Satgen92  Get on Sats this New Year            GM4IHJ  31 Dec 90

Several people tell me that they are looking for any easy way to start on
satellites. So here is a broad guide :-

You Have a Short Wave Receiver ?  Using a simple wire aerial listen on
29.375MHz for the morse beacon of RS10. When you get it , tune around
29.39MHz to listen to stations using RS10 on CW or SSB

You Have Two Metre Receiver ?  Using a dipole or a small ( 3 or 5 element
) yagi. You can hear Dove on 145.825 FM packet 1200 bps . You can read
this packet just by tuning a terrestrial packet station to this frequency.
Note Dove's Digital voice is not yet working.
By 1st Feb Mir should have activated the AREM experiment with downlink on
145.805 FM packet and digital voice.
At present U2MIR is using FM voice for QSO's on roughly 145.5 down and is
listening for around 145.55 up .
If RM-1 launches on 7th Jan 91 you should hear downlink beacons on 145.822
and 145.948 . When the transponder opens for communication Mode B ,
signals ( CW and SSB ) should be heard between 145.852 and 145.932MHz

Timings  In Jan Feb 91.   RS10 every 100 minutes all day . Best orbits
after dark. Dove every 100 mins between 0900 and 0100 ut daily. Mir every
96 minutes for 6 consecutive orbits. These Mir orbits in range UK occur in
early am presently Jan 1st. Will be late evening 1900 plus around 10 Jan.
Slip to early evenings by 18th Jan. Then early afternoon in first days of
Feb, and mornings in late Feb 91. RM-1 will come round every 100 mins for
about 10 consecutive orbits, actual timing not known till launch.

Transmitting ? For RS10 you need 8 watts of CW/SSB 145.86 to 145.9MHz
Dove has no uplink. For Mir you need 2m FM around 145.55MHz  For RM-1 you
need 70cms CW/SSB 435.102 to 435.022MHz . Suggested aerials are 3 or 5
element yagi for 2m, and 10 element yagi for 70cms ( or 48 ele multibeam)
Good Hunting 73 de John GM4IHJ @ GB7SAN