Hyderabad Hams Develop Low Cost Transverter for QO-100 Satellite

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Hyderabad Hams Develop Low Cost Transverter for QO-100 Satellite

Radio amateurs in Hyderabad have developed low-cost equipment to communicate via the geostationary satellite QO-100 amateur transponder

A group of Radio Amateurs in the city are literally making waves after they succeeded in indigenously designing and testing low-cost equipment that could help the Hams communicate via QO-100 geo-synchronous satellite.

In what is certain to be a game changer for the radio amateur community, five Hyderabad-based Ham operators have made prototypes of down and up converters for the QO-100 satellite. Use of this equipment, would enable any Ham operator in practicing satellite communication, which hitherto would have forced them to invest heavy amounts.

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SSTV Sked from ISS

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Russian cosmonauts on the International Space Station (ISS) are planning to transmit slow-scan TV (SSTV) images on 145.800MHz FM using the SSTV mode PD-120.

The transmissions will be made from RS0ISS in the Russian ISS service module.

The dates are planned as the 6 August 2021 from 1050 to 1910UTC, and the 7 August 2021 from 0950 to 1555UTC.

As always, these dates and times could change depending on operations onboard the ISS.

The signal should be receivable on a handheld with a quarter-wave whip.

If your rig has selectable FM filters, try the wider filter for 25kHz channel spacing.

ISS Pass Times - http://amsat.org/track

AO-109 (RadFxSat-2/AMSAT Fox-1E) Open for Amateur Use

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AMSAT’s Engineering and Operations Teams have announced that AO-109 (RadFxSat-2/AMSAT Fox-1E) is now open for amateur use. AMSAT advises operators to use efficient modes for making contacts, such as CW or FT4, because issues with the satellite make SSB voice contacts “challenging at best.” An article in the May/June 2021 issue (Vol. 44, No. 3) of The AMSAT Journal details the various attempts to characterize AO-109 and its apparent problems.