Johnson Space Center Amateur Radio Club

T-Hunt Overview Part 2 (Handi-Finder)

May 30, 2018April 26, 2018 by Tanner Jones

AB5SS will kickoff a T-Hunting event for the club on May 12. He’s found a very useful Direction Finder project kit, called the HANDI-Finder, which utilizes a simple CMOS oscillator to continuously switch your Handheld FM radio between two small wire loop antennas made from wire coat hangers. Due to this phase-difference detection scheme, by adding a small handle and turning it, a very sharp positional null can used to help one locate a signal’s direction. It’s a perfect small project for T-Hunting. The current pricing is $27.95 +$6 shipping which is a nice sweet spot for a DIY project.

T-Hunt Overview Part 1

May 30, 2018April 26, 2018 by Tanner Jones

The club will soon embrace the T-Hunting bug. T-hunting is a term for Transmitter-hunting or “Fox Hunting”. A secret transmitter(s) is/are hidden at an undisclosed location, and participants use their HT or other exotic devices to hunt it down.

4/18 ARISS Audio Downlink

May 29, 2018April 25, 2018 by Tanner Jones

Here’s an audio clip of Mike N8MTV’s successful tracking and downlink of the ISS ARISS station NA1SS and KD2IFR, from the W5RRR Satellite Station. This was a scheduled ARISS school contact with the Central Islip Union Free School District, Central Islip, NY on April 18.

The school is described as, ” – Home of the Musketeers and a proud Suffolk County, New York school system, where approximately 8,000 students in grades Pre-Kindergarten through 12 receive their formal education. Our School District’s motto is Children Our Future ~ Diversity Our Strength. The Central Islip Union Free School District is comprised of eight schools: one district-wide early childhood center, four elementary schools, two middle schools and a high school.”

4/12 ISS SSTV Images at W5RRR

May 30, 2018April 25, 2018 by Tanner Jones

From Mike, N8MTV.

“Enjoy! .. thought this would be great to show to the club. The first image started recording as the ISS was rising, hence the noise at the top of the image. Transmission stopped well in advance of setting over the horizon, so the next two images are decent.

4/21 HF Triplexer Test #1

May 30, 2018April 21, 2018 by Tanner Jones

The first test of an HF Triplexer in the W5RRR shack was successful.

A Triplexer converts a single user TH7DX tribander to be split out into 3 independent antennas ports on 20m, 15m, and 10m for simultaneous operation.

4/14 Aliens vs Astronauts

June 7, 2018April 21, 2018 by Tanner Jones

19 hams from JSCARC and CLARC supported the JSC Aliens versus Astronauts fun run. Ham teams demonstrated flexibility and resourcefulness to adopt to last minute and unexpected course map and coordination changes. Kudos to David, KB5PGY, who ran a tightly controlled Net Control. David also gave several members a chance to run NCS as part of … Read more…

4/19 Club Build Nite Fun

July 1, 2018April 21, 2018 by Tanner Jones

A great nite for building AB5SS’ CW Decoder Kit. As a terrific club effort, supporting roles from AB5SS, N8MTV, W4STU, AB4ME, and W5OC successfully handed out the CW Decoder Kits during the last club meeting and we had a night of group building at the Gilruth on Thursday.

4/15 ARRL Rookie Roundup

July 1, 2018April 20, 2018 by Tanner Jones

The W5RRR station participated in the ARRL Rookie Roundup this last Sunday at 1:00pm. Joe,KG5VMC, Terry, KG5TJT, and Fred,KG5WNN each had operating time on the mic on our 20m and 40m presence, while AB4ME and W5OC provided operator control and support.

Emergency Operations Center status

May 29, 2018April 20, 2018 by Tanner Jones

Kudos to David, KB5PGY for his dedicated support representing the JSCARC in our newest EOC support role. Earlier this year, the JSC EOC needed us to vacate our historical space in the Building 30 EOC room.

Status of ARISS Ground Station @ W5RRR

September 15, 2020April 20, 2018 by Tanner Jones

The W5RRR satellite tracking and ARISS capability had been largely unused and requiring updates for quite awhile. Enter: Keith, KG5HOK, John, AB5SS, Mike, N8MTV, Jeff, AB4ME, and Terry,KG5TJT. Keith got things rolling by acquiring SW and HW to interface our AZ-EL controller to a computer, but it still had problems.