First ISS Contact via APRS

Contests, Equipment

I must have seen some blog post or article on Friday or Saturday morning that got me thinking about making a contact with the ISS (International Space Station). On Saturday morning I started visiting various sites and trying to figure out how to get things setup and configured to try and make it happen. It wasn’t easy since I really had nothing previously setup for doing this so there are a bunch of things that needed to be done. I’m also documenting what I did here so I can remember for future attempts.

I guess first is defining my home setup used for a VHF/APRS contact with the ISS. I have a Kenwood TS-2000 that has a built in TNC but in the end, the built-TNC proved irrelevant. I have an external Diamond dual band vertical antenna for VHF. I have a SignaLink USB as a soundcard device and I’m running Windows 7 on my notebook.  I needed to use all these components as well as 2 pieces of software to get the job done though I probably downloaded a couple others throughout Saturday as I was trying to get things working. The software is AGWPE from SV2AGW and UISS from ON6MU. I also used a bunch of web sites such as the ISS Fan Club tracking site, the AMSAT Pass Prediction page and the FindU ARISS page for what stations it heard (and repeated to another I-Gate station which put it on the Internet).

The TS-2000 has a built-in TNC which I kept thinking I should be using but proved to not be the case. I used AGWPE and interfaced it through my SignaLink USB soundcard. No need with this solution to deal with the menus on the TS-2000 associated with the TNC and packet radio. What I needed to do was run the main receiver on the TS-2000 on 145.825 FM (as referenced on the ISS Fan Club Frequency page) as keying the SignaLink would do it on the main receiver. You need to turn up the squelch enough to keep the static quiet. Configuring AGWPE took quite a while for me as I was originally trying to do it using the built-in TNC which might be possible (according to various posts I found) but proved not to work for me, though I didn’t try it on the main receiver (or did I?). So then finding instructions for AGWPE & a soundcard I went that route and used my SignaLink. The issue I ran into and found various other online posts about it, is that with the SignaLink not being set as the default device in Windows 7, AGWPE was using the default. So what is necessary is making the SignaLink USB Audio Codec device the default sound device for playback/recording while this activity is going on. You do this through Windows Sound Control Panel and just need to be aware any sound on your computer will go through the SignaLink while this is set that way. Once I did that, AGWPE showed the SignaLink as the soundcard it will use and I was done with that configuration.

Next I downloaded and configured UISS which a Windows program specific to making packet contacts with ISS. The program is free but for some “PRO” features you need to make a donation. Seeing how much fun this is, if I start to make a few more contacts I will definitely donate. Setup wasn’t complex and for its data interface out, it just points to what is defined in AGWPE. There’s just a tiny bit of setup to define your lat/long for APRS and modification of any of the default messages. On Saturday I wasn’t able to get all the components properly configured but Sunday morning and a fresh start, ignoring anything TS-2000 specific, I was able to get things moving. I knew I was making progress when I tuned to 144.390 which is the national APRS frequency and UISS was decoding the incoming packets and showing them on the main screen. I tuned off frequency and pressed the Position button in UISS and it keyed up the SignaLink and TS-2000 and transmitted my position. After a few hours of tinkering and trying various components/configurations, it finally seemed like I had things setup properly.

With Windows 7 configured to use the SignaLink as its default soundcard, the AGWPE & UISS applications up and running and the ISS Fan Club tracking site, the AMSAT Pass Prediction page and the FindU ARISS page opened in my web browser I was ready for my first attempt. The next pass of the ISS was set for 14:35 (10:35am local) so I watched the web pages and listened for the first packets to break the squelch. I was refreshing the FindU page and saw a couple of station in Mexico show up and then N4ZQ in Florida showed up. Watching the incoming packets being decoded, I saw N4ZQ show up at 14:37 followed by a message from N6WPV in FL to 2Y4Q6T come in. I saw a couple more packets decoded including one from N1RCN in RI sending a message. I finally saw K2DSL show up on the FindU ARISS page and I celebrated! Looking at the raw data it looks like my APRS position was received by the ISS and then received by K8YSE who gated it onto the Internet. I then saw the following message come in from N1RCN:

