I've been a ham since 1993. In these last 15+ years:
I've talked on many repeaters, mostly 2 meters. Sometimes on 220. A bunch on 440, once on 10 meters, QSO's made a-plenty.
I've tried many modes, some IRLP nodes, a few on EchoLink. Mainly voice and some APRS, on CW I doth stink.
[enough poetry]
I've sent balloons to near-space, talked to astronauts in space, talked to a couple of hams using repeaters in space, and been told I take up too much airspace.
I've been a VP in one club, President of another, activities director in the club where I eventually became VP, and my public service has been serendipitous. I've done bike races, track races, car races, walk-a-thons, dance-a-thons, marathons, and telethons.
I've been kicked out of more clubs and groups than I can count.
I've called nets on repeaters and HF of all sorts. Tech nets, emergency prep nets, swap nets, ragchew nets, and even a trivia net. SKYWARN nets were the ones I excelled at, until a couple of powermongering ingrates decided I was in their way...
I've done foxhunts, field days, and QSO parties time and again. I've talked to all 7 continents, all 50 states, several dozen countries, and many more remain. [Okay, so I wasn't done with limericks].
I've owned Kenwoods, Yaesus, Radio Shack, and Alinco. I've also had an Icom or two, but boy did they stink-o... [sorry]
I've used MFJ, for TNCs, antenna tuners and a mic. I've used dipoles, J-poles, beams, and the like.
I've dabbled with PSK31, APRS, ATV, SSTV, RTTY, and CW. I've used tube-radios and solid state. I've talked portable, mobile, and from home. In a hotel, camp site, even a church pew...to another ham on the same pew...
I've see the best in ham radio, and experienced the worst ham ops. I've been at odds with friends and foe alike. I've been cursed at by them all. I've been praised more often than that. Politics in ham radio are more vicious than in DC at times.
I've talked from dusk to dawn, dawn to dusk, and all times in between. I've talked on 80 meters, 60, 40, 20, 17, 15, 12, 10, 2, 23cm, and 70cm.
I've been to hamfests in Dayton (Ohio), Dayton (Tennessee), Shelby NC, St. Petersburg FL, and Huntsville AL, along with all the local ones in TN.
I've learned a lot in these 15 years, from standing waves, to forward power, cross mod, propogation, solar cycles, wavelength, modulation, intermod, interference (harmful and unintentional). I've learned a lot about weather, ballooning, physics, chemistry, and even electronics, can you believe?
I've been a Tech, Tech Plus, General, Advanced, and Extra. I've posted in newsletters, recorded for ham news programs, done ham radio web sites, and been featured on TV.
[one final rhyme]
I've been a ham this long and plan to be one for many more. I suppose I'll keep going til I say "nevermore". I may call it quits when it starts becoming a chore. But that may be awhile, because I'm just...about to be 39.
Things have been so hectic that I haven't had time to get on the air. I've not pressured my daughter to studying for her ham ticket further, but with school, it's hard to take time out for that. We talked about it the other day, so I think we'll be back to the books soon.
It looks like Marconi will finally get this accolade he deserves. It's like Babe Ruth not being honored in the Baseball HOF, for those baseball fans out there.
For those who are not familiar with Marconi, first off you should be ashamed of yourself. Are there hockey fans who don't know Wayne Gretzky?
Radio was not "radio" until Marconi came along. He studied the so-called "hertzian waves" around the time of Heinrich Hertz's death. He built upon Hertz's studies of electromagnetic radiation. Through these studies, he transmitted the first wireless signal in 1895, and radio was born.
Although previous work by others had been performed, they could only get a signal to go a few feet. Roughly the same as if your electric mixer interfered with the TV is what it amounted to. When Marconi first transmitted his device, it went about 1.5 miles. He eventually sent signals across open sea and then, in 1901 the first trans-Atlantic signals were sent.
He proved that radio was not just "line-of-sight" and thus the era of "amateur radio" was underway.
