Subj : good info 2 share
To   : All
From : Skuz
Date : Thu Jun 01 2017 22:54:39

 Msg  : 118 of 119                          Rcv Pvt Loc
 From : White-Knight-32-KS                                  01 Jun 17 19:38:46
 To   : Skuz
 Subj : Re: Merged BBS & Packet Radio BBS
===============================================================================
Hiya again, Skuz!

I did forget one thing!  VHF packet isn't limited to 1200 baud!  If ya crazed
& brazen with soldering irons, you can hotrod your radio's for 9600 baud, if
it don't have connectors for that already!  2400, you can still go thru
speaker & mic lines, like normal.

That ch*t rocks!  If you live near a major
airport, with 2400 baud TNC, you can decode 747 telemetry!  First pulse off
runway, will have flight number, after that anything heard is anybody's
guess. Nice to know when to duck, when one of those big birds loses oil
pressure, on too many engines...your'e looking at a few miles of wreckage, on
those planes!  Just add a scanner n go with it!

What goes on at 9600 baud, some hamsat's run this, the hot rodding means you
have to tie you TNC output directly into the modulator, behind the
pre-emphasis filter.  Otherwise, you lose the starting bits, from the phase
rolloff.  Same again, for your TNC input, it needs to come directly from
demodulator/discriminator, before the de-emphasis filtering, for the same
reasons.  Now, I haven't looked yet, at PiTNC's, to see what their top limit
is, but I haven't heard or seen anything going hotter than 9600 baud, over RF!

General transmit mode is SSB, however, you can run FM transmit, as AFSK,
rather than FSK, on SSB.  FM AFSK is how I bounced off the MIR station, in
that day, and landed in Chicago, IL, from KS, on a 2m hand held!  SAREX,
non-mil shuttle hops, were also possible, at that time, along with Dovesat
(DO-17), I was there and running when it came back alive, for a short time
before it failed & went back into safemode, pulsing out MBLCTL strings.  I
never had 2m & 70cm all-mode rigs, to do anything else!  College budgets, I
bet still suck!  There is one big trick, to space comm's, I'll not lie to
you, on this part, you will be juggling a lot of knobs, at once!  First, you
know how the train horn changes pitch, at a crossing, right?  Running digi
modes, you need to hear that train horn at the same pitch, all the way by, or
you lose bits, bytes, n maybe whole bauds again!  This doppler effect is
compensated by your rig's frequency, if FM, it's fairly easy, tune .005 MHz
high of your target freq., at the start of the orbit pass.  Then tune on the
nose, when high overhead.  Then tune .005 MHz low towards the end of the
pass.  Really pretty darned easy, on FM, as it's channellized!  I wasn't
fortunate enough, then for dual axis antenna rotors, so imagine dialing those
by hand, on top of rig freq!  I was setting up, for pc controlled rotators &
yes, the right rig, it'll tune ya rig, for the doppler shift too!  Yeah,
cheating big time, but fun!  I watched the screen for the doppler & retuned,
while on fixed antennas!  You can do that with a cheapie scanner too!  But it
will eat up a lot of channels, as you need at least 3, for each sat!

Now, solar panels, mine run me locally here (at my speed shop/car parts
store) about $130, for a 1x3 foot panel, at (they don't advertise this) 17.5
Vdc, for 1 amp, and it's either 15 or 18 watt.  Well, regulated down to
12Vdc, it is 1 amp, but you need abt 14 V to charge 12V battery.  When I was
running the numbers, it didn't make much sense, until I found it buried in
the little literature flyer, the 17.5 Vdc,is hidden!  Cloudy day, voltage
rolls of to 2/3, I can't say for current yet, those were quickie open circuit
checks!  I have 10 amps worth, right now & need to shoot for 4X!  Then I'd
only pay for my 240 Vac window a/c!  Try your metro hardware stores, you
should be able to snag them, on sale, for like $75-$80 each.

I hope that helps!

White-Knight-32-KS
aka KA0YCU

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