Fm N1RCN To APRS Via RS0ISS-4* <UI pid=F0 Len=44 >[10:41:16]
:K2DSL    :Good Morning From Bristol, RI USA

Since I wasn’t sure how to respond (and I think I know how to respond now), the pass ended before I could return the message to N1RCN. Here are the raw packets associated with me showing I was iGated twice by K8YSE and I also sent the list of folks I heard from received packets back from the ISS which AL0I received and iGated:

2010-09-19 14:41:01 UTC: K2DSL>APRS,RS0ISS-4*,qAS,K8YSE-6:=4101.11N/07407.17W-First ISS APRS {UISS52}
2010-09-19 14:41:33 UTC: K2DSL>APRS,RS0ISS-4*,qAS,K8YSE-6:=4101.11N/07407.17W-First ISS APRS {UISS52}
2010-09-19 14:42:35 UTC: K2DSL>APRS,RS0ISS-4*,qAR,AL0I::Heard    :N6WPV-4,W1GRE-3,N1RCN,KB2M-2,K4IPH,AB9RF,W1GRE-4,VE1WRG{UISS52}

What shows in the UISS programs list of stations heard in the pass are:
RS0ISS-11, N6WPV-4, W1GRE-3, N1RCN, KB2M-2, RS0ISS-4, K4IPH, AB9RF, W1GRE-4 & VE1WRG.

Wow – that was a little bit of trial and error and not really sure everything was right but it worked! I need to make sure I remember to turn the Windows sound device default back after I am done.

As I was finishing this up, another pass of the ISS was coming by so I tried again. This time I made 2 APRS contacts which were shown as iGated again by K8YSE. I also received 2 messages from AB9RF and KB1GVR but the one I sent to AB9RF didn’t show as received and sent back. There’s a strong pass coming later today at 20:59z (4:59pm local) that I will set things up for again and see what comes of that.

There are so many things to do in ham radio that the fun and having another personal “first” seems to be endless. I hope to make a voice contact with the ISS some day.

73 from outer space!
K2DSL

VHF Contesting with the Club

Contests

This weekend was the ARRL Sept VHF contest. BARA, my local ham radio club, sets up 2 towers at an old Nike Missle base in Orangeburg, NY (FN31) and we run some amps on 4 stations cover 6m, 2m, 70cm & 23cm. We operate mostly SSB but we also have a couple of FM antennas up and a little CW thrown in. The conditions for the June VHF contest weekend were phenomenal but because of potential severe weather forecast for the weekend and being on the top of a hill, the club cancelled the contest and many folks, myself included, operated from home with whatever VHF/UHF equipment they had.

Saturday was a beautiful day so loading up a truck with 2 towers, antennas, tents, etc wasn’t rough and took about 1 hour. We then went to the site which is about 20 mins away and unloaded and prepared for setup. Seemed we had a few less folks then normal but it wasn’t bad. First up was the 6m beam and tower followed by the 2nd tower which contains the 2m, 70cm & 23cm beams. I think where we missed having some more folks was while everyone focused on getting the antenna and towers up, setting up the radio equipment in the tents was lagging behind. We had the 6m station setup first and on the air around 2:45pm which is about 45 mins after the contest started. Everything with the 6m station was working great.

Within about 30 mins after 6m was on the air, the other 3 stations started to come up, though there seemed to be some issues with the 70cm & 23cm stations and their amps. Folks were working all 4 stations, but most contacts (which is to be expected) were on the 6m and 2m bands. Activity on 6m and 2m was ok but certainly slower then I would have expected. What never materialized for us, at least while I was there, were any openings. Late in the afternoon I made a contact with WV on 2m and that was the longest contact all day on any station up until that point. In the evening we did work some stations a bit farther south, but nothing in FL and nothing west of WV. In other words, we didn’t notice a single opening whatsoever.

During the contest, on 2m and 6m, there were a couple of local folks I chatted with throughout the day and I asked if anything interesting was being spotted on the cluster and they all said that they hadn’t noticed any spots indicating there were any openings. At least it wasn’t us. We were running 600-700 watts on 2m & 6m I’m sure there could be stations that heard us we might not have been able to hear, but we normally hear stations from the midwest and southern Gulf states sometime during the day of a VHF contest. Nothing on Saturday for us.

