on two
meters. It changes from satellite to satellite.
Each satellite is different. So as the satellite
is passing overhead, the frequencies will shift
and Doppler affects higher frequencies more.
So the Doppler effect is more pronounced on 70
centimeters than it is on two meters. What that
means for an FM satellite user is if you are
listening to the satellite on 70 centimeters
you need to adjust your receive frequency as
the satellite passes overhead if you're transmitting
on 70 centimeters you need to adjust your transmit
frequency as the satellite goes overhead so if
if you if you don't adjust that frequency you
will either not be able to hear the satellite
terribly well or people will not be able to hear
you terribly well because you're not perfect
you're not in sync with the satellites receiver
as it passes overhead. So that becomes very,
very important. And that can be a little daunting
for new satellite operators, but it's not as
bad as it sounds. A little practice using a directional
antenna and your radio's receiver, you can start
getting very good at being able to track the
Doppler shift as the satellite passes overhead.
All right. So some radios will have that. capability
of kind of doing that automatically and so it's
a little easier that way. There are some software
programs that will automatically compensate for
Doppler for you. If you have a computer interface
to your radio, there are a couple of software
packages that will automatically compensate for
Doppler for you. But that's not an exact science.
Sometimes it's off just a little bit. So you
may still need to do some adjustments with your
VFO as the satellite's passing overhead. For
portable operators, somebody who uses an HT or
a small all -mode radio like the Yesu 817 or
an ICOM 7000 or something like that, you don't
necessarily have to have a software program to
compensate for Doppler. You can do it manually.
It's just another radio skill that goes in your
toolbox. That's all. Okay, very good. All right,
well let's talk about how to find those birds
and how to get everything pointed in the right
direction to make all that work. What are some
strategies for that? Well, okay, so if you've
got 14 or 15 different satellites that are in
orbit, each one of those satellites passes over
your location. I'm gonna say the United States
just because that's where I'm I'm centered I'm
up here in in Connecticut in grid square Fox
Nancy 31 so each of those satellites will pass
generally they will pass overhead around five
or six times a day and all of this is completely
predictable using one of three major methods
one is on the AMSAT website which is www .amsat
.org and they have a section in there on their
website of satellite past predictions so you
can go in there and you can Select the satellite
that you want to track type in your location
and it will show you all of the past predictions
Coming up in the in the near future Another option
is there are several apps for your smartphone
that you can use to track the satellites I have
an iPhone so I'm familiar with iOS products,
but they have satellite tracker apps for iOS
and Android devices The one that I use in a most
comfortable with is a is an app called go sat
watch It's not a free app, but it is an extremely
high quality app and I find it to be worth the
money to pay for it. And what that does is that
updates all of the orbital elements that... that
describes how the satellite is going to be orbiting
overhead and it condenses all of that information
into your phone and you can just select any number
of satellites to track and it will take your
location from the phone's GPS and it will automatically
show you when a satellite is going to be overhead.
The third option is a website n2yo .com November
2 Yankee Oscar comm and there you can type in
the names of satellites or you can choose from
a list and it will show you in real time where
a satellite is is orbiting and you can you can
zoom in on specific areas of the world map and
And find where a satellite is going to be overhead
So you've got a lot of options on how to get
the information of what satellite is going to
be overhead when so, you know You need to have
that information in order to be able to communicate
through the satellite because satellites are
only accessible when they are above your horizon.
So you need to know when the satellites are going
to be above your horizon. All right, very good.
And then let's talk a little bit about a typical
exchange on a satellite QSO because you don't
exactly have time to to carry on along rag to
you and talk about your garden and your ailments
and your weather. So tell us how you get that
accomplished in brief periods of time so that
you don't get cut off by the past. Right, well
time is a very important factor when communicating
through the amateur radio satellites. The ham
radio satellites are what they call low earth
orbit satellites or LEO satellites and they're
only a few hundred miles above the surface of
the earth. And under the best conditions, if
you have a satellite that is going right overhead,
you're only looking at a window of opportunity
from horizon to horizon of maybe 15 to 20 minutes.
So you don't have a whole lot of time to have
conversations on the satellite. If there are
a lot of people that are trying to access the
satellite at any one point in time, you need
to be able to share that resource. It's kind
of like a shared resource and everybody needs
to make time for everybody else to use a satellite.
