Arrow antenna and laptop on a car

I helped Heather Randall from JFKHS and Bob Sterner KB0BS from RMHAM to complete and submit a proposal to ARISS, so now it’s their hands. It should be 6 to 8 weeks before we hear back. Very exciting!

In the meantime, I tried my hand at receiving an AMSAT signal over the Thanksgiving weekend. Since I was attempting to receive only, I decided to pipe it through my RTL-SDR rather than an HT in order to get a visual of the Doppler shift, and had some success. Unfortunately, the particular time I tried happened to be when no voice birds were overhead, so the only thing I got were what I assume were telemetry signals, and I didn’t have the decoders installed. At least I got to practice tracking and adjusting for polarity with the new Arrow antenna.

I also met with Heather and Bob in person, and we’re planning an ARDF fox hunt with Heather’s students next week. I get the principles, but this will be my first time actually participating in a fox hunt. I’m looking forward to it!