W5GGW's QSL Page

W5GGW's QSL Page
My complete web site is here....

PCSat Information for APRS use from remote locations
My accumulated Internation Space Station Information.

ARISS (was SAREX) information
Various Links at NASA an ARRL regarding ISS and ARISS
Frequencies of operation for the ISS

I have a Rollup J-Pole antenna design program that was sent to me. It is really good at giving you the right dimensions and a drawing to boot, check it out!
Some info on my APRS investigations.

APRS from remote locations via PCSat

The Naval midshipmen (middies) have lofted an APRS satellite, PCSAT, into the orbit that provides remote APRS access. For more information see Bob Bruninga's PCSAT web page that has the specifics and latest information. Orbit time information can be reached via the Heavens-Above web page. For Tulsa OK, you can use this link to go directly to Tulsa relative satellite information. This web site has links to schedules and orbit information for any of the published orbiting objects.

PCSAT was an auxilliary payload on the Kodiak Star mission which has a total of 3 amateur satellites on board. The Sapphire satellite also has Naval Academy Involvment
in a joint venture with Washington University. Starshine is the primary NASA payload. The following frequencies will be used:

NOTE: PCSAT seems to have drifted up in frequency due to the cold temperatures of space. So, the first half of the approach to peak altitude, please add 5Khz to these frequencies to see if that gives you better reception of packets, especially at 9600 baud.

145.825 1200 baud PCsat downlink (TLM and, after users enabled, QRP and HT's only)
145.825 9600 baud PCsat downlink (TLM and, after users enabled, Mobiles)
144.39 1200 baud PCsat downlink over USA for brief PCsat posit and Telemetry
145.825 9600 baud Starshine downlink (Telemetry 1 packet per 2 minutes)
437.100 1200 baud Sapphire downlink (and Voice synthesizer)

The International Space Station has 2-Meter Radios!

The ISS has Amateur radio equipment on it for 2-Meter voice and packet operation. The ISS is easily reachable on a 2-Meter HT with a simple whip antenna and around 5 watts. There are just a couple of important considerations. You will need a good line of sight to the ISS, and that means that it needs to be at least 12-15 degrees above the horizon. A ground-plane vertical will also work since it does not limit vertical radiation.

The important thing is that a J-Pole or other "disk pattern" antenna that gets gain by limiting vertical transmission will NOT work.

You can find out where the ISS will be on a day by day schedule by looking at the Heavens-Above web page. For Tulsa OK, you can use this link to go directly to Tulsa relative satellite information. This web site has links to schedules and orbit information for any of the published orbiting objects.

You can find out when each pass will be, and how high above the horizon the object will be etc. Check it out!

APRS Station on ISS Contact Information

The APRS station in the ISS has a TNC that has been reset to factory defaults. So, it has its call set to NOCALL. To use it as a digipeater you should use NOCALL as your path.

UNPROTO CQ VIA NOCALL

The above will configure your TNC to utilize the ISS station as a digipeater. Look at the frequency chart below for information on what frequencies are used for which modes.

At some point, the TNC might become reconfigured with the correct call and the battery replaced (the battery apparently failed and caused the config to be lost). If that occurs, the station is supposed to have the call RZ3DZR-1 assigned to it. But, we'll just have to see what the final configuration is over time.

Amatuer Radio and the International Space Station

The SAREX (Space Amateur Radio Experiment) program was started in 1983 and made it possible for amatuers to communicate with spacecraft. This program is now continuing on as ARISS (Amatuer Radio on the International Space Station). Make sure you read up on the ARISS School Application Form which will allow you to schedule time to share the Amatuer radio experience and communications with the ISS with students in a school such as one of the local schools.

The first school contact audio is available.
Expedition 2 page http://www.rac.ca/ex2.htm

Other good sources of ISS information is available at

The official NASA ISS web site and ISS Amatuer Radio.
The ARISS home page.
The ARISS Expedition One home page.
The Human Space Flight page has a neat Java applet the compute passes for many satellites including ISS.
Miles Mann, WF1F, (of MAREX-NA) wrote up a good discussion of the ISS setup. Here is an HTMLized version of his writeup.
MSNBC has live video feeds of NASA TV.
ISS orbital elements, and Nasa's Java tracking applet.

The ISS schedules are going to be out on the web links above.

The current frequencies are as follows:

Voice Down from ISS	145.800mhz
Voice up from ISS in Region 2 & 3	144.490mhz
Voice up to ISS in Region 1	145.200mhz
Packet up to ISS	145.990mhz

APRS Stuff

Here are some pictures of some of my bicycle APRS setup. I am using a toll-up JPole antenna.
I transplanted my Rand McNally GPS into a new case so that I can power it from the Car 12v system.
I have an I-Opener in my Van, check it out below.

I have a rollup J-Pole antenna on a fiberglass bicycle flag. Here's a picture of the feed point on the antenna. The story is here.

I took the Rand McNally GPS out of the case and put it into another case so that I could power it with 12v in the car. This is also allows me to put it in my
bike bag with the radio.

I have an I-Opener in my van that I am using as a portable APRS platform. I am putting together some Java based APRS software that will provide a portable APRS platform for all Java capable platforms. I hope to get something out to the world to look at within the next month or so...

[email protected]