Well time to get back to the other things that take precedence. I may let loose on a nagging issue I have, but will hold off. We'll see how things go with that. In the meantime, I hope to get back on the air soon.
I haven't been updating the blog because, really, there's not a lot going on at the moment. Lauren's still learning ham radio, but school took precedence and we're going to do some studying while she's on Christmas break.
Have you ever noticed that the HF bands seem to pick up on Christmas? I got on 10 meters briefly at 10PM Christmas night working a station in Kansas! 10 meters hasn't been much of anything but almost every Christmas, I get a "Christmas miracle" on HF. Two years ago, I worked 3 new countries on 20, 2 on 17, and even got a brief opening on 15. Last year, I worked 17 meters for about an hour, and even worked Australia...or was it Austria? I get those two confused...
10 meters wasn't open for long, though. I went upstairs to try and get the kids off their new Nintendo DS's (courtesy of Santa, who's now broke, mind you...) and into bed, and when I returned the band went quiet.
It seems even in the worst band conditions, the HF bands always seem to come open, even if only for a few minutes. I even heard some 2 meter sporadic E on a couple of repeaters. If I'd had my 2m sideband working I'd have given it a shot.
New Year's day the family's all going to Myrtle Beach for a few days. The last trip to Myrtle Beach, I heard the NWS...from Melbourne, FL! Hopefully I'll be able to work a station or two this time around on my HT.
Just a quick update that Lauren is still interested in learning amateur radio. She's got school and girl scouts and that takes up time. This weekend was especially hectic, and I'm sure next weekend will be just as crazy.
But the stuff we've covered so far she has done very well on. I gave her a sample exam and the first 10 questions she answered perfect. After the 10th question was material we haven't covered yet, but we're getting there.
As for all the other ham radio stuff, I have not been able to get on the air to do anything lately. I've done some "birdwatching" but winter makes opportunities fewer due to the fact the northern hemisphere is in more darkness. I saw the ISS last Thursday but it went into darkness as it was rising over the horizon. It was amazing to watch as it went right alongside Venus and Jupiter, and it was during a spacewalk, so in reality, I saw 4 satellites at the same time. Endeavour, the ISS, and two astronauts.
Before I go, I am wondering when the US hams will get 500 kHz to use? Canada just got them, and only a few US hams are "experimenting" in conjunction with the ARRL. Although I don't have 500 kHz equipment, I think it would be a great excuse to look for new equipment.
My brother and I are both into bird watching. The only difference is, his bird watching occurs in the daytime.
I've been spotting satellites in the sky for well over 25 years. Problem was, I didn't realize it until about the time I graduated high school.
I don't remember when I saw my first artificial satellite, but I do remember it was during a meteor shower while at my grandparents' home in "the sticks" of upper east Tennessee. The sky was clear, there were no city lights to obscure, and the Milky Way was as spectacular as you could imagine.
I spent many a night getting up late/early to catch a meteor shower, usually in the late fall or winter (around the time of the Leonids), and we'd trudge from the house to the nearby field some 100 yards away, where we'd hop on a flatbed hauler and and stare skyward, wrapped in sleeping bags, comforters, blankets, and thick jackets.
Every so often, amongst the skimmers, fireballs and bolides I would see what appeared to be an airplane. But I wouldn't hear any sounds, see any blinking lights, and it would occasionally disappear into thin air. None of us really knew what they were (my mom would assume an airplane too high to hear) and I'd call them "crazy stars". Hey, I was, what, 12, 13 years old at the time?
At that age I couldn't spot the Big Dipper, Little Dipper, Orion, Draco, Aries, Vega, etc. I knew the moon was up there and that was it. Heck, to me, the body of Orion looked like the Big Dipper, and the Pleiades were the little dipper. I thought this for years until I got into high school.
Only in the last few years have I been able to tell a few constellations here and there. It helps to know your constellations when looking for satellites.
I've seen several types of satellites, from the Space Shuttle to the Mir, from the ISS to spy satellites. There are a lot of them up there. There are thousands of objects in orbit, most are space debris, such as spent rocket motors, dead satellites, or in some cases items that shed from satellites. Of the thousands of objects in orbit, many are too small to be tracked.
