00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:41.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So, um… 00:05:13.000 --> 00:05:15.000 Al W5LUA: Hello, Jim. 00:05:16.000 --> 00:05:18.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Hello! Hello! 00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:20.000 Al W5LUA: Yeah, it's Al. 00:05:26.000 --> 00:05:28.000 Al W5LUA: Can I try sharing my screen? 00:05:29.000 --> 00:05:31.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yes, go ahead, go ahead. 00:05:32.000 --> 00:05:34.000 Al W5LUA: Alright. 00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:46.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah, that looks good. 00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:52.000 Al W5LUA: Alright. 00:05:51.000 --> 00:05:53.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah. 00:05:53.000 --> 00:06:00.000 Al W5LUA: Let me just kind of count here, and I'll go through, um, the slides, just make sure it goes forward and backwards, okay? 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:02.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Okay. 00:06:03.000 --> 00:06:05.000 Al W5LUA: Here we have slide 2, the introduction. 00:06:07.000 --> 00:06:09.000 Al W5LUA: Slide 3, talking about Artemis. 00:06:11.000 --> 00:06:14.000 Al W5LUA: And slide 4, slide 5. 00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:17.000 Al W5LUA: Slide 6, going backwards, slide 5. 00:06:18.000 --> 00:06:20.000 Al W5LUA: warm. 00:06:20.000 --> 00:06:22.000 Al W5LUA: Is that coming through okay? 00:06:22.000 --> 00:06:25.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah, it's almost instantaneous. 00:06:25.000 --> 00:06:27.000 Al W5LUA: Okay, good. 00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:30.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Oh, delay. 00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:33.000 Al W5LUA: Alright, well, we're good to go then, I guess. 00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:44.000 Al W5LUA: See, how do I not… oh, stop share. Okay, alright. 00:06:44.000 --> 00:06:45.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah. 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:50.000 Al W5LUA: Hey, at some point, I want to talk to you about SDRs. I want to buy one. 00:06:51.000 --> 00:06:58.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I saw your comment in the slide, and I have the Pluto devices, and I have a HackRF. 00:07:00.000 --> 00:07:08.000 Al W5LUA: Yeah, and I guess those are the two I was looking at. Um, I can't believe how expensive the blue tow is. I saw, like, $479 or something, and… 00:07:09.000 --> 00:07:11.000 Al W5LUA: the HackRF was… 00:07:11.000 --> 00:07:15.000 Al W5LUA: 3-something with some goodie bag, which I don't really need. 00:07:16.000 --> 00:07:18.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah. 00:07:18.000 --> 00:07:20.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Um, the… 00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:24.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: XRF has a 10MHz reference input. 00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:30.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And the Pluto uses an internal 25 meg. 00:07:30.000 --> 00:07:35.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: TXCO, which has to be replaced, because it… well… 00:07:36.000 --> 00:07:41.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: To use it above about 2 gig, because it's pretty drifty with the one they sell. 00:07:43.000 --> 00:07:45.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: But I've modified 4 of them. 00:07:43.000 --> 00:07:45.000 Al W5LUA: Yeah, I was… 00:07:47.000 --> 00:07:49.000 Al W5LUA: Okay, for a 10 meg reference? 00:07:49.000 --> 00:07:54.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: No, uh, just to replace the TXCO with a better, uh… 00:07:55.000 --> 00:07:59.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Like, 50 times better, Crystal. 00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:07.000 Al W5LUA: Okay, well, I noticed that, uh, they say that externally, you can use anything from a 10 meg to an 80 meg. 00:08:11.000 --> 00:08:13.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, for the Pluto. 00:08:15.000 --> 00:08:17.000 Al W5LUA: Uh, yeah. 00:08:19.000 --> 00:08:25.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Okay, they must have, uh, changed it then. That's good news. 00:08:34.000 --> 00:08:37.000 Al W5LUA: So you would, uh, suggest either one of those, or… 00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:45.000 Al W5LUA: I want something that goes up to at least 2G. I know when I go higher, I'm still going to have to down-convert unless I want to fork over. 00:08:45.000 --> 00:08:47.000 Al W5LUA: Thousands of dollars, but… 00:08:47.000 --> 00:08:49.000 Al W5LUA: What's your preference on those two? 00:08:53.000 --> 00:09:01.