Tag Archives: Portable Station

Satellite Station 4.0 Part 9 – Upgraded Simple Portable Station

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Portable Satellite Station

Portable Satellite and Grid Square Activation Station

We were up on Mt. Washington here in New Hampshire this past weekend and decided to use the SOTA activation to test our updated Portable Satellite Station 4.0. It turned out that the station was also a great SOTA and Grid Square Activation station for terrestrial contacts.

An upgraded Portable Satellite Station has been part of our 4.0 Satellite Evolution plan from the start. The goals for the station included:

  • Support for FM and Linear Satellite Contacts
  • Computer Control to handle Doppler Shift
  • A simple, easy-to-deploy portable antenna system for 2m and 70cm
  • Full-Featured 100w/75w Transceiver with External Preamps for good weak-signal performance
  • Quite, Green Power using Solar Energy and Batteries

Station Components

Our upgraded portable station uses the following components:

Portable Antenna System

Elk Antenna on Tripod

We decided to keep our antenna system simple and quick to deploy. We choose a portable 2m/70cm antenna from Elk and mounted it on a camera tripod. A carpenter’s slope gauge is used as an elevation indicator, and our iPhone serves as a compass to point the antenna in the azimuth direction. A weighted bag, a Bungie cord, and a tent stake anchor the tripod in the windy conditions on the mountain. A 15 ft length of LMR-240uF coax with N-connectors makes the connection between the antenna and the rest of the station.

Station Transceiver and Supporting Gear

Portable Station Transceiver and Preamps

We decided to mount the station Transceiver and supporting gear on a piece of plywood to make it easy to transport and set up. The components from the lower right moving counter-clockwise include:

The preamps are powered and sequenced by the IC-910H through its coax outputs. The 70cm side of the second diplexer is used as a filter to prevent transmissions on 2m uplinks from de-sensitizing 70cm downlink signals.

Portable Station Electronics

Using the mounting board for all components allows the station to be deployed quickly and helps ensure reliable operation.

We used a MacBook Air Laptop running MacDoppler to control the transceiver’s VFOs (via a USB CI-V cable). MacDoppler also provided azimuth and elevation data to point the antenna during satellite passes.

Portable Power

Portable Solar-Battery Power System

Powering a 100w radio in a way that allows continuous use for a day can be a challenge. It’s important to do this in a way that does not generate noise so we do not disturb others trying to enjoy the outdoors. We met all these needs using a combination of solar power and batteries.

Portable Solar Power

The primary source of power comes from a pair of 90w foldable solar panels from PowerFilm. The panels are wired in series and connected to an MPPT Charger, which charges a pair of batteries. This approach allows the system to provide usable power when it is cloudy and the voltage output of the solar panels drops.

We use a pair of A123 10 Ah LiPo battery packs to supply high-current capacity when transmitting. The solar-battery combination is capable of maintaining full battery voltage while supporting the continuous operation of our station for a full day.

The MacBook Air Laptop batteries are adequate to operate the station during the available satellite passes. We have a 12V DC to 120 VAC inverter, which can power the computer from our solar battery setup if needed.

Station Performance

View from Mt. Washington Summit

Our portable station did very well during its initial test! I had to move the antennas and operate the station by myself on this activation which limited my ability to make a large number of contacts during the limited number of available satellite passes. Still, I was able to make 6 solid contacts through AO-91 and AO-85 while on Mt. Washington. I did not have a suitable linear satellite pass to make contacts, but I was able to hear the EO-88 beacon with no problems and confirm that the Doppler correction system was working well.

The station also put in a great performance visa-vie 2m terrestrial contacts. We made a total of 70 contacts using 2m FM and USB! We received many good signal reports, with our longest contacts being some 275 mi from our location. We also worked stations on four other SOTAs this way.

Learnings and Next Steps

Our station exceeded my expectations during our initial test on Mt. Washington – especially in terms of the number of Terrestrial Contacts I could make with it. I noticed that the system’s transmit side was quite a bit stronger than the receive side. This is an indication that a better antenna would help.

We changed the antenna polarization to vertical for 2m FM contacts and horizontal for 2m USB contacts. This helped the receive side performance quite a bit.

I found that a headset was essential for satellite and terrestrial weak-signal operation in USB mode. I used the hand microphone and the radio’s speaker for most of the 2m FM contacts I made. This gave interested onlookers a chance to experience Amateur Radio.

