Amateur Radio Station K6JEB

I recorded this right off the air using my new
Quadrifilar Helix antenna from Antennas.us sitting about a foot above the ground (hi hi)outside. The one I got was with Right-Hand Circular Polarization (RHCP) and is rated for 50watts output.

This is a recording of the LUSAT-OSCAR 19 (website) CW beacon which was on 437.120MHz:

LUSAT-OSCAR 19 20081123 1615UTC

Then Cubesat OSCAR-57 flew over:
cubesat-oscar_57_20081123_0153utc

The highlight of the evening was two AO-51 QSOs with W6BVB and WD9EWK! The Quadrifilar Helix antenna works!

I need to mount it high up. I could tell the house was in the way based on the angle and elevation and sudden drop on where the house is. Otherwise I believe I picked-up AOS at around 15 degrees elevation, which is quite right from the ground in the back yard and with the tall trees in that direction. I’m very happy! I was using 50 watts into a 5/8 vertical for my output on 2m.

I keep coming back and updating this blog entry with more sounds I record from this antenna. What a blast this has been. It’s like someone tore open a hole into space so I can actually hear. Here’s some Morse telemetry from RS-22 (website):
RS-22 20081123 0625UTC

For software, I’m tracking the satellites with Orbitron. Once I decide which bird to track, I switch over to the Ham Radio Deluxe Satellite Tracker which comes as a part of the awesome Ham Radio Deluxe suite; this I use for frequency control. I’m still mastering the linear inverting transponder for VO-52 but I have already successfully tuned-in a couple passes already; seems to be an active bird.