Curiouser and Curiouser

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...she was so much suprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English...
-Alice in Wonderland

I can't really say I was surprised this week, but I have found myself being "curiouser and curiouser" about ham radio satellites!

It seems like everyone is talking sats and amsat at the moment. I follow several folks on Twitter who are into satellites, the crew at ICQ Podcast keeps mentioning them, and I just read through the Winter Field Day rules again, and was looking at those satellite bonus points...

To see if this was an itch I wanted to scratch I downloaded GoSatWatch at the recommendation of NJ4Y and KX9X. They were right- this is a great app! Using it I went and stood in the field behind my house (in the mud...) And listened for the first time to a satellite pass as SO-50 went overhead. Think about it - signals from space! How is that not freekin' awesome! I know, most people aren't impressed because they think of satellites as a way to get their TV, but none of them can talk back to the satellite, so I still think it's awesome!

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GoSatWatch has a slick night time mode so you don't kill your night vision if you're chasing sats in the dark!

In addition to listening to SO-50 passes, I also listened to the ISS pass a couple times during last several days. For one of those passes I actually hooked my HT up to my AnnaLink Interface (Remember when I made that? Whodathunk it would be useful for satellite stuff too!) I then used the audio modem in the PocketPacket app to snag a packet sent through the digipeater on the ISS. Fun stuff!

Anyway, I think I have a new project in the queue, to add to all the other ones - building an antenna for satellite work (you should know me by now - I wouldn't be happy just buying one!) So, once I have the time to tackle it, I'll share here. I suspect however, that I'll end up using scraps from my garage, and maybe some of the stuff from this section of Lowe's:

Bye for now!