ARISS Integration and On-air Testing at ASA

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A large number of people, including seven hams from NCRC, were at All Saints Academy from 8:30 AM until 4:30 PM this past Saturday helping to install the RF equipment necessary to provide the communication link between ASA and the International Space Station on the event day (first week of May).

With the assistance of the Middletown Fire Department, and other folks supporting the Audio and Visual equipment, the antenna systems were installed and tested on-air.  We also proved that the interface between the AV and radio gear was functioning.  A digital contact was made between ISS and the school station as well.

A slide show of the activity can be found here.

NCRC-ARISS Crew Captures ISS SSTV Image

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The NCRC ARISS Team continues to refine their skills. During a fairly low pass this afternoon, they captured a Slow Scan TV (SSTV) image sent from the International Space Station (ISS) to commemorate the first ARISS contact made many years ago (over 1,000 contacts have been made to date).

The pass was a low altitude one, only rising 24 degrees above the horizon. The image began about 3 minutes after ISS rose above the horizon and completed about 3 minutes before the ISS would set. The SSTV images are being sent using the standard VHF FM Voice gear, and signal levels were quite strong, with S-5 or above levels using a Egg-Beater antenna.  The horizontal noise streaks occur during deep fades of the signal.

Image Captured Live April 13, 2016 from 2046 to 2050 UTC

Image Captured Live April 13, 2016 from 2046 to 2050 UTC

A good discussion of what is required to pickup and decode the SSTV signals can be found here:  https://amsat-uk.org/beginners/iss-sstv/

Members meet RUKU

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Paul, K1YBE, gave a presentation at last night’s meeting on a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) program he developed in conjunction with UMass Dartmouth, to encourage young women to consider engineering degrees.

The ultimate goal is to capture the imagination of young people and encourage their future education choices, while illustrating some basic principals like teamwork, design trade offs, and continuous improvement.  All those “boring” things were wrapped up in a project that was interesting and challenging — building a robot that can solve a Rubik’s Cube puzzle.

Paul’s slideshow can be found by clicking here.

NCRC Meeting Mon Apr 11 @ 7PM

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We will have a regular meeting of NCRC on Monday, April 11th,  7 PM, at KVH Manufacturing.  During our regular business meeting we will cover the Executive Committee’s anticipated budget for 2016, and several new procedures related to expenditures.  After the meeting, a presentation will be made by Paul, K1YBE, on the use of a Raspberry Pi in robotics.

N1ASA – All Saints Academy 1st ISS Contact!

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At 21:16:47 UTC (5:17 PM) today, N1ASA from All Saints Academy (ASA) was copied by several hams making a round trip Packet contact with the Packet Robot, RS0ISS, aboard the International Space Station (ISS).  The following packet was logged by a Canadian ham:

20160407211647 : N1ASA]APRSAT,RS0ISS*,qAR,VE2GQF-2::EMAIL :abrouse@allsaintsacademy.org Note thru ISS

Since ASA was sending position data as well, their packets were were forwarded via outer space to the APRS system which allowed them to be recorded on the following map:

N1ASA on Map

Congratulations to All Saints Academy for their first contact with the ISS (and proof that their gear is working fine for upcoming ARISS contact in early May).