[amsat-bb] Turned the corner on AISAT-1 APRS digipeats

[Robert MacHale]

Thanks for sharing! Is the new APRS radio on the ISS also NARROW-FM? I have heard people mention something similar.
73
Robert MacHale. KE6BLR Ham Radio License. http://spaceCommunicator.club/igates
. Supporting Boy Scout Merit Badges in Radio, Robotics, and Space Exploration
 

    On Wednesday, July 3, 2019, 8:27:20 PM PDT, Scott via AMSAT-BB <amsat-bb at amsat.org> wrote:  
 
 Greetings!

Being smart would be cool, but sometimes it's just easier to be lucky.

Since the launch of AISAT-1, I have really struggled to get digipeated thru
that satellite.  At best, I could get in a single digipeat but only at the
exact moment of closest approach on a high pass.  Armed with seeing that
repeatedly, I thought doppler tracking the 145.825 FM uplink might help,
but it did not.

So tonight (4-July UTC), by pure coincidence, there was a high pass of
AISAT-1 immediately following a pass of PSAT-2.  Following Bob's (WB4APR)
recommendation to use NARROW-FM on PSAT-2 (worked well), I thought "what
the heck", I'll leave my radio set on NARROW-FM for the pass of AISAT-1 as
well.  I'll even doppler track the AISAT-1 uplink while I'm at it.

Boom.  Got digipeated left and right.  Well before and after closest
approach, I got digipeated.  I didn't go crazy since I'm always so afraid
of blocking out other people on a simplex satellite, but I hit it enough to
see the night & day difference from what I'd been experiencing since
deployment.

If it's in the docs somewhere I missed it, but is sure seems to me that,
like PSAT-2, AISAT-1 might very well be equipped with a NARROW-FM radio.

It would be great to see if others find as much improvement as I did, so I
hope some folks will try AISAT-1 using NARROW-FM on the 145.825 APRS
digipeater.

73,

-Scott,  K4KDR
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