Satellite operation would have been much easier and more productive with a helper to handle pointing the antenna while we operated. This improvement must be coupled with a headset/speaker combination that allows the person pointing the antenna to hear the quality of the downlink while moving the antenna and finding the best polarization.

I am looking forward to doing some grid-square activations using our upgraded portable station. It was a pleasant surprise to find as much interest in Terrestrial contacts on the 2m band as we did. The Nashua Area Radio Society does several SOTA activations each year, and I am also looking forward to using that station for these.

Here are links to some additional posts about our Satellite Station 4.0 Projects:

Fred, AB1OC

Field Day Satellites, VHF+ and Fox Hunting

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We will have lots of great activities for folks who are interested in operating on the VHF and above bands at Field Day 2019. Here are some of the activities that we’ll be doing:

  • Satellites Contacts using a Portable Computer Controlled Satellite Station
  • Weak Signal SSB, CW, and FT8 Contacts on 6m, 2m, and 70cm
  • Fox Hunting using Radio Direction Finding (RDF) to find hidden 2m Radio Transmitters
  • Satellite Station, VHF+ Station, and Fox Hunting Training

Source: Field Day Satellites, VHF, and Fox Hunting – Field Day 2019

The Nashua Area Radio Society always brings something new to each Field Day that we do. In addition to our Computer Controlled Satellite Station, we will be adding a state-of-the-art Weak Signal Antenna System and Station to our Field Day 2019 lineup. Our VHF Station will use a dedicated 40 ft Tower with Tower Mounted Preamps and low-loss feedlines. You can see what is going on at Field Day 2019 on 6m and above via the preceding link.

Fred, AB1OC

Final Field Day Station Test

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What goes into an 11A Field Day? Well, for starters, 13 stations! We got together at AB1OC/AB1QB’s QTH a couple of weekends ago to set up ALL of our Field Day stations at once and test them together. Here’s a rundown of our final Field Day Station Test…

Source: Final Field Day Station Test – Nashua Area Radio Society

The Nashua Area Radio Society does a pretty big Field Day Operation each year. We will be 11A for Field Day 2019 with 4 towers up. Did you ever wonder what goes into pulling off a Field Day this large? Well, it’s all about planning and preparation. Take a look at the article above to see some of the preparation that we are doing for Field Day 2019.

Fred, AB1OC

First Winter Field Day For The Nashua Area Radio Society

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AB1OC Operating at Winter Field Day

AB1OC Operating at Winter Field Day

Source: Our First Winter Field Day – The Nashua Area Radio Society

The Nashua Area Radio Society participated in Winter Field Day for the first time this past weekend. We put up a 40 ft tower and we were QRV on all allowed bands from 160m through 2m and 70cm. Our station was a four transmitter one and we produced a great score during the 24-hour operating period. Winter Field Day presents some unique challenges that we did not encounter during Summer Field Day.

We put together a station for 160m for the first time as well as some other new things. You can read all about our approach to a station and operating for Winter Field Day via the link above.

Fred, AB1OC

ISS Crew Contact Part 3 – Summary of Our Preparations

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Nashua Area Radio Society preparations for our upcoming ISS Crew Contact at Hudson Memorial School (HMS) are almost complete. All of our gear is tested and packed, our press release is written, we’ve alterted local news media folks, the students have put together their questions, and have practiced for their contact.

Prioritized ISS Passes for our Crew Contact
Prioritized ISS Passes for our Crew Contact

We are just awaiting notification of the final date and time for our contact and we’ll begin final setup and testing at HMS.

We’ve been sharing our progress as we’ve on the Nashua Area Radio Society’s Youth Forum as we have worked through our final preparations. I also would like to share a summary here along with some insights on what we’ve learned along the way.

An ISS Crew Contact is No Small Undertaking …

Satellite Station 3.0 Antenna System
Satellite Station 3.0 Antenna System Test

We have been working for almost a year now to get ready for our contact. We’ve built and tested two space ground stations and we’ve discovered and addressed several performance and reliability issues with these stations during trial deployments at Field Day, Ham Fests, License Classes, and during testing here at our QTH.

