Re: [amsat-bb] Bodacious RUDAK + AO40 up on an Arrow

[Margaret Leber <maggie@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

   For the folks reading this as a crosspost to linux-hams: the RUDAK   
   packet system aboard the Amsat/OSCAR-40 satellite is in the process  
   of comissioning, and the high-gain S-band transmitter is in          
   scheduled operation; the days of AO-40 as a SSB/CW/SSTV/PSK-only    
   satellite may be over soon. See the first on-orbit image from the
   JAMSAT SCOPE cameras downloaded through the RUDAK at 
         http://www.jamsat.or.jp/scope/index_e.html 
   and detailed information about AO-40 at
         http://www.amsat-dl.org/journal/adlj-p3d.htm  

On Saturday 11 August 2001 11:25, K5OE@aol.com wrote:

> For the FM-birds crowd, who like to work primarily with an HT, 
> combine an inexpensive d/c and a modest antenna (K3XS, that just 
> posted, was using a 16-turn homebrw helix into a Drake), an Arrow or 
> any other 70 cm uplink antenna, and a software-soundcard-based 
> TNC(free!), you have a satellite packet radio system that will work 
> the world on an HT! 

YouBetcha...when I heard last night what a fine job Mike was doing into 
AO-40 with an Arrow, I started scheming about how to combine an S-band 
helix with an Arrow. I'm sure folks here on AMSAT-BB will have a number 
of fine ideas on that score.

While I do use a rotor system here at home, it was definately not 
working very hard; I don't autotrack and a tweak of the direction every 
once in a while (like 20 minutes or so) was more than sufficient. Stick 
an Arrow on a camera tripod and you're fine. 

And since you're not using the VHF half of the Arrow, one has to be 
thinking about homebrewing that part with another piece of PVC...two 
PVC pipes, one with a helix and another with a Yagi for the uplink 
should do the job. 

A small dish--I've been following the talk here about umbrellas and 
woven metallics--might be something to think about for portable ops; we 
need to find a good balance between gain and beamwidth. A Palm Pilot 
application for tracking, with doppler calcs in it would be A Good 
Thing as well.

Jerry mentions soundcard modems...has anybody recieved RUDAK with one 
of these yet? I was about to try to get such a thing working with Tom 
Sailer's Linux soundmodem program, but Stuff Happened with my soundcard 
support; I need to sort out an apparent PCI conflict with my ethernet 
card before I can get back to my PCI sound card that uses the es1371 
driver; the via82cxxx_audio driver the native sound on the motherboard 
uses is apparently incompatible in some way with Soundmodem (and 
consequently also with Tom's excellent p3dtelem demodulator). Anybody 
out there using ALSA with the VIA Southbridge audio? Does it resolve 
the "sm[6037]: audio: Error, cannot set nonblocking mode"? I'd really 
rather use the native audio than give up a slot to the PCI card. 
  
73 de Maggie K3XS

-- 
-----/___.   _)   Margaret Stephanie Leber    / "The art of progress  /
----/(, /|  /| http://voicenet.com/~maggie   / consists of preserving/
---/   / | / |  _   _   _    `  _AOPA 925383/ order amid change and /
--/ ) /  |/  |_(_(_(_/_(_/__(__(/_  FN20hd / change amid order."   /
-/ (_/   '  K3XS  .-/ .-/    ARRL 39280   /___ --A.N.Whitehead ___/
/____ICQ 7161096_(_/_(_/__AMSAT 32844____/ <maggie@voicenet.com>

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