MSU ARC Meeting: Satellite Comms!

Last night, we held our meeting on satellite operations and everybody had a blast!

First order of business was getting everyone set up with the correct frequencies for ISS Slow Scan TV on their HTs. We were able to hand out 2 brand new UV-5R Minis (from a generous donor) to our student hams, and we went over the base frequency required as well as how to compensate for the Doppler effect.

For the first pass, everyone gathered at the south end of the Engineering building and stood ready with a combination of re-utilized ISM folded dipole/Yagis, homebrew Yagis from last year’s antenna build, and a commercial log periodic. Everyone was able to receive at least part of an image after getting acquainted with the process! A couple students were able to pull down multiple high quality images. I made sure I could make voice contacts over the ISS repeater, and I managed to pull away with 4 QSOs!

In between passes, we gathered back at the shack, where we were able to receive 20 meter slow scan TV from Chile, and make voice contact with a Russian DX station!

Back out in the front of the building for the second ISS pass, we once again were able to receive some high quality SSTV images, and the 40+ degree pass allowed us to make a substantial amount of voice QSOs. I made the first one, to ensure everything was still working properly, and then I passed the mic to Saman KF8HKI, Finn KF8GTK, and Yash N3YAX, who were all able to make their first ever satellite QSOs! Everybody was excited to hear their callsign back from space!

After the completed pass, we waited a few more minutes so @Yash N3YAX could show us his specialty: Receiving weather satellite data. We connected the log periodic to his LNA + USB SDR on his laptop and were able to receive a good image from Meteor M2-3!

Can’t wait until the next one!