So the exchanges on the on satellites are usually
pretty short it's you exchange call signs you
exchange the maidenhead grid square that you're
in and That's about it. If the if there aren't
a whole lot of people using a satellite then
that kind of frees things up to have You know
some more casual conversations, you know, you'll
if you use satellites regularly You'll start
becoming familiar with who the regular operators
are and you know, you can say hi to them and
stuff like that That's no problem But if a satellite
is particularly crowded, or there are a lot of
people trying to get on and communicate through
the satellite, then keeping things really short
and being able to share that resource is very
important. OK, very good. And we've even got
some audio from some of your contacts. Yeah.
And would this be a good time to do that, or
you want to hold onto that? Sure. No, that's
fine. There are two basic different kinds of
satellites. There are FM satellites, which are
basically like an orbiting repeater. So one station
can access an FM satellite at a time. So if you've
got a lot of different people that are trying
to use a satellite, an FM satellite, you know,
only one person can. can communicate through
a repeater at a time, same thing with an FM satellite.
So you need to be able to share that time. Then
there are another kind of satellite called linear
satellites. And those are satellites that use
sideband and CW on them. And those have a device
on them called a transponder, which provides
real bandwidth, anywhere from 20 to 100 kilohertz
worth of bandwidth. So on sideband and CW satellites,
multiple people can have conversations going
on at the same time, just as if you were tuning
up and down on 20 meters, for example. So FM
satellites, they're like an FM repeater. Sideband
and CW satellites, it's like being on an HF band
and you can spread out and multiple people can
have a conversation. I've got recordings of...
Two different passes, one is an FM satellite
called SO -50 and then I've got a recording of
a linear satellite called FO -29 and I think
you've got the FM satellite clip coming up. I've
got it right here. Assuming Murphy doesn't show
up again. This is a recording of me operating
this past July when I was back home in Illinois
on the line between two different grid squares
in central Illinois. And one of those grid squares
is kind of rare, so I had a few people that were
trying to get in touch with me so they could
talk to somebody in that grid square and confirm
that grid, much like people confirm states and
countries on HF. Alright, well, let's let's go
to the tape Kilo x -ray 9 x -ray portable 9 echo
mic 5 9 6 9 grid line Alpha Echo 5 Papa Hotel
echo mic 5 9 6 9 grid line. We got you 73 Kilo
X -ray, 9X -ray, Portable 9, Echo Mike 5969,
grid line. Echo Mike 5969, Portable 9, this is
Kilo 5, November Delta, K5ND. K5ND, hey Jim,
Echo Mike 5969, grid line from the Prairie of
Illinois. From the Prairie of Illinois to the
Flatlands of Texas, it's Echo Mike 1 -2, Bankshawn
73. 73, Jim, we'll talk to you soon. KX9X, Portable
9. 8 hotel Mike hey Paul echo Mike five nine
six nine grid line over glad to give you the
last one in the echo Mike field Paul 73 cures
that whiskey five radio kilo Mike echo Mike five
nine six nine grid line over All right, so there
you go. So there's between EM -59 and EM -69
gridlines on SO -50. That's correct. And that's
just me using Yesu. The x6 dual band handheld
and a a dual band Yagi antenna that works on
70 centimeters and two meters called an arrow
antenna and So that's uh, that's just me. So
Yeah, very good and Jim Wilson k5 nd says wow
nice recording. Yeah, Jim He's a heck of a good
satellite operator and I know that he's extremely
active with the Boy Scouts of America and with
this weekend's upcoming Jamboree on the air,
I know that there's going to be some Boy Scout
satellite activity this weekend as well. So you
might want to, you know, if you're interested
in checking out satellites for the first time,
this would be a good weekend to do it and get
some scouts in the log as well. Yeah, so Jim
made the show for a third time, so he didn't
even know it. He's a popular guy. Okay. So now
let's go to fo 29 Let's go to the to the clip
from then so you want to set that up? Yeah, so
this is going to sound very much like listening
to to any HF band and what this is a recording
of is this is so so the satellites you know,
de -expeditions can take satellite gear with
them as well. And this is a recording of the
2015 NAVASA de -expedition, K1N. in February
of 2015 working the FO -29 sideband and CW satellite
and they are using another one of those handheld
Yagi antennas called the Aero which is a dual
band handheld Yagi and all they're using for
a radio is a Yesu 817 QRP rig with 5 watts of
power. And they're handling a pretty decent pile
up with very modest equipment. So you don't need
a lot of power in order to get into some of these
satellites. So this is a recording of the K1ND
expedition from 2015 using the FO29 sideband
satellite. All right, so there's kilo one November
Major D expedition, you know, they worked 29
qso's on the fo 29 satellite using pretty modest
equipment and it was the first time that Navassa
Island had been on satellites since I believe
1978 So that was a big deal for the satellite
operators to hear such a rare DXCC country on
satellites. So it's not just working stations
in the United States. You can work some DX on
the satellites, too. All right. Very good. Well,
we're going to take a break and then we're going
to come back and we're going to take your calls.
