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[KE0SBF]

Good morning.

I've tried to catch some beacons via and send my own to the ISS for a few days now when the passes are good.

It went nearly right over me (in Augusta GA) about 30 mins ago, and all I heard was silence.

Not a total loss .... I was already up and "operating", so I took the opportunity to change back to 144.390 and point my yagi toward the rising sun to pick up some long range packets directly.  Just something I've wanted to try for a while.  It works quite well!

But back to the ISS ...
Is its APRS transceiver offline?  I see that ariss.net shows the last packets heard are 3+ days old.

-Caleb / KE0SBF

[WD9EWK]

Is its APRS transceiver offline?  I see that ariss.net shows the last packets heard are 3+ days old.

The radio is probably off. Crews will turn it off for events like docking/undocking and spacewalks. There may be other reasons where the radios are off.

The http://ariss.net web site shows one packet being received on Wednesday (10 July), and more last Monday (8 July). I made a QSO through the ISS last Sunday (7 July) on a western pass with a station in southern California.

You can see reports from other hams on the status of the ISS ham system at http://www.amsat.org/status - in addition to the packets received by gateway stations at http://ariss.net . Until the new equipment is sent up to the ISS and is operational, ISS packet activity will probably be intermittent. It works, but sometimes the ISS has a hard time hearing signals from ground stations.

73!

[KE0SBF]

Ok!   Thanks for the reply.  I'm trying to learn it while doing it, so it's nice to get that kind of info as a sort of sanity check.

Are there any other packet satellites currently in operation?

Caleb / KE0SBF

[WD9EWK]

Are there any other packet satellites currently in operation?

A list is available at:

https://www.amsat.org/two-way-satellites/

NO-84 and PSAT2 work just like the ISS when their digipeaters are on - 1200bps packet on 145.825 MHz, using ARISS as the packet path. If you can do more than that, FalconSat-3 is a 9600bps digipeater and orbiting mailbox/BBS system that uses a cross-band setup (uplink on 145.840 MHz, downlink around 435.103 MHz). There are a few of us who use the FalconSat-3 digipeater to make two-way QSOs, and even did that during Field Day last month. More about FalconSat-3 is available at:

https://www.amsat.org/falconsat-3/

There are some articles on how to use these digipeaters on AMSAT's Station and Operating Hints page:

https://www.amsat.org/station-and-operating-hints/

Full disclosure: I am either the author or co-author of some of the articles on that page.

There is also an eHam forum related to all things satellites, and a similar forum on QRZ. You'll probably get more responses to questions in those places. AMSAT also has a mailing list that might be useful for you. You can sign up to be on the list, or at least go through the public archives:

http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb

73!

[KE0SBF]

Outstanding!  I absolutely appreciate your help with all this. 9600 bps is also something that greatly interests me since I've really not been able to use it on my d710 or d74 outside of personal experimentation. Being able to contact others using the faster rate would just be plain cool.

I'm going to send my d74 in for some warranty work soon (keypad came unglued), and have been considering possible HTs to acquire as a temporary replacement while it's gone for a couple months and would add value to my "collection" when the d74 is back.  If I can successfully get into some more satellite work (in this particular case, packet satellite work),  I think the d72 is the way to go.

So anyway, your replies help me out in a few direct and indirect ways.

Thank you again!

Caleb / KE0SBF