[amsat-bb] Possible satellite operation: an upcoming special event station/ham radio demos

[Philip Jenkins]

I'm going to be heavily involved with a special event station - and ham
radio demos for the public - at a 10 day long regional (multi-county) Fair
starting September 11. This is the  third year for our multi-club effort as
N4F; see the details of what we're doing and have done in the past on pages
65-66 of September 2015 QST, and  HamRadioNow.tv, episode 171. (Email me
off-list if you want to know more, have questions, about what we're doing
at the NC Mountain State Fair  after reading the article or seeing the
video.)

This  year we're going to try to add some satellite activity, and since I'm
the only one in this area with any satellite experience (which is a gross
overstatement :-) ), I'm looking for ideas from this bulletin board for a
list of potential demos.

I posted earlier about dual-band tape measure antennas (we may even try to
build some at the Fair) to be used for SO-50, but mainly those will be for
transmitter hunts. We just want to show the public how easy - and
inexpensive - it can be to build some of your own equipment.

Linear sats are pretty much out, unless I take my TS-2000 to the
Fairgrounds, and even then I won't be there all the time. So that is low on
the possibility list.

Some things I have batted around are:

1) Dedicated APRS station for ISS

2) Dedicated Weather Fax reception station

3) SO-50 demos

4) ISS voice contacts (I know this is very hit or miss)

5) IF the ISS were doing SSTV picture downloads like twice earlier this
year....I know this isn't going to happen :-) Are there any satellites
currently sending pictures on a regular basis?

6) Are there any satellites with easily decodable telemetry?


So I'm very open to other ideas, and even open as to what not to even
consider.. Email me off the list if you like - N4HF at AMSAT.ORG; I know that
replies via the bulletin board can get rather long and unwieldy when the
original email broaches so many ideas (like this one)

Thanks

Philip N4HF