The FM stations are handy because there’s a very small 5 mile loop near us that covers 4 grid squares. If someone drives the loop and has FM capability in their car, we can log 4 contacts. If they have multiple bands, we can log 8 contacts in a short amount of time. I’m not sure but we might have logged more FM contacts then 23cm contacts by the time I left Saturday night.

Since it was 9/11, off in the distance we could see the beams of light at Ground Zero pointing into the heavens and hitting the clouds that had moved in. I stayed at the site until around 10:45pm or so before I called it quits and headed back home.

Sundays weather has a pretty good chance of all showers all day long. I won’t head up to the site as I’m off shortly to the NY Giants opening home game. I hope the teardown at the site goes well for those that will be there today. I’ll find out how overnight Sat/Sun went as well as during the day on Sunday. Hopefully something will open up for those folks that are up there at on the air.

73 & Never Forget,
K2DSL

VE7CC Cluster and Sending Email Alerts

Misc

I noticed a post on the ARUser Yahoo group which is used, among other purposes, to discuss the VE7CC DX Cluster program. The program creates a local DX Cluster on your computer which you can configure to your hearts content. For me, as an example, it shows only spots that are related to North America stations so I don’t see an 80m spot that is posted by a station in Russia to a station in Germany.

The post indicated a user couldn’t get the DX Spot Alerts that send emails to work on Verizon FIOS. Now I had never tried to do that with this program, but years ago I had the same issue/need to send emails on Verizon FIOS from a weather program that did not support SMTP Authentication. SMTP Authentication is a fancy name for having to supply an account & password when you send email. Supplying an account & password to receive email is normal but much less frequently needed on sending email. If the program sending email (VE7CC in this case) doesn’t support supplying an account name and password, it won’t work with mail servers that require it.

A quick search turns up the program I used in the past. It’s called SMTPAuth and is located at http://netwinsite.com/dmail/smtpauth.htm. The web page indicates Windows operating system support through XP. Well, I’m running Windows 7 64-bit and it still works. I don’t have a Vista machine to test on but I imagine it works with Vista as well. I downloaded the program from the page to my desktop. The first time I ran it the install didn’t complete so I needed to re-run the installation as Administrator which the program detected and did for me automatically. I imagine just right clicking the program on the desktop and selecting Run as administrator will do the same thing. The program launches a command window which asks for your mail server. For Verizon FIOS, it is outgoing.verizon.net but if you aren’t using Verizon FIOS, you can check your existing mail program to see how it is setup or check your ISPs web site. You then need to specify your email account name with the ISP and the password associated with that email account. Once you do that, you’ll see something similar to the following:

SmtpAuth Version 1.04 Setup for Windows NT
Initialisation:
Enter your outgoing(smtp) mail server: outgoing.verizon.net
Enter your user name <>: abc123
Enter your password: xxxxxxxx
Saving settings...done
Stopping SmtpAuth...failed
Adding service...done
Starting SmtpAuth Version 1.04...done
Testing Smtp Authentication...
Everything seems fine
SmtpAuth Version 1.04 was successfully installed
In your email client, set up your outgoing(smtp) mail server to be "127.0.0.1"
To uninstall smtpauth, run smtpauth again, and choose the delete option
Press any key to finish
Windows Services shows SmtpAuth Version 1.04 which can be stopped or started as you want.

You now have a local SMTP server running on your PC. Then in VE7CC or whatever program you want to use that needs to send email, you specify 127.0.0.1 as the email server. For VE7CC specifically, you would click on the Configuration menu and select Alarm Setup. That opens a window where on the right side you can specify your To & From email address and the box underneath those is where you enter in 127.0.0.1 for the mail server. That indicates that the mail server is running locally on your machine.

That’s all there is to it. If you have any questions, you can post them here or email me directly and I’ll try to help.

73,
K2DSL

Amateur Radio Stamp – First Day Issue – 1964 Alaska

Misc

I attended my local radio clubs monthly meeting for September and one of the members received an envelope from a SK’s estate that contained a stack of envelopes from 1964. The envelopes contained purple 5 cent stamps that were post marked from Anchorage Alaska on Dec 15th, 1964. I picked up 3 of them for myself. Below is a scan of the envelope which can be clicked to open up a larger image.