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Boy, that's a hard question. I think, uh, the HackRF comes ahead for me. 00:09:01.000 --> 00:09:03.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Oh. 00:09:03.000 --> 00:09:08.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Now, the one disadvantage that it has is it cannot do duplex. 00:09:09.000 --> 00:09:12.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Where it transmits and receives simultaneously. 00:09:13.000 --> 00:09:19.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And it does not have modification ability to add, uh, a second. 00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:27.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: transmit, receive channel. So, you know, in the full-blown MoD, which I did on mine. 00:09:27.000 --> 00:09:30.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: You can have two… 00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:33.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Receive, transmit pairs. 00:09:33.000 --> 00:09:36.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Operational at the same time. 00:09:37.000 --> 00:09:40.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And that would have, like, an application in radar. 00:09:41.000 --> 00:09:51.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: But, um, the HackRF is just more, like, I've got one transmit, one receive, and neither the two can meet at the same time. 00:09:51.000 --> 00:09:54.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So it has to switch between transmit and receive. 00:09:54.000 --> 00:09:56.000 Al W5LUA: Gotcha. 00:09:57.000 --> 00:10:00.000 Al W5LUA: I also noticed that the HackRF is an 8-bit. 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:03.000 Al W5LUA: A to D, and Pluto's at 12. 00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:09.000 Al W5LUA: And I wonder when I want to feel the difference between those two. 00:10:06.000 --> 00:10:08.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Hmm. 00:10:13.000 --> 00:10:15.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I have not had… 00:10:16.000 --> 00:10:20.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Any reason to know a difference. 00:10:20.000 --> 00:10:25.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh… the last thing I built for… with the HackRF was… 00:10:20.000 --> 00:10:23.000 Al W5LUA: Okay. 00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:33.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: A scanner that would operate in a 3 kilohertz bandwidth and would identify the. 00:10:34.000 --> 00:10:36.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: WSJT tones. 00:10:37.000 --> 00:10:39.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh… 00:10:39.000 --> 00:10:47.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So that I could bend them and slot them and understand if the spacing was right after multiplication, you know, by the RF stages. 00:10:47.000 --> 00:10:53.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And it was fast enough to hack RF, and had enough resolution to do what I needed there. 00:10:54.000 --> 00:11:00.000 Al W5LUA: Okay. Well, Pete Saez is still happy with the, uh, HackRF. In fact, he had, uh, two of them. 00:11:01.000 --> 00:11:09.000 Al W5LUA: One of them was just set up for… I'll call it a zero beat, where you can actually look at the Doppler shift. 00:11:09.000 --> 00:11:13.000 Al W5LUA: And the other one, just for tuning around, just because that's what hams like to do. 00:11:19.000 --> 00:11:21.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Interesting. Um… 00:11:22.000 --> 00:11:26.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Can you hear the sound from the IF radio when I… 00:11:27.000 --> 00:11:31.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Here to this microphone. Let me turn the volume up. 00:11:34.000 --> 00:11:36.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Can you hear any tone from the radio? 00:11:37.000 --> 00:11:39.000 Al W5LUA: I don't. 00:11:40.000 --> 00:11:42.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: That's interesting that… 00:11:45.000 --> 00:11:50.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: It's so loud in here, I can't hear myself think, but it's not being picked up by the… 00:11:51.000 --> 00:11:52.000 Al W5LUA: Hmm. 00:11:52.000 --> 00:11:55.