Space Field Trip at HMS
Space Field Trip at HMS

Dan, AC1EN and the faculty team at HMS have expended a great deal of effort with the students at their school to prepare for our contact. Their activities have included:

  • Leading the ARISS Crew Contact Application Process for our contact
  • Integration of Radio Space Science concepts into their student curriculum
  • A Skype contact with a NASA Engineer
  • Visiting the Boston Museum of Science special exhibit on Space and the International Space Station
  • A High Altitude Balloon Project with the Nashua Area Radio Society to learn about Atmospheric Science and Space Communications
  • Space-related student projects including building rovers, participating in an egg drop, and having their pre-engineering program students work on solutions for the ISS
  • Holding a Field Astronomy and STEM night for students and building Amateur Radio into the school’s annual STEM Nights

Audio-Visual Elements are Important and as Challenging as the Ground Station Equipment…

Sound System Mixer
Sound System Mixer

We planned from the very start to provide a shared, multimedia experience as part of our contact. Our plans included:

  • Providing a professional-quality audio and video experience for the students, parents, and faculty members at HMS during our contact
  • Creating a high-quality Video Capture of our Contact
  • Live Streaming our Contact to Facebook so that more Students, Parents, and the Amateur Radio Community could participate in our contact in real-time

Dave, K1DLM who is a member of NARS had extensive professional sound experience and was able to help us with this part of our project.

Audio System for ISS Contactr
Audio System for ISS Contact

Dave put together a professional-level A-V system design to support our contact and provided much of the gear to realize the design. His uses a pair of communications microphones, a pro-mixer, and audio interface gear to provide student and radio audio to the sound system in the auditorium at HMS as well as to an array of video cameras. The system makes extensive use of XLR cabling and pro-level devices to ensure clean audio.

Video Presence on the Internet is an Important Element to Draw Interest in a Project Such as Ours…

We Live Streamed some of our Station Testing activities to Facebook and we were amazed at the interest and response that we received. Many folks worldwide followed our progress on Facebook in real-time as we set up and completed our full station test.

ISS Antenna Camera Test
ISS Antenna Camera Test

We are planning to have two IP Video Cameras Live Streaming to Facebook during our contact. One in the room to provide video of the students as they talk with the astronaut on the ISS and a second on our antennas as they track the ISS.

Its Critically Important to Test the Complete Station Ahead Of Time – New Challenges Emerged when we Mixed Audio and Radio Gear…

Full Station Setup and Test
Full Station Setup and Test

We set up the full station (Primary and Backup) along with all of the Audio and Video Gear about 3 weeks prior to our contact for a complete system test. We learned a great deal in doing this and we encountered several problems which we have since corrected.

On-Air Station Test
On-Air Station Test

The most important issues did not show themselves until we made some contacts with all of the A-V gear in place. We had problems with RF aggravated ground loops in the radio microphone circuits during the initial test. These problems did not show themselves until we added the audio mixer and sound system into the station.

Audio Isolation Transformer
Audio Isolation Transformer

These problems were easily corrected by adding Audio Isolation Transformers into the radio microphone circuits.

XLR Line to Microphone Level Attenuator
XLR Line to Microphone Level Attenuator

We also solved some potential issues related to level differences between line and microphone audio circuits using Audio Attenuators.

These problems were not difficult to solve but they would have seriously degraded our contact if we had not discovered them early while there was still plenty of time to secure parts and retest.

Data Networks in Schools and Public Places Require Configuration Adjustments to Support Contact Elements…

Data Network Test at HMS
Data Network Test at HMS

Schools and other public places typically do a good job of protecting their data networks and users from threats from both the Internet and within the venue. Tracking Programs, IP Cameras for Live Streaming, and other contact support gear are not typical devices that would be in operation on such networks. Also, many public venues rely almost exclusively on WiFi for access to the Internet and typically prohibit or severely limit client devices from communicating with each other.

WiFi can often suffer from RF interference issues when many devices like Smart Phones are located together in a small area. This situation is common in large gatherings.

Data System for ISS Contact

Data System for ISS Contact

We had quite a bit of experience with these problems as part of other school projects we’ve done. We worked closely with the IT staff at HMS to plan for and create a network design to support our contact. We opted to use a wired network approach with a local Ethernet switch to implement the IP communications between the elements in our stations and the associated IP Cameras.

The IT team at HMS configured their network to ensure that the IP addresses of our devices were fixed in DHCP and that devices that needed access to the Internet had the access that they required. The IP cameras where the most challenging elements here.

