Amateur radio ⁽²⁵⁰⁾

Two pics from today's ISS SSTV test... This is a screenshot after the fact, I was not around to witness it. The ISS had already moved out of range for me by the time I got to the PC (ok, by the time I woke up!). I was there for the next one at around 10am UTC. The signal came in strong at first but faded out very badly after a few seconds, and then faded completely out after that so it's not much of a pic. These are received on 437.800 and given my internal collinear struggles a bit to receive the SSTV images on 145.800 it is probably not surprising that this UHF digital test faired worse. But the blocks that make it through are nice and clear.ss

I've had a Yaesu FTM100DE for a while now and for all that while it has had a USB adapter plugged in and doing nothing. The adapter, SCU-20 came with the transceiver. Anyway, I wondered what it could be use for. The handbook discusses it being used to extract GPS data and packet data and a quick search found some software, APRSIS32 for Windows (see http://aprsisce.wikidot.com ) that talks to various transceivers. So, software loaded, I needed a driver from Yaesu. Here's where it begins to get a little tedious as those of you who have had to go looking for drivers will no doubt know. First port of call was the Yaesu site and a search for FTM100. Ok, found that. Now 'files' and ... a driver for a SCU-19. Searches for SCU-20 found a PDF which contained the filename of the driver but not the source. I eventually found it... under the files for the FTM400. And that was the hardest part. Driver in, USB lead connected, APRSIS32 loaded and a few parameters configured and there is it. The software will also send messages etc. but apparently Yaesu do not allow their kit, or at least the kit…

I am slowly getting kit together for 2.4GHz and 10GHz. So far I have SSPAs for both bands, one which will hopefully enable me to get onto the wideband DATV part of QO100, and the other as part of a 10GHz setup. I got a Goobay LNB from eBay a while ago. My plan for this was to build it into a POTY for QO100 but I acquired a ready-made POTY that had an input for a 25MHz clock signal and that all works fine. So I wondered if this LNB could be persuaded to receive 10.368GHz. Fortunately I had not got as far as pulling it apart. The LNB is marked 67321, input range 10.7 to 12.75GHz, local oscillator frequencies at 9.75 and 10.6GHz. Reading up on LNBs in general was advice that one can use the 24th harmonic of a 70cm handheld held in front of the LNB to generate a 10GHz signal. This I had to try and with a bias-tee feeding 12V to the LNB and an SDRPlay RSP2 and SDRUno it does in fact work. Transmitting on 432MHz should have, in theory generated a peak at 618MHz on the SDR (10368 - 9750) but it…

Yeah ok, naff title. A new toy arrived today, I've been thinking about getting one of these for a while now and not doing anything about it. The lack of accessible (i.e. ones not too far away) radio rallies puts a damper on acquiring stuff so this was an eBay find. The meter had no slugs but I had ordered a couple from Vintage Electronics as well and all arrived at the same time. Of course I had to test it having never used one before, but as my radio's and patch leads are all currently PL259 I had to use an adapter. Actually three adapters! I ended up going from the rig via an SO239 to BNC male, BNC female to SMA male, and SMA female to N male! But hey, it works. And yes, I really do intend to convert to all N type connectors here… I even have them ready to make up. Lazy...

I received a few reasonable images early this morning between 5 and 6am. Hopefully later passes will yield better images. These were received on a 2m FM set with a loft mounted collinear, and decoded by qsstv on Linux.