Don’t miss our June membership meeting, where we welcome Tim Duffy, K3LR who will speak about the K3LR Super Station.
Tim’s station is one of the top Multi-Multi Contest Stations in the world. He is also the CEO of DX Engineering. Tim’s accomplishments in Amateur Radio include the following and more:
Founder and Chairman of Contest University
President of the Mercer County Amateur Radio Club
Active in RACES, ACS and ARES
Hosted Youth Contest teams at the K3LR Super Station for major contests
Member of the CQ Contest Hall of Fame
Was on Team USA for the World Radio Team Championship (WRTC) five times.
Chairman of the World Wide Radio Operators Foundation (WWROF)
Recipient of the 2015 Amateur of the Year Award presented by the Dayton Hamvention® Awards Committee and the 2016 YASME Excellence Award.
K3LR Super Station Photo from QRZ.com
The meeting will be held on Tuesday, June 2nd starting at 7:00 pm and will be held online via a Zoom Conference. You can find the Zoom link on our main page, n1fd.org. Scroll down to the meeting announcement to see the link. If you have not been on a Zoom meeting before, I would recommend joining at least 15 minutes early.
Join us on Tuesday, June 2nd to hear all about the K3LR Super Station. Hope to see you on Zoom!
When the Nashua Area Radio Society’s Student/Teacher Contest Series was first set up, Fred and Anita (AB1OC/AB1QB) offered up their station to my son Keith (KC1IMK) and other students that do not have a station at home. Fred and Anita have an amazing station at their QTH and you can find more information on it here.
Then COVID arrived and sharing mikes, headphones, and keyboards at other people’s houses are no longer acceptable. We cannot risk getting each other sick. Another way is necessary. Remote Operation is here!
Fred (AB1OC) and Jamey (AC1DC) worked out the kinks for setting up Remote Operation first. Then Fred invited Keith and me to try it out. After a couple of hours online with Fred to set up, we were on our own. Contest Calendar showed the Helvetia Contest that night so we pointed the beams toward Switzerland and called CQ. Several stations pounced on Keith at once. He worked hard with the mouse, bouncing from the radio PTT button to logging in N1MM. Once the pile-up was cleared, he pulled off his headset and said “I really wish I had a footswitch like Field Day“.
Remote PTT Switch for SmartSDR
Driven to maintain my “Super-Dad” status, I went to work. I found a few references at the FlexRadio site:
Looked pretty straight forward to build a Remote PTT Switch. Configure a SmartSDR CAT interface to monitor hardware flow control pins in a standard serial port. The hard part today is to find a serial port. They have all been replaced by USB.
I dug out a 15-year-old Belkin adapter from the back of my shack and installed it. A new Com3 port showed up in Windows 10 device manager.
USB to Serial Adapter
SmartSDR CAT will detect if RTS is shorted to CTS in a Com port.
This is a very standardized interface and it was easy to find the pin definition.
Pin 7 is RTS
Pin 8 is CTS.
Easy to spot as they are the center two pins of the row of four.
I also had the mating 9 pin D connector in my bin of parts. One could probably solder to the pins of the adapter, but I would recommend a connector. I cut off the 1/4″ plug from a footswitch I bought from Amazon. The two leads were soldered to pins 7 & 8.
To test it, I downloaded ComTestSerial from Microridge https://www.microridge.com The test software confirmed the hardware worked. Each time I pressed and released the footswitch the CTS light in the top right corner changed between Red and Green.
Configuring FlexRadio SmartSDR
Now to configure the software. Open SmartSDR CAT and add a port. Give it a name. Set Port Protocol to PTT, set Port type to Serial, set Serial Port to Existing, and set CAT COM to your new Com port. Mine was Com3. Set VFO slice A. Select RTS. Hit save.
CAT settings
I found some open spectrum on 20m, crossed fingers, and pressed the switch.
Voila! It transmitted!
With prolonged use, I found my old adapter was not up to the job. The drivers were not meant for Windows 10. It missed about 1 out of 10 switch presses. I have since upgraded and the new Remote PTT Switch works great.
Last Thursday, April 30th, 2020 was a day of firsts for the ARISS program and for us here. The COVID-19 situation has forced changes to be made in the way that schools and other groups contact astronauts onboard the ISS. The pandemic has also made it impossible to access many of the ARISS telebridge stations worldwide.
We hosted the first ARISS arranged Multi-Point Telebridge contact with students in the Northern VA School Group and Chris Cassidy, KF5KDR aboard the ISS. The contact was a success and we learned a great deal as we provided in a new format for ARISS contacts.
ARISS First #1 – We’re A New Telebridge Station
Ready for Our ISS Contact
We added Telebridge capability to our space communications ground station here in New Hampshire. This involved adding a telephone patch capability to our station and a UPS to the power supply for our station. With all of the tests complete and the station preparation checked one last time before our schedule contact, we were ready!
ARISS First #2 – New Multi-Point Telebridge Format for ARISS
The COVID-19 situation is preventing most schools from assembling in a group for their contacts with the ISS. ARISS created a new, Multi-Point Telebridge format which allows students and their teacher to participate in a contact with an astronaut aboard the ISS from their homes. The new format created additional audio and coordination challenges among the students who participated in our contact.
We practiced the new format with the students multiple times before our actual contact. As a result, the students did a great job during their contact.
ARISS First #3 – Inaugural ARISS YouTube Livestream
With the help of Steve Rys, KB1VYD, ARISS created a live, multi-sourced video feed of the pre-contact program and the actual contact with the ISS.
Pre-Contact Program (Playing on the laptop in the foreground)
The live stream included audio from our station, the Moderator for the contact (John Kludt, K4SQC), Chris on-board the ISS, the students, and Kathy Lamont, KM4TAY, their teacher.
ISS Contact Livesream to YouTube
The video portion of the program included videos that explained how the contact was arranged and works, a live video of our antennas as they tracked the ISS, the student’s questions, and a view of the ISS track as it passed overhead.
The live YouTube video stream went extremely well and was well received by over 300 viewers during our contact making it the most widely enjoyed firsts for ARISS on this day.
First #4 – Chris Cassidy’s First Contact From The ISS
Our Astronaut, Chris Cassady, KF5KDR
The Northern VA School Group contact was Chris’ first from aboard the ISS. Chris had trained for the contact on the ground before his flight to the ISS.
Unbeknownst to Chris and the rest of us, there had been a reconfiguration of the radio equipment we would be using for our contact on the ISS. As a result of this, Chris had trouble getting the Amateur Radio for our contact going on the ISS. We did not make contact with him until some time after the ISS was over our location.
Calling the ISS for our contact
Once we got the problem sorted out, Chris came through loud and clear. He was able to answer several of the student’s questions before the ISS disappeared over the horizon.
What Comes Next
Our contact proved the effectiveness of the new ARISS Multi-point Telebridge format. It also proved-in the operation of our Telebridge Station here in New Hampshire. This was a great outcome given all of the Firsts for ARISS that were involved.
Additional Telebridge stations around the world will be hosting school contacts using the new format in the near future. We are looking forward to continuing to support the ARISS program via additional Teleridge contacts from our station.
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