Packed and Ready to Go…

Equipment Packing and Protection
Equipment Packing and Protection

Well, all of our gear is packed and ready to go for setup on-site at HMS. The next article in this series will cover the on-site set up for our contact.

Fred, AB1OC

A Portable Satellite Station Part 7 – Plans for a 4.0 Station

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Portable Satellite Station 3.0 Antenna System

Satellite Station 3.0 Antenna System

We have begun looking ahead to Satellite Station 4.0 and where we want to go next after our ARISS crew contact is complete. Our goals for the Satellite Station 4.0 include:

  • A permanently installed version of our 3.1 Station which can be operated remotely over the Internet
  • Upgraded Transceivers which add Pan Adapter/Waterfall display capabilities
  • Enhancements to our Transportable 2.1 Station for improved performance
  • A more portable version of our 1.1 Station for Grid Square Activations

New 4.0 Station at our Home QTH

The performance of the 3.1 Station’s antennas is very good but the antenna system is a handful to transport. We are planning to install these antennas on a new tower at our QTH and use our Flex-6700 SDR-based Remote Operating Gateway with some upgrades to create a remotely controlled satellite station that can be operated via the Internet. The main components of the 4.0 Station will include:

The new tower will also provide a new antenna system for the 6m band.

Updated Remote Operating Setup

Flex-6700 SDR-Based Remote Operating Setup

The Flex-6700 SDR and the associated Maestro Remote Unit will enable the 4.0 Station to be remotely operated through the Internet via a Laptop running MacDoppler.

Upgraded Transportable 2.2 Station

Upgrade plans for our Transportable station include the addition of remote switchable polarity relays and a new Icom IC-9700 Transceiver when it becomes available.

Polarity Switch Installed in LEO Pack Antennas

Polarity Switch Installed in LEO Pack Antennas

The polarity switches have been installed on the M2 Antennas 436CP16 and 2MCP8A antennas in our M2 Antennas LEO Pack. We use a DX Engineering EC-4 console to control the antennas’ LHCP or RHCP polarity selection. We have been doing some testing with the upgraded LEO pack, which includes the polarity switching capabilities, and we are seeing a significant improvement in performance.

Alfa Spid Az-El Rotator

AlfaSpid Az-El Rotator

We are also planning to move the upgraded LEO pack antennas to the current 3.1 Tower to take advantage of the AlfaSpid Rotator installed there.

Icom IC-7900 Transceiver

The other major upgrade planned for the 2.2 Station is the new Icom IC-9700 Transceiver when it becomes available. This radio will utilize Icom’s SDR platform and includes a Pan Adapter/Waterfall display which will be a very useful addition for operation with Linear Transponder Satellites.

Upgraded Portable 1.2 Station

We enjoy mountain topping and activating grid squares, so we are planning upgrades to our 1.2 Station for this purpose.

Our 1.2 Portable Satellite Station on Mt. Kearsarge

Our 1.2 Portable Satellite Station on Mt. Kearsarge

The 1.2 Station utilizes computer control to enable operation with linear transponder satellites and will use solar/battery power along with a 100w/70w Icom IC-910H Satellite Transceiver.

Solar Panels

Solar Panels

A pair of 90W foldable solar panels, an MPPT solar charger, and two LiPo 4S4P A123 batteries provide plenty of power to run the IC-910H Transceiver and the associated computer. The portable station also includes a pair of ARR preamps.

Portable Satellite Antenna System

Portable Satellite Antenna System

The antenna system we’ll be using is an Elk Portable Log Periodic 2m/70cm yagi on a camera tripod. Combining a compass and an angle finder gauge helps us correctly point the antenna.

As you can probably tell, all of these upgrades are in progress and at various completion stages. We will post updates here on our Blog as we continue to make progress. Here are links to some of these posts:

Fred, AB1OC

Fall Youth Events at Boxboro and NEAR-Fest

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Quite a few Nashua Area Radio Society members have been working on a display to get young people and potential new Hams interested in Amateur Radio. Our display will be part of the New England Amateur Radio Convention in Boxboro, MA on September 8th and 9th. We are also planning a similar display for NEAR-Fest at Deerfield Fairgrounds, NH later in the fall. You can see more about our planned display and the associated hands-on activities via the following link.