And the Twitter universe is going nuts over here.
I'm not sure I can keep up with them, but we'll
take some of those tweets as well, but get ready
to give us a call here and in just a moment we'll
be back and take your calls with Sean Kutzko
KX9X about satellites right here on HamTalk Live.
This episode of HamTalk Live is brought to you
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love to be in your grid square. Join the conversation.
Call us on voice with Skype at HamTalk Live or
give us a call at 812 -NET -HAM -1. That's 812
-638 -4261. Now, here's more HamTalk Live. All
right, welcome back to HamTalk Live Tower Electronics.
Is out on the road once again and thanks to them
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Tennessee This weekend coming up on Saturday,
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Saturday October 28th and then November 3rd 4th
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so if you need some some good connectors for
your satellite work or whatever give them a Call
or a visit if you can't visit them at one of
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or you can visit them at PL -259 .com tell them
you heard it on HamTalk Live and we're gonna
take some calls here assuming Murphy's keep staying
away here so if you have a question for Shawn
now is the time to call and let me give you that
phone number it's 812 -NET -HAM - That's 812
-638 -4261. Or you can Skype us. We're at HamTalk
Live on Skype. And we'll try to keep up with
the Twitterverse at HamTalk Live on Twitter as
well. And Sean, I've noticed that there's an
awful lot of satellite people on Twitter. And
I always read all this stuff. And I keep seeing
all this satellite stuff. Had a feeling and this
happened as soon as I say, okay, we're gonna
do a show about satellites It's like Twitter
just blows up Well Twitter is a fantastic resource
for people who chase satellite operators who
transmit from multiple grid squares. And it's
a great way to keep track of the community of
portable operators out there who enjoy transmitting
from as many different grid squares as they possibly
can. Just like HF operators try to talk to every
state in the United States or try to get as many
countries on HF as they can. A lot of the satellite
operators chase the Maidenhead grid squares,
and there are 488 grid squares in the continental
United States. For those of you who don't know
what a grid square is, they're geographic units.
They're two degrees of longitude wide by one
degree of latitude. tall or high and that is
the the geographic unit that is exchanged on
the amateur radio VHF and UHF bands and so there
are a lot of people who try to communicate with
as many different grid squares as they possibly
can it's kind of like electronic bingo if you
think about it and so there are there are a whole
crew of operators who enjoy taking their satellite
gear portable and transmitting from as many of
these different grid squares as possible because
some of them especially out west are pretty rare
there aren't a whole lot of satellite operators
in some of these grid squares so the people who
try to collect as many as possible they oftentimes
need stations to go to these grid squares and
put them on the air on the amateur radio satellites
so Portable operating becomes very important,
and Twitter becomes extremely important for keeping
track of all of these people who go out into
the field and activate these rare grid squares.
So you'll find a strong satellite contingent
on Twitter, and it's the top way of keeping track
of who is transmitting when in real time. All
right. Well, let's go to Twitter here and let's
plug the phone number again. It's 812 -638. 4
2 6 1 8 1 2 net ham 1 so give us a call if you
have a Question or something to chime in on about
satellites. We've got about 10 minutes here We're
gonna be able to go a little bit longer since
we did get cut off with the first attempt at
the show So we've got about 12 minutes left.
