Our next meeting will be held at the Middletown American Red Cross facility on March 10th at 7 PM.
Part of our conversation will be our new meeting location for the future. After business, we will have a presentation on operating digital modes given by Bob, WB4SON.
Our next meeting will be held at the Middletown Red Cross facility at 7 PM on Monday, February 10 (weather permitting).
After our regular club business session, John Mills, K1JSM, will be giving a presentation on tablet/smartphone applications that are useful to Ham Radio Operators.
By the way, no further meetings will be held at the VFW.
The first reports of Amsterdam Island QSOs happened this morning. Signals have been heard at 3 to 6 S units above the noise level on 17, 20, and 30 meter bands here in RI during the afternoon. The pileups this early in the game are huge and rude. However there is an excellent chance that we will be able to work Amsterdam Island easily. Three club members (that we know of) have worked FT5ZM to date. Good luck!
The next meeting of the NCRC will be held at the VFW Post, 52 Underwood Ln, Middletown, RI 02842.
There will be a brief presentation on the W1AW portable operation that is active in all 50 states this year (and coming to RI on July 23 and August 12). In addition we will be distributing a survey of proposed meeting presentations for the coming year.
We will also discuss our planned activity list which includes a “Worked All Rhode Island Islands” award (great for you boating hams), Field Day, and JOTA. ILLW will probably be covered through one of the WARII weekends.
See you Monday at 7 PM
After three failed pass attempts, Bob, WB4SON, was successful in making his first CW contact through AO-73 this evening. While the Downlink signal levels were high, Bob was unable to hear his own signal in the Downlink. The mystery was solved, when a much larger than normal Uplink Correction of +8500 Hz was added on top of the DL/UL Doppler corrections. So while the normal published DL/UL would have been 145.955/435.145, in reality the actual DL/UL was closer to 145.955/435.155.
That Uplink Correction takes into account any frequency inaccuracies in both the earth station as well as the satellite itself (which is subject to wildly fluctuating temperatures in space).
Bob also notes that the Uplink Correction was varying during the pass, from about +8500 Hz to +10500 Hz. This is an indication that the orbital elements (TLE) have not been refined well enough this early in the satellite’s life, to be an very accurate predictor of its location in orbit — therefore the Doppler corrections, applied automatically, are not as accurate as they could be.