Source: Fall Youth Events at Boxboro and NEAR-Fest – Nashua Area Radio Society

I want to share some information about an Amateur Radio event that we will be doing at the Boxboro, MA Ham Radio Convention in September. Our display and hands-on activities provide an introduction to Amateur Radio for young people and include information and a chance to try Amateur Radio activities such as:

You can read more about our plans for the event via the link above.

Morse Trainer Kit

Morse Trainer Kit

We’ve been working with Steve Elliot, K1EL to develop an inexpensive kit building project to include as part of our displays. We will be including a new kit building activity in as part of our display. Builders can purchase the Morse Trainer Kit shown above for $20 and build it at the show. We will provide soldering equipment and kit building mentors to help builders complete their kit. The package includes batteries and a printed manual. We will have these kits available for walk-up purchase at the show on both Saturday and Sunday.

I am also planning to provide forum presentation on the following topics on Saturday at Boxboro:

  • Creating Successful Youth Outreach Projects
  • Portable Satellite Station Design, Operation, and Planning for an upcoming ISS Crew Contact
  • STEM Learning for Young People via High Altitude Balloons Carrying Amateur Radio

You can view the Boxboro Forum schedule here.

I hope to see folks who follow our Blog at the New England at the Boxboro Convention. If you can make it, stop by our display or visit us in the forums and say “hello”.

73,

Fred, AB1OC

An Optimized 40m High Performance Antenna for Field Day

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40m V-Beam Wire Antenna at Field Day

40m V-Beam Wire Antenna at Field Day

The Nashua Area Radio Society has been using a 3-element wire beam antenna for Field Day for the last several years. The antenna uses three guyed 50 ft. fiberglass masts from Max-Gain Systems. The antenna uses three inverted-V style elements separated by a little over 50 ft. Since we are in the northeastern United States, we can point the antenna on a fixed 260° heading, which covers the entire U.S. well.

40m V-Beam - EZNEC Antenna View

40m V-Beam – EZNEC Antenna View

Our 40m V-Beam antenna was initially designed in EZNEC 5.0. It was manually optimized for decent gain and front-to-back performance, and it worked quite well. Recently, we decided to try automatic optimization software on the antenna as part of a tune-up on the design for Field Day 2018. After looking around on the Internet a bit, we discovered a software package called AutoEZ, which looked ideal for my project.

AutoEZ Antenna Modeling and Optimization Software - Wires Tab

AutoEZ Antenna Modeling and Optimization Software – Wires Tab

AutoEZ is a collection of Visual Basic code and Microsoft Excel macros that act as a front-end to EZNEC 5.0 and later. AutoEZ provides a number of very useful enhancements to EZNEC, including:

  • Ability to use formulas and variables to construct and modify EZNEC wire models
  • A Test Case generator and execution environment to vary model parameters and graph the results calculations run by EZNEC
  • An automatic optimizer that can adjust the parameters of an antenna model in EZNEC to optimally meet a defined set of performance goals
  • Harnesses the full power of Microsoft Excel formulas for trigonometry, logical, and other mathematical capabilities for use in EZNEC modeling
AutoEZ Antenna Model Variables

AutoEZ Antenna Model Variables

The first step in the project was to rebuild the EZNEC model that I already had for our 40m V-Beam antenna in AutoEZ. I began by defining several AutoEZ Variables and Excel Formulas in the AutoEZ Variables Tab, which enabled me to easily modify the design of the antenna and to optimize it. Some of the basic variables included the target design frequency for the antenna, the height and separation of the antenna elements, the distance to the element anchor points, and the length of the element wires.

AutoEZ Antenna Model Variables (Formulae View)

AutoEZ Antenna Model Variables (Formula View)

The image above shows the model variables in “Formula View.” You can see some of the math and trig functions that were used to compute values for some of the variables. AutoEZ can only optimize variables that do not contain formulas. Hence, I was careful to ensure that the base separation between the elements and the length of the element wires were Constants, as these are the parameters that I wanted to optimize later.