So We'll be able to get the full 45 in here,
at least, tonight. So did find that. So give
us a call, 812 -638 -4261, 812 -NATAM1. And while
we're waiting on that, I will run over to the
Twitterverse and see what we've got. I know Vance
had said earlier he wanted to know your opinion
on your Aero antenna. What you think of that
compared to some of the others? So let's do that
first while I read here Okay So I am I am one
of the satellite operators that uses an arrow
antenna arrow antenna is manufactured by a company
arrow antennas out of Wyoming and What an arrow
antenna is is it's a short boom dual band Yagi
and it's got three elements on two meters and
seven elements on 70 centimeters and they're
90 degrees out of phase so you can hold that
antenna and point it at the satellite as as it
passes overhead and it gives you significant
gain on both of those bands so five watts from
an HT to a satellite that's passing overhead
with no obstructions in the way. Five watts is
a lot of power, and when you amplify it with
the gain from an aero antenna, you can do very,
very well getting into the satellites with such
a small, extremely portable station. I prefer
the aero antenna. There is another company that
manufactures satellite antennas called Elk, and
they, instead of having cross -boom Yagis, they
use a periodic design so it's it's six of one
half a dozen of the other there are there are
some people who prefer the arrow antennas there
are some people who prefer the elk antennas they're
in they're in about the same price point there
you know in the under $200 certainly So both
of those antennas work very well and those are
commercially available options. If that's too
much money for a person or if they are just more
technically inclined and prefer to build stuff
themselves, there are plenty of satellite antenna
plans that are available on the internet, especially
on the AMSAT website. Again, that's www .amsat
.org. There's tons of information there. All
right, and and right on cue Jeff we4b sends us
a picture of a young lady with her arrow antenna
So we retweeted that so Twitter verse. There
you go. There's a picture of the arrow antennas
It's always a nice little color. I like like
that. So Give us a call The color on your aero
antenna fades as you go out into the field more
and more. I've had mine for about five years
and it's not nearly as shiny as it was when I
first bought it. Yeah, yeah that would happen.
That's that aren't ultraviolet. It just keeps
doing that. Well 812 -638 -4261 is the phone
number. Please give us a call and chime in on
our first satellite show here tonight. And maybe
we'll get some more of these going on. And speaking
of being outstanding in your field, I mean outstanding
in a field with your arrow, I know you wanted
to talk a little bit about some of the portable
operations and the de -expeditions. I know a
while ago you kind of plugged that a little bit.
Was there anything else that you wanted to? to
mention about going out there and running the
portable stuff and the expeditions. Well, the
only thing that I can really say is it is so
much fun to be able to transmit from multiple
grid squares using really, really modest equipment.
You have to think about this in terms of scale.
You're communicating. uh... with uh... a satellite
that's flying overhead and they're only they're
not transmitting with very much power you're
talking about anywhere from like two hundred
fifty milliwatts to five hundred milliwatts in
most cases for the satellites it's not very much
power that these things are putting out because
they've got a clear line of sight directly to
uh... directly to the earth so uh... Using being
able to receive a signal with that little power
and transmitting with no more than five watts
Opens up the the doors for extremely portable
gear and that means you can take it easily on
a business trip You can take it easily on vacation
with you The antenna that I use, the Arrow antenna,
all of the elements collapse and break down.
It's an antenna designed for portability. So
you can collapse the entire antenna and put it
in your carry -on bag and bring an HT with you.
And you can, you know, if you're going on vacation,
you're on a business trip, anywhere you can take...
amateur radio with you and operate from any one
of these grid squares along your journey. I just
spent about 10 days on the road in August traveling
all around a couple of the Great Lakes and transmitted
from 10 different grid squares around Lake Ontario
and Lake Erie and that was both loads of fun.
And all I had with me were a couple of Yesu 817
QRP radios. I had a dual band HT and I had an
aero antenna. And with that, I was able to transmit
from 10 different grid squares and make almost,
I think it was around 150, 175 satellite QSOs
just in about 10 days time. So it's a hoot. Very
good. Well, we've got a couple of other things
here coming out there from the Twitterverse.
