Jim, KA1ZOU, spoke with host Will Gilbert of Channel 12’s Rhode Show about the upcoming Space Chat with the International Space Station this Friday May 6th.
You can watch the interview here: http://wpri.com/2016/05/03/newport-radio-club-space-talk/
Remember, you can listen to the event live beginning at 11:45:
livestream.com/accounts/
Free Tickets to attend the event in person are available at:
https://spacechat2016.
All Saints Academy (ASA), N1ASA, received a QSL card from the International Space Station (ISS) for digital messages that were successfully received by the ISS and retransmitted to earth by the Packet Repeater, RS0ISS.
The QSL was dated on 23 April 2016 at 16:51:48 UTC, on 145.825 MHz.
Of course N1ASA will be receiving the most rare of QSLs in the future when ASA students and students from across RI have the first direct radio contact with an astronaut aboard the International Space Station this Friday, May 6. The pre-event show beings at 11:45 AM, and will conclude shortly after 1 PM.
You may see and hear the event live, beginning at 11:45 AM, by using this link:
livestream.com/accounts/
Free Tickets to attend the event in person are available at:
https://spacechat2016.
You can follow the latest news on the event by using this link:
http://www.rispacestation.com/
Or click the ISS-News tab on our own webstie
With the arrival of our 100th contact confirmation, from a CW contact with FY5KE (French Guiana), W1SYE has earned our first DXCC.
As you can probably guess, DXCC is fairly easy to obtain, after all Willy, W1LY, and Bob, WB4SON, started working on it 72 days ago. But this is the easiest aspect of DXCC — Mixed (any mode on any band). Stations can apply for different modes (CW, Voice, Digital, Satellite), and different bands. There are additional awards for completing DXCC on 5-bands (80/40/20/15/10), as well as 1,000 or more confirmed contacts with different countries on different bands. The ultimate award is obtaining the DXCC Honor Roll, which requires confirmations from 331 or more DX entities.
Bottom line, the club can continue to work on DXCC for many years to come. For those that might be interested, a breakdown of the contacts by mode and band is shown below:
Congratulations to W1SYE for earning DXCC after 71 years!
The club logo has been filed with Payden & Company, a local shop in E. Greenwich.
Club members wishing to have the Club Logo embroidered on personal items are free to do so. They will do single item jobs, or multiple pieces. You can ask for Quay at:
Payden & Company
530 Main ST
East Greenwich, RI 02818
(401) 884-8611
We had another practice session today with two viable passes:
13:09L 17 degree max elevation (SW – N – E)
14:45L 66 degree max elevation (SW – S – SE)
The backup antenna was verified and was working as expected. The primary antenna was also working fine. The polarity switch was rewired and powered from the primary radio supply and worked fine.
A total of three PCs were verified as working correctly. Only two are required to be working on event day. The backup radio (another IC-9100) is now in-hand.
It appears that all we have to do is get SatPC running, then start the Green Heron tracking software, enable tracking/disable tracking, then enable it again to have things work correctly from the very beginning.
The antennas were pre-positioned prior to both passes which allowed us to hear a few packets prior to the ISS rising above the horizon.
The first pass was at 13:09L (17 degree max):
– First packet heard at 13:10:28 (5 degrees elevation)
– First packet repeat at 13:13:15 (10 degrees elevation)
– Last packet repeat at 13:18:54 (6 degrees elevation)
– Last packet heard at 13:19:30 (2 degrees elevation)
So a very low-long distance pass resulted in 5m39s of solid packet connectivity. I suspect voice would have actually worked about 8 minutes of the pass.
The second pass at 14:45L (66 degree max):
– First packet heard at 14:46:35 (1 degree elevation)
– First packet repeat at 14:47:15 (4 degrees elevation)
– Last packet repeat at 14:55:03 (8 degrees elevation)
– Last packet heard at 14:56:30 (1 degree elevation)
So a much closer pass resulted in 7m48s of solid packet coverage. There was a rather pronounced fade toward the end of the pass, which prompted us to use the polarity switch. The ISS immediately picked up about 5 S-units of signal strength, and we were able to continue packet exchanges until 14:56:00 — so solid packet coverage for 8m45 seconds by using the polarity switch. I suspect voice would have worked for almost 9 minutes of the pass.
Bottom line: Excellent session. Everything worked correctly.
Next practice session on Thursday May 5. RF Crew to report by 11 AM. First pass at noon. Second pass at 13:35. NOTE: second pass is almost identical to our event pass on Friday. We expect to be working with the kids again on Thursday (so on-air mic tests).
ASA Student Practices Calling for the Space Station NA1SS