The ham that had them said he did some investigation and there were different pictures on the front, though all his were the same as what I scanned. The ARRL QST archive site search finds a mention in QST of the stamp in the Aug, Sept, Oct & Nov 1964 issues. The September 1964 QST references 3 envelopes to a set, each printed in a different color. WJ8C mentions it but doesn’t show pictures and calls it a #1260.  I found a different picture on a Google image search which brought me to N4MW’s site which shows a different picture. The page also links to a PDF courtesy of WA5CTP that shows a 3rd picture on the envelope. Using 1260 as a search I came across a list of amateur radio postal items which if you scroll to the United States lists 9 different covers. Mine is the closest to fdc 1 though mine doesn’t have any mention of Oscar-1.

Amazing how much can be uncovered using the Internet to find out old info. I was just 18 months old when this was issued and almost 46 years later people are still enjoying what was done in 1964.

73,
K2DSL

2010 SCC RTTY Contest Summary

Contests

Just finished up the 2010 SCC RTTY ham radio contest. It’s a 24 hour contest that runs from 8am (1200z) Saturday to 8am (1200z) Sunday morning. I got started a little late on Saturday and the conditions didn’t seem too good. DX was a bit hard to come by and many of the contacts were local (US) stations. At least US stations outside of the 2 call area are worth 2 points.  I checked 15m a couple of times and it was again dead to me. I made just 2 contacts on 15m which is disappointing.

After logging a station on 15m and then going to log the same station again on 20m, N1MM crashed. I went over to the N1MM Group and saw that I wasn’t the only one. In true N1MM fashion, K3CT was working on a fix and had posted a patch. I misunderstood the instructions but K3CT set things straight and N1MM then worked perfectly.

In the late morning things picked up a bit and the DX started coming in. I even worked TA2ZF in Turkey again. Folks on the RTTY reflector were commenting on the poor conditions and AC0C noted that for him, logging me in NJ was DX for him based on the conditions. By mid afternoon things were going along well but I was set to head out for a few hours with the family so off I went. I got back in the early evening and things were still ok on 20m with the 40m activity picking up and doing well. I thought I was done for the night but I needed to pick up my daughter from a friends late in the evening, so I popped back on and made some contacts on 80m finishing with a quick scan of 20m netting me ZL3TE/1 in New Zealand before heading off to bed.

I woke up Sunday morning with a little time before the end of the contest. EU stations were weak and I had already worked the strong stations so I waited a bit and signals picked up enough to log 9 more before things ended. In the 2008 SCC RTTY contest I made slightly more contacts then I did this year while in 2009 I only made a handful.  Reading the log from 2008 I seemed to have spent much more time operating then I did this time around. I also hadn’t switched to using N1MM and MMTTY yet.

Here’s the 2010 SCC RTTY score summary:

  Band    QSOs    Pts  Sec
   3.5      14     26   13
     7      55    115   34
    14     117    269   56
    21       2      4    2
 Total     188    414  105

 Score : 43,470

Contacts have been uploaded to HRDLog.net, LoTW, eQSL and now QRZ.com’s logbook as well. I’ll have to see which ops I want to send paper QSL cards to. The cabrillo log file has also been submitted for the contest.

73 & good DX,

K2DSL

2010 SARTG RTTY & NAQP SSB Summaries

Contests

As noted 2 days ago in Too many contests this weekend! SARTG NAQP NJQP + more! I was looking forward to sneaking in some ham radio contesting in between everything else. In the end, it mostly worked out like I thought it would. Friday night we had family over to celebrate recent birthdays including one of my daughters who turned 15 on Saturday. I got on near the end when folks started to leave and worked a bit of the SARTG contest Fri night. I think I ended up with about 70 contacts that evening. On Saturday I worked about 3 more hours of the 2nd SARTG section before heading off to the NY Giants pre-season game. I was hoping for a bit more 15m activity in the SARTG contest but it wasn’t happening for me. There were some contests a couple months back where 15m was hopping but that seems to have ended, at least for what I can hear.