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Well, this microphone in this, uh, separate… 00:11:55.000 --> 00:11:57.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: system I have. 00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:02.000 Al W5LUA: Maybe he thinks it's noise. 00:12:02.000 --> 00:12:06.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah. Maybe I could turn that off. 00:12:07.000 --> 00:12:11.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah, it says noise removal is default. 00:12:13.000 --> 00:12:15.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Let me turn it up again now. 00:12:16.000 --> 00:12:19.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I'll turn it up again now that I took the noise removal off. 00:12:23.000 --> 00:12:27.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: pretty high-pitched WSJT tones, but can you hear them? 00:12:28.000 --> 00:12:31.000 Al W5LUA: No, and you're kind of weak right now. Is it… 00:12:31.000 --> 00:12:34.000 Al W5LUA: There's some sort of a squelch on, or something? 00:12:34.000 --> 00:12:39.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, I'm just not in line with the microphone, I don't think. 00:12:45.000 --> 00:12:47.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Alright, let me put it real close. 00:12:52.000 --> 00:12:54.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: You hear the tones now? 00:12:55.000 --> 00:12:57.000 Al W5LUA: No, I don't. 00:12:56.000 --> 00:12:58.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Oh. 00:12:59.000 --> 00:13:01.000 Al W5LUA: Maybe it's too high for my ear. 00:12:59.000 --> 00:13:01.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Good. 00:13:07.000 --> 00:13:09.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Alright. 00:13:10.000 --> 00:13:16.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Well, that, uh, I needed to know that so that I could anticipate how this demo will go. 00:13:16.000 --> 00:13:19.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, obviously you're not going to be able to hear it unless I… 00:13:22.000 --> 00:13:25.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Bring it right from the IF rig into the… 00:13:26.000 --> 00:13:28.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Into the… 00:13:28.000 --> 00:13:30.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Probably not hearing me. 00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:35.000 Al W5LUA: I always have had trouble trying to play something across a cell phone. 00:13:35.000 --> 00:13:37.000 Al W5LUA: To somebody. 00:13:37.000 --> 00:13:41.000 Al W5LUA: It just doesn't seem like it picks up anything. 00:13:42.000 --> 00:13:44.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah, let me try this again. 00:13:48.000 --> 00:13:50.000 Al W5LUA: Okay, I hear that. 00:13:49.000 --> 00:13:53.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Okay, let me see if I pick it up in my… 00:13:53.000 --> 00:13:56.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: My headset's monitor… 00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:07.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah, I'm hearing just a little bit of it. 00:14:05.000 --> 00:14:07.000 Al W5LUA: Yep. 00:14:07.000 --> 00:14:10.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Okay, good, well then that's how we'll play the. 00:14:08.000 --> 00:14:10.000 Al W5LUA: Yeah. 00:14:11.000 --> 00:14:17.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: That's how we'll do the demo, because I got… I got two 47GHz beacons here on different frequencies. 00:14:17.000 --> 00:14:19.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And I want to show that. 00:14:19.000 --> 00:14:22.000 Al W5LUA: Okay. 00:14:22.000 --> 00:14:24.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Turn that down. 00:14:24.000 --> 00:14:27.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I had to set it on, uh… 00:14:28.000 --> 00:14:30.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: On the… 00:14:30.000 --> 00:14:35.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: On the Zoom settings, I had to pick deselect noise removal. 00:14:35.000 --> 00:14:40.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: and select Original Sound for Musicians. 00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:42.000 Al W5LUA: Yep. 00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:42.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah. 00:14:43.000 --> 00:14:48.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And now let me get it back on top microphone, there, now it's back. 00:14:49.000 --> 00:14:53.000 Al W5LUA: Yeah, you're quite a few dBs stronger, your voice. 00:14:52.000 --> 00:15:05.