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Reviews For: HAMSAT - Amateur Radio Satellites, by IW4BLG

Category: Books/Manuals/Videos/Pod-WebCasts on ham radio

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Review Summary For : HAMSAT - Amateur Radio Satellites, by IW4BLG
Reviews: 1MSRP: $12.25 USD (9.99 GBP)
Description:
This well-written book gives the reader a very good understanding of what it takes to communicate over many types of Amateur Radio Satellites. OSCAR history, your ground station requirements, and operating hints are included. It is available in the RSGB online book shop.
Product is in production
More Info: https://www.rsgbshop.org/acatalog/HAMSAT-1459.html#SID=15
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
1515
VE3WGO Rating: 2023-02-02
Packed with Interesting Information Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
This technical book covers the topic of amateur satellite communications, with emphasis on the RF aspects of how to set up and operate your own base station. It includes Oscar satellite history, and interesting technical statistics of hamsats launched over the past 50+ years.

There is a good chapter on VHF/UHF propagation modes and how they affect satellite links, and another chapter showing how to calculate link budgets for low orbit (LEO) and high orbit (HEO) satellites. This info is interesting for VHF/UHF terrestrial communications as well.

Ground station components are described in great detail, including antennas, rotors, coax cables, connectors, filters and preamps (including a few construction projects), transverters, and transceivers. There is also a good discussion of station control and tracking software packages that can be used. The Doppler effect and how to deal with it are well covered in another chapter.

A very comprehensive survey of many homebrew and commercial antenna performance details is included for each frequency band.

It is a 2015 book, but the information is still very up to date for today’s crop of LEO satellites. FM satellite users who likely use a handheld antenna with an HT might not feel the need for this book, but I’m sure they would also find it very interesting and educational.

This book is a bargain, considering how much useful information it contains.

73, Ed VE3WGO