[amsat-bb] Issues with ISS digipeater this morning?

[Patrick STODDARD (WD9EWK/VA7EWK)]

Hi!

On my way to the office this morning, I stopped for an
overhead ISS pass at a nearby city park. The 1437 UTC
pass over central Arizona had a maximum elevation of 75
degrees, which should have had a lot of traffic from
stations along the west coast, southwestern USA, Texas,
and probably some in Mexico before my LOS. Instead, I
heard only a couple of RS0ISS beacons, and I was only
able to get one packet retransmitted by the ISS when it
was over my head at 1442 UTC. The ariss.net web site has
very few retransmitted packets listed, and more of the
RS0ISS ID beacons picked up by various gateways.

On Twitter, Mark KK6OTJ in southern California mentioned
a similar observation from that pass. He heard a couple of
packets, and nothing else.

Has something happened to the VHF radio and/or antenna on
the Columbus module? Or could the CubeSats that were
deployed earlier today have something to do with the lack
of digipeated packets from the ISS in the past few hours?

73!





Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK
http://www.wd9ewk.net/
Twitter: @WD9EWK or http://twitter.com/WD9EWK