Space history interest kindled by HAM radio?

With regard to the thread about influential books getting young people
fired up about space, I followed another road.

It would have been great to have HAM radio aboard the Skylab, but
despite Owen Garriott's attempts to do so, it was flagged as superfluous
by mission planners. Today, we know how decisive amateur radio has been
in supporting Astronauts and Cosmonauts while on orbit.

My interest in space history was always fired, going back to the launch
of Sputnik, but my friend's old man was an engineer for Sperry and a HAM
to boot. This was intriguing in it's own right, and when the Soviets
had beepers aboard those early satellites, that started me along the
way.

I picked up a radio license just so I could monitor and participate in
conversations between the OSCAR's, the shuttle flights, and MIR. Today
the ARRL has granted me a satellite station in my classroom so my sixth
graders can participate as well. Amateur radio puts the space missions
within reach, and I urge others to look into getting licensed.

Who else in the group is a licensed ham?

RDG N1MDZ

RDG wrote:

Today, we know how decisive amateur radio has been
in supporting Astronauts and Cosmonauts while on orbit.

Could you go into more detail on this? Has it been useful in just crew
to family, friends, and radio hobbyist communications, or has it also
served some mission-critical functions?

Pat

On Mon, 13 Oct 2003 16:42:06 -0400, RDG wrote:

Who else in the group is a licensed ham?

....When code is dropped in favor of a somewhat beefed-up theory &
applications exam for all classes except for Advanced & AE, and voice
privs are given for all classes from Novice up under 30MHz, then I'll
finally get my license.


OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

...When code is dropped in favor of a somewhat beefed-up theory &
applications exam for all classes except for Advanced & AE, and voice
privs are given for all classes from Novice up under 30MHz, then I'll
finally get my license.

OM

I believe thats pretty much whats occured.The number of licensed HAMS was
dropping a lot. So for that and other reasons code is out, except for advanced
extra licenses. Not a ham myself I do attend hamfests and have friends and
realtives who are licensed.

They had little choice too few hams and their frequency allocations would be
sapped up in a heartbeat

OM, hope to see you licensed soon. The code is no longer required for
the Technician license, which allows you to work most of the hamsats,
including ISS. 5 wpm code allows you to jump to the General class, which
includes all the HF frequencies as well. 10 wpm puts you at the Amateur
Extra level, which many still go to, although I won't go beyond my
General.
The code is still a die-hard method of communicating, actively used in
moonbounce, but digital modes are what the satellite ops are using, along
with FM voice.

RDG

Could you go into more detail on this? Has it been useful in just crew
to family, friends, and radio hobbyist communications, or has it also
served some mission-critical functions?

Pat

Pat, may I suggest you look at a copy of "Dragonfly", which chronicles the
story of Astronauts aboard MIR. When things got really bad aboard the
space station, the Russians usurped all comm time, arguably for good
reasons, and the Astros got iced out. 2 meter ham operators became the
connection for the Astronaut aboard and Houston as well as his home (Jerry
Linnenger, I think). He ferried his data to Earth via a Ham operator on
the California coast. By the time he cross the continent, messages had
been sent back up to him.

RDG

RDG wrote:

Pat, may I suggest you look at a copy of "Dragonfly", which chronicles the
story of Astronauts aboard MIR. When things got really bad aboard the
space station, the Russians usurped all comm time, arguably for good
reasons, and the Astros got iced out.


Got a copy; will reread it regarding that aspect...by the way- the Oscar
satellites fall well within the purview of this group's charter- do you
have any data and specifics regarding their construction, cost,
capabilities, and operational flight history?
I saw a news report once of parts of them being purchased from the
local Walmart and Radio Shack- now _that's_ better, faster, and cheaper
if I ever heard of it.
This would be a fascinating topic for discussion.

Pat

On Mon, 13 Oct 2003 21:46:05 -0400, RDG wrote:

OM, hope to see you licensed soon. The code is no longer required for
the Technician license, which allows you to work most of the hamsats,
including ISS. 5 wpm code allows you to jump to the General class, which
includes all the HF frequencies as well. 10 wpm puts you at the Amateur
Extra level, which many still go to, although I won't go beyond my
General.

....In order:

1) 5wpm is *still* a waste of time. From my own scans of the HF bands,
very little code is heard these days. In fact, in December of last
year, just for ****s and grins I fired up the old Knight R100A - after
I reseated two tubes and the BFO XTAL *again* - and scanned the world.
I found exactly *one* CW QSO, and it didn't last very long. The Japs
dropped the code reqs years ago, and the rest of the world should
follow suit. If anything, code should be the delimiter between General
and Adv/AE levels.

2) General is 5?? Since when? AE is 10wpm? When the hell did it drop
down from the unachievable 20wpm?? If that's the case, what did
Advanced drop down to from the 13 it used to be?

The code is still a die-hard method of communicating, actively used in
moonbounce, but digital modes are what the satellite ops are using, along
with FM voice.

....Don't get me wrong: CW's a great thing to know how to do,
especially since it's the one sure-fire way of getting data past
post-atomic interference. But it's kept more people out of Ham radio
than the theory exams, and I've seen more than my share of examiners
who'll deliberately throw curveballs in their exams to make applicants
fail in hopes they'll go practice harder before trying again. That's
why some of the examiner friends I palled around with in the 80's
secretly gave applicants the option to either pass the code or pass
the General exam without a code test to get a Novice or Technician
license. Pretty much all of the applicants took the theory-only option
gladly.

....Now, as to why with friends like that I didn't go for the license
back then, it was a manner of principle - I want code reqs abolished,
period - and the fact that I didn't have any room whatsoever for any
rigs or antennas, and I *hate* working QRP ops :-P

OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

On Tue, 14 Oct 2003 00:07:49 -0500, Pat Flannery
wrote:

Got a copy; will reread it regarding that aspect...by the way- the Oscar
satellites fall well within the purview of this group's charter- do you
have any data and specifics regarding their construction, cost,
capabilities, and operational flight history?

....Tons of links. After you've checked out Mark Wade's page on the
OSCARs, check out these others:

http://www.friends-partners.ru/partn...raft/oscar.htm

http://www.spacetoday.org/Satellites...atsBasics.html

http://www.amsat.org/amsat/sats/n7hpr/satsum.html

http://www.infoage.org/p-06Oscar.html

http://www.mindspring.com/~n2wwd/html/catalog_info.html

http://www.amsat.org/

http://www.qsl.net/ky4ky/tom0305.htm

http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/clivew/oscar11.htm

http://www.heavens-above.com/amateursats.asp

http://www.uk.amsat.org/

http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~ptitze/amsatvk/

http://www.r-clarke.org.uk/satdata1.htm

http://www.w9gm.com/Satellite_1.html


OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
...

RDG wrote:

Pat, may I suggest you look at a copy of "Dragonfly", which chronicles
the
story of Astronauts aboard MIR. When things got really bad aboard the
space station, the Russians usurped all comm time, arguably for good
reasons, and the Astros got iced out.


Got a copy; will reread it regarding that aspect...by the way- the Oscar
satellites fall well within the purview of this group's charter- do you
have any data and specifics regarding their construction, cost,
capabilities, and operational flight history?
I saw a news report once of parts of them being purchased from the
local Walmart and Radio Shack- now _that's_ better, faster, and cheaper
if I ever heard of it.
This would be a fascinating topic for discussion.

Pat


Yes and Yes.

G. Beat
W9GB
AMSAT-NA and AMSAT-UK