So, how is it possible we can see a satellite in the middle of the night? Quite simply, it's dark on the ground, but up in space where the satellite is, the sun is still shining. It will reflect the sunlight off the body or the solar panels, or both, and those who are looking up can possibly see it cruising by. Usually when you see them, they are going into the orbital sunrise or sunset, where the satellite is going into or coming out of the dark side of the earth. Many satellites are polar orbiting, such as NOAA's weather satellites or reconnaissance satellites for the military.
Most of the satellites you can see are called Low-Earth-Orbiting satellites, or LEOs. They are usually between 100 and 500 miles above earth and circle the earth between 90 to 100 minutes. Normally they range in size from disco balls to that of a school bus. The largest (and brightest) man-made satellite is the International Space Station. We'll start with that one.
The ISS is about as bright as Venus when it moves across the sky. Even in the largest of cities, the ISS can still be seen. It takes little effort to view the spacecraft, just a clear sky and a viewing opportunity will be all you need. Sometimes the occupants may be on the station's ham radio, but it depends on the crew's time, and desire to talk.
So the big question is when and where? The best source for starters is the NASA website for novices. Input your country, then state, then city, and you'll get a listing of possible sightings over your city.
In the image shown, the passes for the ISS over my hometown are listed. The MAX ELEV is how high above the horizon (in degrees) the ISS is travelling over my location. 0 degrees is the horizon, and 90 degrees is overhead. The APPROACH and DEPARTURE listings tell you where to look in relation to North.
What you will see is an object that looks like a star or planet (again, as bright as Venus or Jupiter) but is slowly moving across the sky. No blinking lights (that's an airplane) and no sound. If it disappears, it's gone behind the dark side of the earth and out of the sunlight. This will happen after sunset. In the mornings the ISS may suddenly appear out of nowhere as it enters an orbital sunrise.
In the video above, you get an idea what you would be seeing, but a lot brighter than the picture gives justice.
Another web site I recommend for satellite watching is Heavens-Above.com. Heavens-Above has a large satellite database that you can reference. You can register, enter your location (by city, or even by your coordinates) and you can get pass information on various kinds of satellites.
Yet another website with a more in-depth scope of the satellites and various kinds of passes is CalSky. It takes a bit of getting used to, but it's very good at detailing more satellites and more passes of various kinds of "birds".
Real quick, how exactly do these web sites know when a satellite will pass over? A set of mathematical elements known as Keplarian elements are used. By using these elements, these web sites (or with some satellite tracking software) can predict with remarkable accuracy the location, distance, height, speed, and trajectory than an object is traveling around the earth. These elements are updated almost daily by NORAD, which tracks these orbiting objects constantly.
Okay, so I've started you out with the ISS, and given you some sites. Now I want to discuss what kinds of satellites you might see.
We've covered the ISS, but the Space Shuttle and the Soyuz and now the Chinese Shenzhou vehicles are also flying up there are manned space vehicles. I've see the Shuttle before, during, and after docking with the ISS and Mir. One morning a few years ago, just out of the blue, I woke up around 5:30 in the morning. I turned on the TV to NASA Television and found that the shuttle (launched the day before) was flying over Tennessee and about to enter an orbital sunrise, so I quickly rushed outside. No sooner than I look up do I see the Shuttle coming out of the dark straight overhead and zipping off to the Northeast on its way to rendezvous with the ISS some 24 hours later.
I have seen the Soyuz once or twice, the Shuttle countless times, and the ISS is a regular guest. I have yet to see the Shenzhou vehicles. Usually by the time the elements are published by NORAD and trickled down to the public sites, the Soyuz and Shenzhous have docked or landed.
