About my stations and myself

Since 1982 I have been active on amateur radio and enjoy HF, VHF and Satelite Communicatons. I use VE7DAO for HF, FM and IRLP contacts and VA7ISS for Amateur Radio Satellite Communications. Do check out my Amateur Satellite section to find information and resources.

The last 3 years I have been without HF radio due to a move from house to a condo and as such antennas are extremely limited, however it has rekindled my interest in Amateur Satellite Communication through AMSAT Satellites. Yah, pretty high tech. Most common people would be amazed. I use an Arrow Antenna which I use for my portable Yaesu FT-60R Dual Band VHF for terestrial and HamSat use. I also use a Yaesu FT-7800R VHF / UHF radio for the car.

Latest News

SPARC

The Saanich Peninsula Amateur Radio Club is composed of amateur radio operators from the Saanich Peninsula communities of Central Saanich, North Saanich and Sidney. They meet the second Monday of each month from September to June at the North Saanich fire hall #2 on McTavish Rd.

Coffee is at 0900 and the meeting starts around 0930.

SPARC is closely associated with PEMO and SPARC members provide support for PEMO emergency communication requirements as well as communications requirements for the PEMO Search and Rescue (SAR) and Emergency Social Services (ESS) groups.

Visit their webpage here.

ARISSat-1 re-enters atmosphere

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 004.01
From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
January 4, 2012

Reception reports indicate that ARISSat-1/KEDR stopped transmitting on 
Wednesday, January 4, 2012.  The last full telemetry captured and reported
to the ARISSatTLM web site at 06:02:14 UTC  on January 4 were received
from ground stations as the satellite passed over Japan.

ARISSat-1/KEDR was deployed from the International Space Station on
August 3, 2011 during during EVA-29 on by Cosmonaut/Flight Engineers
Sergei Volkov and Alexander Samokutyaev.

The satellite carried a student experiment from Kursk State University in
Russia which measured atmospheric density. Students from around the
world provided the voices for the FM voice announcements.

The amateur radio payload aboard ARISSat-1/KEDR achieved many
"firsts" for amateur radio in space:

+ First flight test of AMSAT Software Defined Transponder which transmitted
   simultaneous:

 - FM voice downlink cycling between student messages, spoken
   telemetry and SSTV from cameras on the spaceframe.

 - 16KHz bandwith linear transponder, 

 - CW beacon with telemetry and callsigns of radio amateurs noting
    their significant contributions to amateur radio in space.

 - Robust, forward error corrected 1K rate BPSK downlink with sat-
   ellite telemetry and Kursk experiment telemetry.

+ A new Integrated Housekeeping Unit was developed and successfullyflown.

+ A new Power Management System was developed and successfullyflown.

ARISSat-1/KEDR Project Manager, Gould Smith, WA4SXM said, "Dozens
of  amateur radio volunteers, AMSAT, ARRL, NASA, and Energia teamed
up for  this successful mission to bring you the most unique and innovative
amateur radio satellite mission. 

Congratulations to all who made  ARISSat-1 successful!"

[ANS thanks the ARISSat-1/KEDR Team for the above information]

ARISSat-1 Heard

On August 7th 23:45 PDT I was delighted to be able to hear the Microsat ARISSat-1 with a recently acquired portable Dual Band Handheld radio. I used a Yaesu FT-60R and an omni-directioal antenna Diamond SRH77CA. The HamSat at the time was very low on the horizon and had been recently released by the crew of the International Space Station. It is known as ARISSat-1 but it also has a few other names which it goes by. Radioskaf-b or Kedr has been given a NORAD catalog number of 37772. It is known as Radioskaf-b in the Keplerian data lists. At this moment it does not seem to have a listing on the Heavens Above website. Visit the website to determine when the HamSat is in range of your location. At the time if this report it was not in the database but I think that will be quickly remedied as this HamSat becomes more popular.

When in range you will hear an automated voice announcement which is quite unique for HamSats these days. It also has an SSB transponder which provides Ham Radio users with capable SSB 144 Mhz and 440 Mhz radios to communicate over an extended range than what they are normally used to. At times it is possible to receive SSTV (Slow Scan TeleVision) and decode this data into images. Good reception and a SSTV computer decoder programs will process the data to an image.

Below is a certificate I received from the ARISSat-1 QSL program.

Visit AMSAT for frequency and up-to-date information. For detailed information the HamSat has a dedicated website here.

Recent ISS Contact - July 13th 2010

I was excited when I finally was able to make contact with the International Space Station after 20 years of trying. I spoke with Col. Doug Wheelock, KF5BOC as NA1SS on July 13th 2010 at 15:13 PDT while traveling in the car downtown Victoria, B.C. Canada. After my first contact I was then also able to contact him again on the next orbit over Victoria 92 minutes later. I was amazed, excited and over the Moon. Well almost. It was fun and such an exhilarating experience.

Those with scanners may listen on 145.800 Mhz for communications coming down from the ISS. For pass times you may visit Heavens Above for prediction times for your location. There are many resources on the web for information.

One of the best is ISS Fan Club.

Malcolm Scrimger, VE7DAO

AO-51 SSTV Success

Successfully received a SSTV signal from AO-51 and decoded it with MMSSTV.

A special event message was made available through HamSat AO-51 which marked the 40th anniversary of the first manned lunar landing. AO-51 had transmitted a special message commemorating the event during evening passes on Monday, July 20 and into early July 21 UTC. I was able to receive the digital message which was transmitted on the 435.300 MHz FM downlink. A special AO-51 SWL QSL will be sent to ground stations who copied the downlink.

I then received the following QSL card in return