Around 11pm local time (0300z) Saturday night I got home from the football game and started logging NAQP contacts. I spent 2 hours & 15 mins in the contest and ended the evening about 1:15am (0515z) with 76 contacts. Since it was already very late, I only logged a few strong west coast stations on 20m including Alaska. I heard KL7RA as the first station when I turned the radio on but he had a good amount of folks calling so I worked other stations before coming back to him on 20m. Its always nice to have a quick contact on SSB with some folks that are in all the RTTY & CW contests. It is a good feeling to hear them address you personally and even by name just from hearing your call sign. I ended the evening working KL7RA as my last contact on 40m. I then went to bed and slept late for me before waking up and getting on the air for the last 3 or so hours of the final SARTG section. I ended the contest with a total of 171 SARTG contacts.

The NJ QSO Party takes place over 2 days and had a portion on Saturday and a portion on Sunday. I wasn’t around on Saturday but after the SARTG contest on Sunday I listened and didn’t hear any NJ stations. I then went on 20m and started calling CQ NJQP but never had anyone answer. Seems I’m not the only one as W2LJ reported the same on his blog – NJ QSO Party – “Chirp, chirp, chirp”.  We had some pretty heavy weather in Northern NJ on Sunday with passing thunderstorms and periods of real heavy rain. When I’m posting this, there’s still over 2 hours left in the NJQP if I wanted to get on and keep trying but I don’t think I will. K2DBK had let me know that I would probably be disappointed based on his past experience with the NJQP and he was unfortunately right on with his prediction.

Here’s my score summary from the 2010 NAQP SSB ham radio contest:

   Band    QSOs     Pts  Sec   NA
    3.5      34      34   20    0
      7      32      32   21    0
     14      10      10    6    0
  Total      76      76   47    0

  Score : 3,572

And here’s my score summary from the 2010 SARTG RTTY ham radio contest:

   Band    QSOs    Pts  Cty   Sec
    3.5       5      50    1    3
      7      28     290    8   11
     14     119    1430   30   12
     21       9     100    6    2
  Total     161    1870   45   28

  Score : 136,510

Thanks to all for the contacts! 73,
K2DSL

Too many contests this weekend! SARTG NAQP NJQP + more!

Contests

This weekend will be very busy both on the air and off.

1) When I get home from work tonight there will be a party at my house with my wife’s family to celebrate a few birthdays that have just passed or about to come.

2) Starting 8pm tonight is the first of 3 legs of the SARTG RTTY contest. The 3 legs are 0000Z-0800Z Aug 21 and 1600Z-2400Z Aug 21 and 0800Z-1600Z Aug 22.

3) Saturday is my younger daughters 15th birthday.

4) The North America QSO Party is from 1800Z, Aug 21 to 0600Z, Aug 22. That’s 2pm Saturday through 2am Sunday. It overlaps the 2nd leg of the SARTG too. A single op can work 10 of the 12 hours which is good because of #5.

5) NY Giants first NFL pre-season game in the new stadium. That starts at 7pm Saturday and I need to be there about 4pm or even a little earlier. I’ll be going with my older daughter while my younger daughter goes to a concert on her birthday with my wife. The game will last until 11pm and then it will be about 12 midnight (0400z) when I get home. This will eat into a tremendous amount of the NAQP.

6) The NJ QSO Party has 2 time slots from 2000Z Aug 21 to 0700Z Aug 22 and 1300Z  Aug 22 to 0200Z Aug 23. I’ve missed this contest the past 2 years since I’ve been away on vacation right around this time. We’ll have to see if there’s any activity for this since the SARTG and NAQP are much bigger contests. The first leg is almost completely during the NAQP but the Sunday leg is pretty much on its own.

I think I need to write this down in some graphical manner as WA7BNM does on his contest calendar and overlay in the non amateur radio events I need to attend. It will be a busy weekend!

73,
K2DSL

WAE CW and Rookie Roundup Contests

Contests

I’ve been extremely busy at work and had family events the past couple of weekends so I’ve not spent much time on the radio. This weekend I was able to put in a few hours on Sat & Sun afternoons and worked a bit of the WAE CW ham radi ocontest as well as some Rookie Roundup SSB contacts.