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, yeah, I hear it over the monitor too. I keep my cell phone tuned in as a separate attendee. That's what you see when you see NTMS, lowercase s, big case S, backup. 00:15:06.000 --> 00:15:11.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So I can have a constant monitor of what's going out over the air. 00:15:17.000 --> 00:15:19.000 Al W5LUA: It's like a studio. 00:15:19.000 --> 00:15:28.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah. In fact, I got the idea from Open Broadcast Software, which I used back in the SDR. 00:15:29.000 --> 00:15:31.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Siri stuff. 00:15:38.000 --> 00:15:40.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Right. 00:15:40.000 --> 00:15:45.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Phew, I got a lot of light here. Let me turn some of these lights off. 00:15:55.000 --> 00:15:57.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Oh… 00:16:00.000 --> 00:16:07.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: See, uh, Greg is here. Let's see, Pat is here. Welcome, Pat. 00:16:13.000 --> 00:16:15.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: only… 00:16:15.000 --> 00:16:18.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And Barry. Barry, is it thought out yet? 00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:24.000 Pat W5VY: Hey, Jim. 00:16:24.000 --> 00:16:26.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Hi, Pat. 00:16:34.000 --> 00:16:36.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Hey, Mr. Barry. 00:16:37.000 --> 00:16:40.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, has… has the snow melted? 00:16:45.000 --> 00:16:48.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah, it's melting, but it's still here. 00:16:51.000 --> 00:17:02.000 Barry VE4MA: I just got down off a tower, so I'm, uh… kind of running around here. It was a nice day, it's supposed to hit 12C here today, but it's windy, so… 00:17:02.000 --> 00:17:04.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Oh… 00:17:11.000 --> 00:17:15.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I see Don, uh, VE6HQ. Welcome, Don. 00:17:15.000 --> 00:17:24.000 Don VE6HQ: Uh, thanks, Al. Good morning. And Barry, it's about the same temperature here in Red Deer, so things are looking good. It's been a long winter. 00:17:30.000 --> 00:17:32.000 Don VE6HQ: Okay. 00:17:33.000 --> 00:17:38.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I see Bob N5BRG. Welcome, Mr. Strickland. 00:17:42.000 --> 00:17:44.000 Bob N5BRG: Hello. 00:17:46.000 --> 00:17:48.000 Bob N5BRG: Good to see everybody here. 00:17:48.000 --> 00:17:50.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Hey. 00:17:50.000 --> 00:17:58.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Um, see, our, um, secretary is here from the Society, Eric Haskell. Hi, Eric. 00:18:04.000 --> 00:18:06.000 Eric Haskell AG5XV: Hello, this is Sirk. 00:18:07.000 --> 00:18:08.000 Eric Haskell AG5XV: Hear me? 00:18:11.000 --> 00:18:17.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And one of our rovers out East Texas, Jerry, K5SOP. Howdy, Jerry. 00:18:11.000 --> 00:18:13.000 Eric Haskell AG5XV: Hello? 00:18:31.000 --> 00:18:36.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I'm not sure I recognize who Lowell and Laurie is. 00:18:37.000 --> 00:18:44.000 Lowell & Lori: Yeah, good afternoon. Uh, Lowell White, K9 LDW, out in Forney, Texas, EM12SR. 00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:47.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Very good. 00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:53.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: What was your call again, Lil? 00:18:52.000 --> 00:18:59.000 Lowell & Lori: Kilowatt, number 9, Lima, Delta Whiskey, K9 LDW. 00:19:01.000 --> 00:19:06.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Okay. 00:19:09.000 --> 00:19:15.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Our rancher from down south, uh, Steve, K5MNZ, howdy Steve. 00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:29.000 Steve K5MNZ: Howdy, Jim. You guys talk quiet. My wife thinks I'm working on an income tax. 00:19:29.000 --> 00:19:36.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Well, don't blame me now, man. 00:19:34.000 --> 00:19:37.000 Steve K5MNZ: It's too… it's too late, I've already blamed you. 00:19:51.000 --> 00:20:02.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: We're gonna have a super interesting kickoff here with Al, and I've had the advantage of seeing his presentation ahead of time. Uh, it's pretty interesting. 00:20:02.000 --> 00:20:10.