I got another BF-888S in the post today. This one was $18.03 from ebay seller jeenygq. It continues to amaze me that I can buy a frequency agile 70cm transceiver for less than a packet of cigarettes. My ‘reason’ for needing another one is that in addition to my uncompleted 70cm foxhunt project, I’m starting an AllStar Link Node project. I’m always keen to test eBay purchases straight away while they are inside the 45 day PayPal refund timeline, and this seemed to call for one of my other recent purchases – a Rike RK-560 frequency counter.
Monthly Archives: June 2015
Sky Talker
On the F-Troop net this morning, VK6AS mentioned there was another good pass of SO-50 today. With last weekend’s mistakes learned from, I had another shot at it. I thought I could hear snippets of voice modulation down in the static when the satellite was still at -5º elevation which seemed odd. It wasn’t until about 40º that I got anything readable, and even then it was only for half a second at a time.
The pass was almost directly overhead for me, so at the apex I was able to just point the Arrow straight up, and copied VK6AS’s call. I put out a call to him and was thrilled to hear his reply of congratulations. So thrilled in fact that I wobbled the antenna and lost him. I was so frantic from then on trying to find the satellite again that I completely forgot to keep adjusting my downlink and didn’t copy anything for the rest of the pass. Continue reading
Space Adventures
In February, I attended a meeting at HARG that included a talk and demo by Chris VK6FCGB on using the FM repeater payload on SAUDISAT 1C (SO-50). Satellite work is definitely in my ham radio hobby plan, both because of the technical challenges and my remoteness from other hams here.