The ARRL has been sponsoring an NPOTA (National Park On The Air) event spanning the entire country. And they gave a great shoutout to satellite operations in the July newsletter:
the ionosphere isn’t feeling cooperative, and atmospheric conditions limit the distance some radio waves can travel. One way hams get around an uncooperative ionosphere is to use orbiting ham radio satellites as an intermediary. There are around a dozen satellites in orbit that are designed to relay ham radio signals on certain frequencies in the VHF -UHF portion of the radio spectrum. With only a few watts of power and a handheld directional antenna (as seen in the photo), radio amateurs can communicate through these satellites for as long as the satellite is above Earth’s horizon, which is usually around 10-15 minutes per pass. Each satellite makes about five passes over the US each day.
No comments:
Post a Comment