[amsat-bb] Re: ISS Packet activity? I'm having problems and getting frustrated

[Joe Veldhuis]

Is your radio's squelch on? If it doesn't open fast enough, the beginning of the packet will be cut off and thus it won't decode. It's best to run with open squelch.

Is your RX audio level too low or too high? Is there noise or hum in the audio? Any of these will make decoding any packet signal almost impossible.

Is there QRN on the frequency? Noise from faulty power lines, industrial equipment or consumer electronics, even if unnoticed by ear, can render the downlink undecodable.

-Joe, N8FQ

On Fri, 14 Dec 2007 23:43:09 -0500
Michael Tondee <mat_62 at netcommander.com> wrote:

> Since for the moment I am down to just a two meter mobile for ham 
> equipment, I have been trying to get a setup going for packet and APRS. 
> At the moment I have only been experimenting with the receive side of 
> things  but I'm not having much luck.
> I'm using  a 4 element beam with Az/El tracking that I used to use when 
> working the LEO's along with SatPC32 for rotor control.
> I'm setup with AGWPE and UIview32 using a soundcard. I've tried several 
> passes tuned to 145.825 and so far on just one I was able to get one 
> small packet to decode on the UIView32 terminal screen. I'm not seeing 
> any APRS stations appear on the map and on the last three good passes 
> I've tried I've heard little if any packet activity at all. What am I 
> doing wrong here?
> Is it possible there is no activity on some of the passes? Even when 
> I've heard packets I've only successfully decoded one.
> Tnx for any advice or pointers someone could give,
> 73,
> Michael, W4HIJ
> AMSAT # 36017