Another type of satellite is the unmanned active space vehicles such as the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) or the NOAA weather satellites, or military reconnaissance satellites. Hubble is another popular object to look for in the skies, but it's primarily viewable in the lower lattitudes. The HST will never fly directly overhead of my location in Knoxville, (but I can still see it as it flies south of my location) but if you are in places like Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Texas, and Hawaii, you will see it fly directly overhead more often. Vehicles like the ISS are in higher inclination orbits so that they can cover more of the earth's land mass. Hubble doesn't need that kind of orbit (it's looking out towards space, not in towards the earth) and so its orbit is closer to the equator. Below is Hubble's orbit:
And this is the ISS:
Notice the steeper "sine wave" of the ISS orbit. As you can see, more of the earth's land is covered by the ISS. This allows more sighting opportunities in the higher lattitudes like Alaska and Canada and even Antarctica. Canada never sees HST.
However, those in the higher lattitudes aren't out of luck. The polar orbiting satellites are plentiful and are visible even from the poles.
The image above is of a polar orbiting satellite. While not completely vertical, you can see that the orbit is almost in synch with the solar terminator and is nearly in constant sunlight. This is advantageous to those looking for birds during the winter, when the increasing darkness decreases the opportunities to view the lower lattitude satellites such as HST.
Inactive space vehicles are satellites that have died or malfunctioned, or rocket parts and motors that were used to carry the working satellite into orbit and were separated from the working satellite and placed in a decaying orbit that will eventually cause it to burn up in the earth's atmosphere. Inactive satellites are basically space junk that are uncontrolled and their orbital track seldom changes.
Many of the inactive/junk satellites will actually be tumbling or spinning, and will flash as it passes overhead. Other satellites that are active may get brighter or dimmer as the sunlight reflection off the solar panels change. Zi Yuan 2 is an example of a tumbling satellite. Launched by the Chinese as a reconnaissance satellite, it is in a polar orbit that keeps it nearly in constant sunlight, and it will often pass overhead and vary in brightness from nearly invisible to extremely bright.
Another tumbler that caught my attention is the SL-16 Rocket Booster (R/B). I was looking for the ISS one night and saw this bird coming from the southwest, but thought it was an airplane. My attention was diverted to another satellite but this one kept in the corner of my eye until I finally focused on it and realized it was in fact a tumbling satellite, and spinning very rapidly. Definitely worth looking for.
The most prominent flares are from the Iridium satellites. These flares will get extremely bright, several times brighter than even the ISS. They will initially be almost invisible to the naked eye, then steadily increase in brightness until it peaks, then quickly fades. Below is an example of an Iridium flare:
Below is an example of a tumbling satellite:
It's hard to see the tumbler until halfway through the video. Sometimes Heaven's-Above and Calsky will not list tumbling satellites when doing a search on satellites that pass over your location, due to their varying brightness. But they are a great resource for locating Iridium flares, even in the daytime.
So, can you view satellites from anywhere? Pretty much. The ISS being the biggest object and the brightest, it can be seen from downtown Manhattan. Other satellites, however, require a bit of work. But even with my being on the fringes of the city, I can see even the dimmest of satellites using a clear sky and a pair of binoculars. More often than not (and comparatively speaking I'm still a novice) I see satellites that don't show up on the lists I create from these web sites. I will post to a mailing list I'm subscribed to and the users on that list will often pinpoint the satellite I was viewing.
A clear and dark sky is your best setting for spotting satellites. I've gone back to my grandparents' home on occasion, my mother-in-law has some land with no nearby lighting, and I've even gone up to Clingman's Dome in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to spot many of the dimmer ones. If you can see the Milky Way, you are in an ideal location for "bird watching".
I hope this is a good starting point for you. There are plenty of resources online to help get you started in the hunt for satellites. Get started with the ISS, and go from there. There are many who have turned satellite watching into an art form. They even go after the geosynchronous satellites, especially during the periods when the sun is at the equatorial region, and the chances of catching a geosat flare are most likely to occur.
You don't have to be an expert, you don't even have to run pass predictions to step outside and look up for a few minutes after dark or before dawn. But it helps to know what you're looking for, and when and where. So step outside tonight and do a little "bird watching" of your own.
