Amateur Radio Satellites ... more than two in the sky.

Foundations of Amateur Radio

There are moments in your life when you say to yourself, duh, why didn't I think of this earlier?

I had one of those last week.

As you might recall, I have a hard time using HF communications from my home. There is lots of noise around and I've been going out mobile and portable to make contacts. As satisfying as that is, nothing beats sitting at home in your comfy chair with all the other home amenities.

Ideally I have this notion that I should be able to do my hobby from home and have my cake and eat it too. Turns out, my duh moment was just that.

I speak regularly on the local 2m repeater, in fact I host a weekly net called F-troop that encourages new and returning hams to get on air and make some noise in a friendly environment where no question is too silly and mistakes can be made on-air without subsequent yelling and carrying-on.

So, I have a fully working HF radio at home, but it works just fine on 2m and 70cm.

My duh moment was when I realised that there are a multitude of 2m and 70cm transmitters around that I could add to my tally of things heard and worked. There are websites dedicated to these transmitters and schedules exist to highlight when, how and where these things are.

So, what am I talking about?

The wonderful world of Amateur Radio Satellites.

There are lots around, sending out idents, having uplink and downlink, sending out digital packets, you name it, the wide variety of Amateur Radio in a 90 minute orbit around the planet.

I'll confess that I thought there were one or two doing the rounds, but there are a few more. Just counting the active ones, there are 85 satellites designed to be used by Amateurs at the moment, of course that changes all the time, going up and down as more are launched and others stop responding.

In addition to this collection, there are other things you can listen out for, like weather satellites, the International Space Station and a bunch of other objects.

I came across the N2YO website which shows you what's up in your sky right now, the foot print and direction, when it clears the horizon, in which direction and what the highest elevation is and when it vanishes again, all very helpful in getting half a chance to hear the transmission in the first place.

I've said this before, this hobby is magic. I can't do HF, so now I'm playing with satellites. Looks like I'm going to have to sort out some digital decoding software as well, since many of the satellites have all manner of non-Morse code transmissions, APRS, digital modes, graphics, etc. Lots to learn.

Did I mention that you could do much of this with a hand-held radio? Power is not a problem and an external antenna is likely all you'll need.

By the way, this is what I like about Amateur Radio, there are so many different aspects to this hobby, so much variety, so many things to learn and experience and I have only just scratched the surface.

It bears repeating that a beginner's licence in Amateur Radio gives you access to all this and most of the things I've been talking about since I started talking about the hobby back in 2011. I've been licensed now for a little more than a minute and a half, but I still get a pleasant surprise on a regular basis about the size and scope of my chosen hobby.

There's no excuse, getting bored with Amateur Radio is just not an option.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB