We have been working with Hudson Memorial School near Nashua, NH to prepare for a possible ARISS Crew Contact. The ARISS folks work with schools and their Ham Radio helpers to prepare for these contacts. ARISS provides recommendations for ground station equipment to help ensure a good experience for the students. The ground station recommendations provide a solid set of specifications to support communications with the ISS on the 2m band. The recommendations include things such as:
A requirement to build both a primary and a backup ground station
Radio and power specifications (a 200W amp is recommended)
Antenna specifications including recommendations to provide for switchable LHCP and RHCP
Computer controlled azimuth/elevation positioning of antennas to track the ISS
Use of a receive preamplifier at the antenna
You can read more about our ISS Contact upgrade plans via the link below…
The video above is a capture of the school’s contact. It was very easy to receive the ISS downlink on our portable backup ground station. I heard the downlink a few seconds before the ISS came up on the horizon and the audio was solid for the duration of the contact. We can only hear the astronaut’s side of the contact as we cannot receive the school’s uplink from Raleigh, NC. The ISS pass began here in New Hampshire part way through the school’s session so we did not hear the first few questions.
Update on Portable ISS/Sat Station 3.0
Portable ISS/Sat Station 3.0 Antenna System
Work on our upgraded primary Portable 3.0 Station which includes a larger antenna system using switchable circular polarity is progressing well. The portable tower, upgraded rotator system, and the new, larger 2m and 70cm circularly polarized antennas are complete. We are just waiting for a few additional components to arrive here and the upgraded portable ground station should be ready for its first test at our Technician License Class later this month.
More on Today’s ISS Crew Contact
You can see a live stream of the ISS Contact from the school above. There is a great deal of planning which goes into an ISS Crew Contact such as this. We are working closely with Hudson Memorial School on their project and their school is also beginning a High-Altitude Balloon Project with us in a few weeks.
The ISS Crew Contact today was exciting to listen too and we are looking forward to being able to share this experience with Hudson Memorial School in the near future.
It appears that the APRS packet digipeater on the International Space Station is down. The article talks about what is being done to try to correct the problem as well as plans for a more permanent solution.
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