AutoEZ Antenna Modeling and Optimization Software - Wires Tab

AutoEZ Antenna Modeling and Optimization Software – Wires Tab

Excel Trig formulas and the Variables were used on the Wires Tab to determine the coordinates of the wires in the antennas. There are a total of 7 wires in the model. Six are the two ends of the three inverted-V elements. The Seventh wire is a short 4″ section in the middle of the Driven Element to allow a current source to be inserted to drive the antenna there. I was careful to create an accurate model of the wire gauge, insulation, and loss that we are using for our V-beam

Model Variables to be Optimized

Model Variables to be Optimized

With the model built, it was back to the Variables Tab to select the parameters to be optimized. Optimization is best done as a multi-pass process, and I did this in two steps. The first set of runs included optimization of both the element spacings and their lengths. This led me to conclude that the mast spacing of 27 ft (Driven to Director) and 28 ft (Driven to Reflector) were the best choices. I then set these as fixed values in the variables tab and ran the optimizer a second time with some starting element lengths to optimize the element lengths by themselves.

Optimizer Objectives

Optimizer Objectives

One must create a set of frequencies and objectives for the optimizer before running it. This is done in the AutoEZ Optimize Tab. The antenna is being used for SSB on 40m so I choose a range of frequencies that covered the SSB sub-band on 40m. Note that I weighted the center frequency heavier than the edges by including it more times in the optimizer’s list. The use of the Optimization Objectives and their associated weights and values are well covered in the AutoEZ documentation, so I won’t cover them in detail here. The parameters above were chosen to create a reasonable balance between SWR values across the 40m SSB sub-band, good Front/Back and Front/Side performance from azimuth values ranging from 60º to 300º, and a reasonable amount of forward gain for a 3-element antenna of this type.

I expected that the final impedance of the antenna would be a typical value for a yagi in the 20 to 30-ohm range. Thus, I set the SWR calculations based on a 25-ohm target impedance. More on the matching of the resulting design later…

Element Optimization Results

Element Optimization Results

It took several runs of the optimizer with different sets of Optimizer Objectives to get the final results I was looking for. The Optimizer tried 130 combinations of element lengths to arrive at the final lengths shown above. Note the improvements in SWR (1.6 -> 1.04), Forward Gain (+1 dB), Front/Back (+4.2 dB), and Front/Rear (actually Front/Side) performance that the Optimizer was able to achieve over my manual trial and error optimization.

Post-Optimization Model Variables

Post-Optimization Model Variables

Next, I rounded the optimized element lengths and plugged them into the Variables Tab.

Post Optimization Azimuth Pattern

Post Optimization Azimuth Pattern

The image above shows the optimized Azimuth pattern for the antenna as generated by AutoEZ and EZNEC. A very clean result!

Post-Optimization Elevation Pattern

Post-Optimization Elevation Pattern

And here’s the optimized Elevation pattern near the center of the SSB sub-band. This antenna is a little low for 40m but the resulting maximum gain at a 35º angle should work well for US contacts during Field Day.

Calculated Performance for the Optimized Antenna

Calculated Performance for the Optimized Antenna

The final step in the optimization process was calculating a full set of performance calculations for the antenna using the Calculate Tab. AutoEZ makes it very easy to generate a set of Test Cases for incremental frequencies in the SSB sub-band on 40m. Note the setting of the Elevation angle of 35º to match the maximum gain angle for the optimized antenna. Also, note the parameter settings for Ground Type and Characteristics. I set these to model the less-than-ideal soil conditions that we have here in New England.

Performance Plots for the Optimized Antenna

Performance Plots for the Optimized Antenna

AutoEZ provides several nice graphical capabilities via the Patterns, Triple, Smith, Custom, and Currents Tabs.  I used some of them to plot the data from the performance calculations. These graphs help to visualize the results of the optimization to verify that the design objectives for the antenna have been met.

1:2 Matching Balun (25 ohm to 50 ohm)

1:2 Matching Balun (25 ohms to 50 ohms)

I am using a 1:2 matching Balun from Balun Designs at the feed point of the antenna to transform the antenna’s final 25-ohm feed point impedance to 50-ohms to match our coax feed line.

40m V-Beam Antenna

40m V-Beam Antenna

We are looking forward to using the optimized version of our 40m V-Beam at Field Day 2018. It took me a couple of days of time to read all of the AutoEZ documentation and learn to use the excellent tools it provides. I don’t think I will build another EZNEC antenna model without using AutoEZ. Even without the optimization features, AutoEZ makes the construction and modification of an antenna model in EZNEC far easier than it would be using EZNEC alone. I hope that you’ll give AutoEZ a try for your next antenna design project.