Saturday I got on the radio late in the morning and early in the afternoon and made a bunch of 20m CW contacts with stations in Europe. The WAE contests also have a operation called QTCs where you can send a batch of 10 previous contacts you’ve worked to the operator for additional points, but I’m not comfortable enough with CW to do it in this mode. I have done it in the RTTY version of this contest. I checked 15m once or twice but didn’t hear much so I stayed on 20m. By the time 40m would be active I was done for the day and had other things to do in the evening. On Sunday I had our local ham clubs annual picnic to go to so I was busy with that until mid afternoon. Once I was home I made some more contacts with European stations and though the weather outside was a bit rainy, the signals towards EU seemed pretty stong. I ended up with a total of 81 contacts in 27 different DXCCs.

Here’s my score summary:

 Band   Q/QTC  QSOs    Pts  Cty
   14    QSO    81      81   54
Total    All    81      81   54

Score : 4,374

Sunday afternoon was also the ARRL Rookie Roundup SSB contest and I ended up working 12 different ops in 10 different states. What qualifies as a rookie in this contest is someone licensed in 2008, 2009 or 2010 so I just miss out. Each of the rookies I worked in the contest was extremely courteous and pretty efficient. They seemed comfortable on the air and knew the exchange well. I guess I expected a bit more stumbling but if they were nervous it didn’t come across over the air. It’s always good to hear that you gave one of them a new multiplier from the rare state of NJ! Nice job to all the ops!!

I also made 1 lone MD QSO Party contact on 80m.

Next weekend is the opening [pre-season] game for the NY Giants in their new stadium so I’ll be there for that on Sunday. It’s also the SARTG RTTY contest as well as the NJ QSO Party. For the past 2 years I’ve been away on vacation that week and missed one of the SARTG sessions as well as being out of state for the NJ QSO Party. With the Giants game being that weekend, it looks like I’ll now be missing air time for that.

73,
K2DSL – David

10,000 confirmed QSLs on LoTW

Contacts

As I was uploading my contacts for the 2010 IOTA contest I noticed that LoTW was showing exactly 10,000 confirmed QSLs so I snagged a picture of it.

From the numbers it looks like I’m running at an overall QSL rate of 52.5% on Logbook of The World. Thanks for all the contacts!

73,
K2DSL

2010 IOTA Ham Radio Contest Summary

Contests

Saturday morning through Sunday morning was the RSGB IOTA (Islands On The Air) ham radio contest. I figured I’d pop in from time to time throughout Saturday to make a contact here and there and that’s how things ended up. Saturday was extremely hot out with the temperatures in the upper 90’s and approaching 100F.

I got on the air a couple of hours after the contest had begun and made a few 20m SSB contacts before checking 20m CW but I didn’t hear much activity there so I flipped back to SSB. I checked 15m from time to time but it was dead quiet again for me like it was during the NAQP RTTY contest. Since I was on the radio during daylight hours only there wasn’t much 40m activity either though I did log a couple of Q’s there. Late in the afternoon, the EU stations started coming in louder then the US stations and they were easier to log later in the day.

My wife and I had plans to go to dinner with a bunch of folks so before dusk we left for dinner. When we got back late in the evening about 5 hours later, I put the radio on and worked 3 stations (2 IOTA + 1 non-IOTA) before working Hawaii and Australia (Tazmania) to end things before shutting down. Always nice to end with a nice contact to Australia at a bit of 10k miles from my location.

Almost half the contacts I made were with IOTA stations worth 15 points each vs the non-IOTA stations worth 3 points each. Not that I was shooting for any big score, but you can see how big a difference there is. Logs have been uploaded to eQSL, LoTW and sent in to the contest. There is an interesting 2 step confirmation process to submitting your logs for this contest where you need to go online, add some additional information and confirm your submission.

Here’s a screenshot of the contacts made which you can click to enlarge:

Here’s the score summary:

  Band  Mode  QSOs    Pts  Sec
     7  LSB      2     18    1
    14  CW       6     42    2
    14  USB     58    486   24
 Total  Both    66    546   27

 Score : 14,742

73 & stay cool,
K2DSL