[amsat-bb] NA1SS Chats with Lompoc, CA

[David Wing]

I was checking out my equipment and had the ISS rising out of the Pacific.
I rarely try to work the ISS but thought I would give it a try and manually
swung the antennas over to the correct azimuth.

 

I heard some chatter and was initially irritated that someone would be
having a QSO on the downlink frequency but then from the conversation I
realized that it was someone on the ISS describing seeing hurricanes in the
Pacific.  I could not believe my luck that NA1SS was actually working
contacts!  Not being able to hear the uplink, I gingerly threw out my
Callsign a couple of times hoping to get into the rotation and then to my
great embarrassment, it became apparent that NA1SS (Mike Fossum) was working
a school contact in Lompoc, CA.  I sure am glad that I just threw out my
callsign twice  before I clued in on things.

 

At any rate I was able to monitor NA1SS down to about 3 degrees.really
clean, strong signal.  First time for me hearing the ISS because I rarely
check it out and typically don't have SatPC32 even tracking it.  Sure glad I
decided to use it as a test target!

 

73

David

K6CDW