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Ham radio and astronauts
- tux 6y ago“Any station, any station, this is the International Space Station,” Wheelock said. EPIC! I bet most ham radio operators who heard this thought it was a joke :) Someone should make a movie/show about this ^_^
- jedimastert 6y agoThere was a book about a kid who wins a contest to get sent to the ISS, and connects with an african boy over ham. I do not remember the title, but this reminded me of that.
- vuciv1 6y agowhoa id love to hear the name of it!
- newman8r 6y agohah I remember reading that as a youth (must have been 20+ years ago) but I can't find the title either. More recently I read Seveneves and it's also got some ham radio worked into the narrative.
- tux 6y agoI don't know about a book. But this reminded me of a good new movie "Cosmos (2019)". They used custom made hardware/software to find a signal from space. IMDB Summary: "Cosmos explores the thrilling first hours of first contact when three astronomers accidentally intercept what they believe to be a faint, coded signal from a distant alien civilisation." https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4477292/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4477292/
- rattus_rattus 6y agoIt's Countdown, by Ben Mikaelsen! I also read it as a kid and my google-fu was failing me. Had to ask my mother - long-time public school librarian - if she remembered the title (of course she did!) A fun book. I'll have to see if the local library has it for e-book loan. I hope it stands up to my childhood memories of it.
- tux 6y agoThanks for the title, will check it out :-) It's $5 used on amazon. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0786812087/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/0786812087/
- th0ma5 6y agoSort of a goal of mine has been to bounce off the ISS APRS digipeter at least, but building a satellite aiming rotator setup has been my hangup, although in theory I could try handheld yagi? I would like to make a rotating setup though for general satellite work tho.
- cameldrv 6y agoI'd like to do the same thing. I have a goto mount telescope, and I've used this software: (https://heavenscape.com https://heavenscape.com) to track the space station with the telescope. It's a little tricky, and you don't have too much time to realign the mount etc if something is wrong, given that the ISS passes usually only last a few minutes, but I did manage to get it to work after a couple of tries. If I had to do it again I'd practice with other random satellites first. What I've been thinking about is coaxially mounting an antenna and using the telescope mount as an antenna mount. The only problem is that you do need a telescope on the mount to shoot some alignment stars, so you can't just mount the antenna, and I don't know how much the metal in the telescope would interfere with the antenna.
- vel0city 6y agoI've had good luck with a handheld D74A and a handheld arrow yagi. I don't make it in every time but I've hit it successfully a few times.
- jcims 6y agoTry it handheld first. It won't be perfect but you'll hear the APRS and get a feel for how (not) precise it has to be. You're going to need the antenna either way. It's impossible for me to convey how extremely janky my first DIY antenna was for this. It's not a super-precise operation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y6A6ur7yas&t=520s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y6A6ur7yas&t=520s
- sjoerger 6y agoI have managed to do this without a directional antenna. I just kept trying. Using nothing more than a dual band vertical antenna in my attic with 50w power.
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- vuciv1 6y agoreading this got me interested in getting a ham radio. anyone have any cool experiences they can share?
- foundart 6y agoFor me it’s really cool just to be able to speak with someone halfway around the world with no infrastructure other than your radios.
- sitzkrieg 6y agoyou can decode satellite images as they cross overhead you with a cheap handheld or $20 sdr (https://www.rtl-sdr.com/rtl-sdr-tutorial-receiving-noaa-weather-satellite-images/ https://www.rtl-sdr.com/rtl-sdr-tutorial-receiving-noaa-weat...) i personally do a lot of digital mode stuff with really low power (<1 watt), with a small antenna inside an apartment and sometimes get really far contacts (relatively speaking for my setup) on things like WSPR
- vuciv1 6y agothats sweet. what type of images do you get? is it just weather?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ArnoVW 6y agoI've only ever heard of weather images. The Thought emporium has made at least four videos on the subject, showing progressively more complex builds. https://youtu.be/cjClTnZ4Xh4 https://youtu.be/cjClTnZ4Xh4 https://youtu.be/tbXBEd7PL9A https://youtu.be/tbXBEd7PL9A
- op00to 6y agoPark your sdr on 14.230 and load up an SSTV decoder, and let the sweet, sweet bikini pics roll in.