On the way home from visiting family, I talked to my daughters (ages 8 and 6) and asked them "so, would you like to learn how to be a ham operator?" and enthusiastically, both answered "yes" repeatedly until I told them I got it.
It made me feel good to know they were both interested. Already, I'm thinking about those applications to the ARRL for scholarships in 10 years...better keep my membership current!!!
It's not too terribly surprising, really, at least for the older of the two. Lauren's been listening to me talk on the radio during Field Day (the above picture was taken when she was two), launch balloons, and even read off a weather warning during a recent SKYWARN net.
I'm glad this is one thing that runs in the family. Not just my wife and I, but my wife's youngest sister also had her license at age 13. Supposedly my father-in-law had one but he was more into CB than ham radio, mainly because he didn't like power limitations...
Some friends of ours from Bristol, TN have a son who go his ticket about a year or so ago. He's active in their SKYWARN group and likes it thus far.
So now I have at least one who's looking to get ticketed soon, my other one, Amber, I'm not so sure of, at least not yet. Granted, if she got her license it would be big news around here since she's 6 (7 in a couple of weeks) and to have both of them licensed might turn a few heads. Question is, how do I teach them, and how will they administer the exam?
I'll probably start online and look over the sample questions, then talk with them about what this means, or what that indicates, or how something works, etc. Then we'll see if they're still interested. Between Brownie Scouts, school and the possibility I may become a soccer mom before too long, I don't know if I'll keep their attention long enough to get their ham tickets.
I know that the VEs can administer an oral exam, which they'll have to do for Amber since she's not reading at that level yet, and probably give one to Lauren. Even though she's an excellent reader, she sometimes has issues with the comprehension, and I don't want her to just memorize the questions and answers, I want them to understand why something works this way or that.
Like all things around here, time will tell if I succeed or not. If I do, George will have the exclusive on that story...
So I was browsing the Coke Rewards site while on lunch today, and was somewhat taken aback by what appeared to be a really weak photoshop job by the Coca-Cola folks of pasting gymnast Shawn Johnson's head over someone else's in a shot showing "Olympians" with Coke gear.
The first image, which I screen captured (full size when you click on it) is edited to show the "original" and the blown up portion to the right. Skin texture, facial structure, hairstyle, and the fact America's newest sweetheart of the gymnastics world (Mary Lou who?) wouldn't be caught dead wearing that type of outfit all point to weak shop-fu for the Coke conglomerate. Plus, I don't think Shawn's neck is all that giraffe-like...
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Came back from San Diego a couple weeks back but haven't had much to do with ham radio other than updating the TWIAR web site, and even then I didn't do it right. Came home from Dollywood and George had a message on my machine about the web site not updated. I had the pages updated but forgot to upload them to the site. Short story but the passwords to the pages got corrupted and I got sidetracked working to reset them and forgot to upload the new pages.
As for San Diego, I can't figure it, I was able to hit a couple of repeaters but unfortunately no one wanted to talk. I did the simple "K4HSM listening", then tried "K4HSM stroke 6 listening", then even tried "K4HSM stroke 6 listening for anyone on repeater". Nothing.
I tried daytime and nighttime, and couldn't get anyone to even key up to tell em to "get off the damned repeater" or that I was "doing it wrong", whatever.
I did hear a couple of QSO's but I wasn't able to jump into the conversation at that moment. I suppose if I head back out to San Diego (doubtful at this time) I'll need to bring a mobile and power supply to hook up from the hotel room.
As for the home station, all radios are still unplugged (I did this when I left the first time, just in case a thunderstorm tried something while I was away) and I haven't had any urge to get on the air and talk to anyone. Just another lull I'm going through I suppose, but hopefully when the Tennessee QSO party revs up I'll get the bug back. It tends to bring the excitement back in, much the same as Field Day or a balloon launch.
Look for me to be on the air on 20 and 40 voice. The frequencies they recommend are 7240 and 14280, so I'll probably be in that vicinity.
Follow me on Twitter as I attempt to update where I am on that feed.