Glenn Miller, AA5PK says, you might mention the
output power of the satellites themselves. So
let's kind of shift gears and let's go a few
thousand miles up here and talk about what's
up there. And I'll say this and leave it wherever,
but in the hallway at AR... headquarters I remember
going down the hallway and I saw what was Oscar
one I think it was it was this first satellite
and I saw pictures of satellites on you know
the cover of QST or you know CQ or something
and and the first time I saw that I was just
totally taken back by you know all that went
into to getting that thing going, but the size
of it and how it works. And then I remember a
few years ago at Dayton, I was on another show
and was waiting and the guy from AMSAT was in
front of me and had a mock -up of the CubeSat
and I was just amazed that I could hold that
thing in my hand. So talk a little bit about
the birds themselves. Well, the satellites themselves,
They're modern feats of engineering. I mean,
these things have transmitter receivers built
into them. They transmit telemetry and data back
down to the earth. And they're only using milliwatts
of power in order to accomplish all of this.
So, you know, the amount of technology that's
packed into a 10 centimeter cube is just staggering.
And the engineers that design and build and get
these satellites launched deserve real round
of applause because they're contributing to the
education community and they're providing us
with an incredible playground above the earth
that brings a lot of enjoyment to a lot of people.
So hats off to the engineers who designed these
satellites that can communicate globally well.
not quite globally, but a pretty far distance
with just a 10 centimeter cubes worth of electronics
and components and engineering. It's pretty remarkable.
And the power output would be typically? 250
milliwatts, 500 milliwatts. A satellite with
a watt of power these days, that's a lot of power.
and something else that's important to note too
and I've talked about this a little bit but the
amount of power you need to transmit and communicate
through a satellite you don't need very much
power five watts of power is plenty under all
but the most extreme circumstances to be able
to communicate through a satellite in fact if
you transmit with more power than that In some
cases, you can overload the satellite's receiver,
which renders the satellite pass inoperable for
everybody who's trying to access it. And in some
cases, you can actually cause damage to the satellite
itself. We don't want to knock any satellites
off the air and render them inoperable for anybody.
So if you're getting interested in satellites,
keep that power down. Five watts is plenty of
power. All right, very good. And CarlK89HQT says,
elk, elk, elk, elk, elk, elk, elk. There you
go. It's like the pizza debate. Some people like
thin crust and some people like thick crust.
But the bottom line is both the Aero antennas
and the elk antennas and all the designs that
are available on the AMSAT website, all of those
are very good antennas and all of those will
get the job done. Yeah, and you've got some aero
fans on the Twitter verse here. They're all saying
arrow arrow arrow. So yeah, you know Kenwood
icon, you know, yeah All right, well, let's see
if we've got anything else we're just about out
of time here We've got two minutes. So yeah,
actually we better go ahead and and stop but
Thanks so much for coming on and doing this and
and wow that the Twitter verse is loving it so
We'll have to get some more satellite shows on
we'll mix those in and and Thanks for coming
on to get us started on everything and Have fun
out there on the satellites anything else we
want to throw out here well I'd just like to
strongly encourage anybody who's listening, who's
never tried satellite communications, it's not
that hard, it's a ton of fun, and you've got
a whole community worth of people through AMSAT
that are more than willing to share their time
and expertise to help get you on the air. Again,
here's a couple more plugs for their website,
www .amsat .com. Go to the area on their website
called Education, and there's a whole bunch of
information for newcomers to satellite operations
to get you started. If anybody wants to ask me
any questions about satellite, just shoot me
an email, kx9x at yahoo .com. I'll be happy to
help you out in any way I can. The more the merrier
when it comes to satellites. So anything we can
do to help. Let's get you on the air. All right,
there he is. It's Shawn KX9X, and that's a wrap
for this week's HamTalk Live. Thanks, Shawn,
and everybody out there in the Twitterverse for
chiming in, and we invite you back next Thursday
night at 9 p .m. Eastern Time. Another familiar
voice, Ward Silver in Zero AX will be here, and
he's going to talk about the new 2018 ARRL handbook.
And for a list of all of our upcoming guests,
visit HamTalkLive .com. So for now, this is Neil
Rapp, WB9VPG, saying 7375, and may the good DX
be yours.