Fred, AB1OC

Upgrading our 2.0 Satellite Station for ARISS Contacts

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We have been working with Hudson Memorial School near Nashua, NH, to prepare for a possible ISS crew contact. The ARISS folks work with schools and their Ham Radio helpers to prepare for these contacts. ARISS provides recommendations for ground station equipment to help ensure a good experience for the students. The ground station recommendations provide solid specifications to support communications with the ISS on the 2m band. The recommendations include things such as:

  • A requirement to build both a primary and a backup ground station
  • Radio and power specifications (a 200W amp is recommended)
  • Antenna specifications, including recommendations to provide for switchable LHCP and RHCP
  • Computer-controlled azimuth/elevation positioning of antennas to track the ISS
  • Use of a receive preamplifier at the antenna
Portable Satellite Station 3.0 Antenna System

Portable Satellite Station 3.0 Antenna System

We have recently completed the construction and testing of our Portable Satellite Station 3.0, built specifically to meet the primary station requirements for our ISS contact.

Our plan is to add some upgrades to our Portable Satellite Station 2.0 to create a Portable 2.1 Station that meets the backup station requirements. These upgrades will include:

All equipment needed to upgrade our 2.0 Portable Station to 2.1 is here or will arrive shortly. Here’s some more information on the planned equipment.

Icom IC-910H Transceiver

Icom IC-910H Transceiver

The Icom IC-910H was Icom’s flagship Transceiver for Satellite work before the IC-9100 was released. It’s a very nice satellite radio! Dave, K1DLM, graciously lent us his IC-910H for use in our backup station.

Green Heron RT-21 AZ/EL Rotator Controller

Green Heron RT-21 AZ/EL Rotator Controller

We already have a Green Heron Az/El Rotator controller setup for the Yaesu Rotator system on the 2.0 Antenna Tower, and we will be reusing it for the 2.1 station.

GHTracker Running On A Raspberry Pi 3

GHTracker Running On A Raspberry Pi 3

We are also planning to build a second Raspberry Pi Rotator Interface for it.

M2 Antenna Systems PS2MCP8A Polarity Switch

M2 Antenna Systems PS-2MCP8A Polarity Switch

M2 Antenna Systems recently added a new 2M polarity switch, the PS-2MCP8A, designed for use with the 2M antenna in their LEO Pack, which we use in our 2.0 Antenna System. We will install this relay and a PS-70CM polarity switch relay for the LEO pack’s 70cm antenna as part of the 2.1 Antena System upgrade.

DXEngineering EC-4 Control Box

DXEngineering EC-4 Control Box

We will add another DXEngineering EC-4 BCD Control Console to control the polarity switching relays on the upgraded antennas.

m RM ITALY LA-250V Amplifier

RM ITALY LA-250V Amplifier

The final new component in our 2.0 to 2.1 upgrade is the addition of a 200W RM ITALY LA 250 power amplifier. We have opted for the version of this amplifier with the cooling fans. The unit is very well made, and we are anxious to see how it performs on the air.

Some of our readers might be wondering what we are planning to do with all of the Portable Satellite Ground Station equipment in the long run? We plan on keeping the 1.0 Portable Station for grid square activations and demonstrations. Its simple, battery-powered approach and small antenna make it ideal for this work.

The upgraded 2.0 Portable Station with enhanced polarity switching will become our transportable station for License Class and Field Day use. It will be converted at the end of 2018 to use our Icom IC-9100 Transceiver, which is currently part of the 3.0 station.

We plan to use the Portable 3.0 Station throughout the year (2018) to support the planned ARISS contact, Field Day, and some demonstrations at local Ham Fests and schools. Once these are complete, we plan to permanently install it here at our QTH, and it will become our main satellite ground station at our home QTH.

You can view all the articles about our Portable Satellite Stations via the links below.

We will begin construction of the 2.1 upgraded station once a few remaining components arrive here. We plan to share more about the construction and initial testing of our 2.1 Portable Station here.

Fred, AB1OC

Icom IC-9700 VHF/UHF/1.2GHz Prototype Transceiver

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Source: Icom IC-9700 VHF/UHF/1.2GHz Prototype Transceiver

Another new radio from Icom is based on their SDR platform. This looks like a great radio for Satellite and EME use. We will put in a pre-order for this radio and plan to include it in our Portable Satellite Station. I’ll post more here as details become available.

Fred, AB1OC