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- mentos 6y agoHa wow astronaut Owen Garriot was Richard Garriots father. Richard Garriot is the creator of the Ultima series of video games that I owe my childhood and love of programming to. Small world!
- edderly 6y agoRichard Garriott also took some of James Doohan's ashes to the ISS at the same time as his trip up there. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ashes-of-star-treks-scotty-smuggled-on-to-international-space-station-6lpgs05n6 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ashes-of-star-treks-scott...
- neonate 6y agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20201224134508/https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-12-23/ham-radio-and-astronauts https://web.archive.org/web/20201224134508/https://www.latim...
- blackholesRhot 6y agoI was lucky enough to participate in one of these "educational programs". When I was in 6th grade I was selected to learn HAM radio and ask a question to the astronauts aboard STS-93. The program was called "Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment" (SAREX). Long live SAREX!
- antimatter15 6y agoI recently took my amateur ham exam— fun fact: broadcasting music on ham radio is forbidden unless it's incidental to some broadcast from a space station. http://www.arrl.org/part-97-text http://www.arrl.org/part-97-text
- geoduck14 6y agoAnother fun fact: you aren't allowed to cuss!
- ggm 6y ago"Goodbye Lenin" fictionalised the ordinary return to earth of a GDR astronaut as an incidental taxi driver in part of the plot. It's nice to remember they're people too, even in space you can get the glums, feel like a random connection might be what you need, capcom or not.
- mhh__ 6y agoThere's some great footage of two russian astronauts talking about how much they don't like space while in a Soyuz before docking. I'm on my phone so I can't find it. I think Scott Kelly is next to them, it was his last trip.
- raverbashing 6y agoI assume getting there is the worse part of the trip. Even if you're on a Dragon capsule Ok, getting off the station is probably very stressful and annoying as well, but at least you're going back home
- rzzzt 6y agoThe last few meters are also rough: - https://slate.com/technology/2014/06/back-to-earth-how-astronauts-get-back-from-the-space-station-video.html https://slate.com/technology/2014/06/back-to-earth-how-astro... - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4Gx8Myx2S0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4Gx8Myx2S0
- mhh__ 6y agoCosmonauts... sorry!
- rasz 6y agoand "Red Star, Winter Orbit" fictionalizes an extraordinary return to earth of USSR cosmonaut :-)
- shimonabi 6y agoHam radio is an anachronism. Unless you live somewhere in the middle of nowhere, there is no use for it. People that still use it just have a bad conscience because of the expensive gear they bought decades ago in the pre-internet age.
- 7373737373 6y agoI hope that one day, you will feel the joys of making an unexpected, faraway contact, of sitting on a hill with friends, listening to the signal in the noise while picnicking, reaching others with just the power of a light bulb. Receiving funny or weird SSTV images, building your own antenna, experience the inventive, experimental and social aspects of being a member of a club station, discover the fishing-like or competitive aspects of contests and so much more...
- shimonabi 6y agoI get it. It was a fun thing to do pre-internet and before universal cell phone coverage, but I can think of a million more interesting things to do than contacting strangers just for the sake of it. What a waste of time! I knew I was going to get hammered with minus points.
- lightbulbjim 6y agoIt’s no different from hanging out in an IRC channel.
- op00to 6y agoExcept any moron can get on IRC. It takes work, knowledge, (and some times a lot of money) to have a big, clear signal.
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- F2hn 6y agoPeople in space? People in deep oceans? Why? Why we need to go pollute all places and think we own any of those? We should manage to live without wars and food crisis first on this earth, before we go anywhere else. I'm totally against people greediness. We have here on the earth so many problems what we have to soft out first. Example: we are hysterics of this "pandemic", while tens of thousands die only in USA for drug overdose, cold, hunriness and so.. Not even mention how many children's are missing.. Those should be our priority. Naah, covid, wars and political shitty take the priority. Please people, stay out of space. We as humans.. We ain't ready for it.
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- belissimosfs 6y agoOh yes these dummys just do not get it.
- belissimosfs 6y agoPuck all of HN crew you guys are hippoceite as bell end.