Austronauten Bill McArthur har varit ganska aktiv från ISS den senaste tiden. Läs mer:
Kenneth Ransom, N5VHO, who is the ISS Ham Radio Project Engineer at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, provided several updates to the recent ham band activity from the ISS. Radio amateurs around the world have been enjoying how active Astronaut Bill McArthur has been during these recent weeks. The ISS has been in favorable pass times for the continental US right after the end of the crew work day. Bill has already been heard on a few of the passes around 1930-2200 UTC. He is often active on Saturday and Sunday at various times from 0800-2200 UTC.
Bill has worked 49 states from orbit. The sole state remaining is Alaska which will be in more favorable orbits starting around Jan 20. Current orbits for them are during the normal crew sleep time. Bill has also worked operators on all continents including Antarctica using VHF. As of Jan. 9 Bill had 63 DXCC entities with the following breakdown by continent:
5 Total worked in S. America
4 Total worked in Oceania
9 Total worked in N. America
29 Total worked in Europe
11 Total worked in Asia
1 Total worked in Antarctica
4 Total worked in Africa
Henk, PA3GUO, has a web page with photographs and an audio recording of both ends of his contact with ISS. See: http://www.qsl.net/pa3guo .
Mak, SV1BSX reports hearing Bill work the following prefixes: DL, EA, F, HA, I, IS0, G, OE, OK, ON, PA, SM, SP, SV, TA, UA, YU, HZ, and 9K. Mak says that these Greek stations have had the opportunity to have a contact with Bill: SV1BSX, SV1LK, SV8CS. During the weekend of Jan 14-15 UTC Bill McArthur plans to operate on the UHF band exclusively. It is his desire to work all continents on the UHF band from the International Space Station. The frequency he will be using will be 437.55 simplex. Due to the high Doppler effect on this band, one will need to operate split frequencies for most of the pass. A very simplified chart showing memory assignment for transmit and receive with 5 KHz spacing is below as an example.
Mem. TX – RX
Ch A – 437.540 – 437.560 Acquisition of signal (AOS)
Ch B – 437.545 – 437.555
Ch C – 437.550 – 437.550 Time of closest approach (TCA)
Ch D – 437.555 – 437.545
Ch E -437.560 – 437.540 Loss of signal (LOS)
Bill’s contact log now exceeds 700 but that includes several repeat stations. Please give others a chance if you are in a highly populated footprint. As a reminder, these simple operating practices will increase every ones chances:
1. Wait for ISS Crew to call CQ or QRZ.
2. Send only your call sign phonetically and wait for crew to acknowledgeyour specific call sign.
3. Listen closely for the call of the station ISS is talking with.
4. If you do not hear your specific call sign, do not transmit again. until you hear the ISS crew member say CQ or QRZ.
5. Please be courteous.
Hams in North America will also enjoy visual sighting opportunities of the International Space Station when it will be flying over the United States this month during evening hours when it is easy to see. Use your tracking program or you can find the visual sighting times for your QTH from the Heavens Above web page:
http://www.heavens-above.com/
The following links should prove useful to anyone not familiar with ISS operations:
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/reference/radio/
http://www.issfanclub.com/
http://oscar.dcarr.org/index.php
http://www.ariss.net/
http://www.amsat.org/amsat/archive/sarex/48hour/threads.html
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Källa: ANS 015