[amsat-bb] [Video] UNCUT AO-91 demo (impromptu Christmas Eve demo)

[John Brier]

https://youtu.be/w7Ukh_nT2Tg

This is an uncut and lightly edited video I made mostly so Blair (the ham
who saw and joined me at the 8 minute mark) could see it. I normally only
upload highly edited videos (24, 32 or more hours of editing). Even though
it doesn't meet my normal standards I figured others besides Blair might
still be interested.

2017-12-24 1753 UTC

03:05 Bird comes in strong
04:58 YV6CR FJ78 Contacted? he said WP3KG
07:42 KG3GDS FN00 CONTACTED
08:00 Blair arrives - demo begins
09:02 KE4AL EM761 CONTACTED
09:16 WO3T FN00 CONTACTED
09:29 K3RRR CONTACTED
10:22 ???MTS FN32 Contacted? What was prefix?
13:00 KC3GFZ FN00 CONTACTED
13:13 WN9Q EN64 CONTACTED

This is from the Christmas Eve AO-91 pass at 1753 UTC (2017-12-24). I was
just having a little fun for myself before I left Raleigh for Wilmington to
be with my parents for Christmas. About halfway through the pass, Blair,
another ham, saw me from his car in this shopping lot and came over, so I
did I did a little demo for him.

I was lucky because I recently made a cable for my Kenwood TM-V71 to pull
the audio off the DATA pin. This cable allowed me to get audio into my
recorder and play audio from the radio's speaker simultaneously. Normally I
plug a cable into the speaker out port but that disables the internal
speaker.

I made the cable originally so I could decode the Data Under Voice (DUV)
telemetry from AO-91 during commissioning, which helps the engineers
determine if the bird is okay. You need the unfiltered audio because the
data is all below 200 hz, which is normally filtered from speaker out.

Unfortunately, even using the supposedly unfiltered audio from the DATA pin
I still couldn't get the FoxTelem software to decode anything. But without
this cable if I wanted someone else to hear the audio I would have to hook
up a splitter in front of the recorder and run a second cable to an
external speaker. I couldn't have done that in time for Blair to hear, or
it would have been a lot of effort for not a lot of gain because the pass
might have been over before I got it all hooked up.

I also have another proper AO-91 video I'm making. It is from the second
daytime pass right after it was commissioned about a month ago (on the US
Thanksgiving holiday).

To those that celebrate it, Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays to everyone
else!

73, John Brier KG4AKV

P.S. I think my phone's tracking app was set for a location I was at the
previous day about 40 minutes from where I live, so it was off slightly as
far as timing and max elevation. The pass was actually about 72 degrees max
elevation, not 67 or whatever I told Blair, and when I thought the bird was
at 2 degrees during the last contact,  it was actually about 4 or 5 degrees
elevation.