Richard,
Working Satellites can be a fantastic part of our great hobby. And depending how deep your planning to get into it, can be as cheap as $20.00 to $100.00 for a very nice antenna. Then you can use a dual band FM HT, BUT, this will only work late and night or early in the morning, when your not competing for air time with the 50 and 100 watt satellite stations. If you want the best experience possible, it can cost a few thousand dollars real quick, for a nice satellite radio capable of LSB/USB full duplex, and a pair of VHF/UHF beams with a nice az/el rotor. We have been working with a few people over the past few days, using HT’s and $15.00 antennas, to digipeat APRS packets via the ISS, with great success. For a quick and simple example of entry level access. The bottom line is, it doesn’t take a lot of money at all to test the waters, but once you get bitten by the bug, like several of us, it will take a great deal more $ for full station automation, and hands free operation. As well as getting the maximum time on each satellite pass. I hope you get the chance to give this a try, at any level, as it’s tons of fun. And, as always, anything I can do to help, just give a yell. We can get you on the birds, one way or the other. Walter/K5WH From: BVARC <bvarc-boun...@bvarc.org> On Behalf Of Richard Bonica via BVARC Sent: Sunday, May 12, 2024 5:53 PM To: BRAZOS VALLEY AMATEUR RADIO CLUB <bvarc@bvarc.org> Cc: Richard Bonica <kg5...@gmail.com> Subject: [BVARC] Satellites -- 2m -- 70cm -- antennas To all... As I go down the path of satalites and antennas, I have now realized how much I really don't have a clue. The things I need to learn about are : 1) Yagis -- how they work beyond the normal parts and basic point and listen. 2) satalites and orbits and solar winds and solar interference in general and what it takes to track beyond software 3) up and down links -- beyond the 2m and 70cm frequency and how Doppler and angle effects. Basically -- looks to me that the magic smoke we work to keep in electronics is also in the antenna. Someone know where I can start to figure this stuff out. I am almost to the point of calling Mr Daniel and CPT Jack . Thank you for help in advance. Richard Bonica KG5YCU
________________________________________________ Brazos Valley Amateur Radio Club BVARC mailing list BVARC@bvarc.org http://mail.bvarc.org/mailman/listinfo/bvarc_bvarc.org Publicly available archives are available here: https://www.mail-archive.com/bvarc@bvarc.org/