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Um, dealing with Artemis II. And I know there's other interest here, and um… 00:20:11.000 --> 00:20:17.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: maybe… did I understand that Barry had received a signal also? 00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:29.000 Al W5LUA: I think the answer to that is yes. He sent me a plot of something he had. 00:20:29.000 --> 00:20:35.000 Al W5LUA: But when the moon… when anything goes further west than 180 degrees. 00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:40.000 Al W5LUA: Uh, he has a hard time, uh, seeing it, just due to the nature of the house. 00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:51.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So, it, um, Berry is the dish located up on the north. 00:20:51.000 --> 00:20:54.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: East side of your property. 00:20:59.000 --> 00:21:01.000 Barry VE4MA: Oh, uh… 00:21:01.000 --> 00:21:04.000 Barry VE4MA: Southeast. No, well, no Northeast, I guess. 00:21:06.000 --> 00:21:12.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Okay, so as it rotates clockwise to get to 180 and goes beyond that, you're blocked? 00:21:14.000 --> 00:21:18.000 Barry VE4MA: Oh, uh, you know, the terrestrial dish, yeah, yeah, it, uh… 00:21:19.000 --> 00:21:22.000 Barry VE4MA: I'm blocked by my house at about 160 degrees. 00:21:24.000 --> 00:21:26.000 Barry VE4MA: I've got a, uh… 00:21:26.000 --> 00:21:30.000 Barry VE4MA: Or a jut out for the kitchen that gets me… 00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:37.000 Barry VE4MA: I can hit it at… hit the moon at high elevation, but I can't hit low at that… 00:21:39.000 --> 00:21:43.000 Barry VE4MA: I've got two dishes, uh, the other one will go to, uh… 00:21:43.000 --> 00:21:46.000 Barry VE4MA: A little past due south, but that's it. 00:21:48.000 --> 00:21:51.000 Barry VE4MA: when I put those up, there was nobody in the West, so… 00:21:51.000 --> 00:21:53.000 Barry VE4MA: In the far west. 00:21:53.000 --> 00:21:55.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah. 00:21:55.000 --> 00:22:00.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Well, there's not many back there now, is there? I mean, unless you count California. 00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:05.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah, but they can usually get on before my window gets blocked. 00:22:06.000 --> 00:22:11.000 Barry VE4MA: And the offset dish, it was, uh, as long as I could… Al and I could get together, that was good enough. 00:22:12.000 --> 00:22:14.000 Barry VE4MA: 25 years ago. 00:22:13.000 --> 00:22:18.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah, yeah, you, you guys did it. Did do it then. 00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:19.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah. 00:22:19.000 --> 00:22:26.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Can you… can you believe how many people are now getting on, uh, making contacts on 24GHz? 00:22:26.000 --> 00:22:31.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah, it's amazing. I've got to get back on there, uh, big time. 00:22:31.000 --> 00:22:36.000 Barry VE4MA: I'm… Al, I'm still fighting with, uh, high-voltage connectors. 00:22:38.000 --> 00:22:42.000 Al W5LUA: Boy, sorry to hear that. Is that with the 15KV row? 00:22:39.000 --> 00:22:40.000 Barry VE4MA: Oh. 00:22:42.000 --> 00:22:44.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah… 00:22:44.000 --> 00:22:53.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah, I went to fire it up, and uh… it was still flashing on me, and I… sure enough, there's a carbon path in the connectors, so I'm just in the process of cleaning the darn things. 00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:56.000 Al W5LUA: Was it not tight enough? 00:22:57.000 --> 00:23:01.000 Barry VE4MA: I don't know, I thought it was clean, but… 00:23:01.000 --> 00:23:03.000 Al W5LUA: Hmm. 00:23:02.000 --> 00:23:08.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah, so I have visions of, uh, going through the connector challenge that you went through, so… 00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:14.000 Al W5LUA: Well, at least you know where it's arcing over. 00:23:14.000 --> 00:23:16.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah. 00:23:17.000 --> 00:23:22.000 Barry VE4MA: Well, it doesn't look like it damaged the connectors, it's just a case of, alright, getting it clean enough. 00:23:24.000 --> 00:23:28.000 Al W5LUA: There was something on cleaning row connectors. 00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:32.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah, I've got that, uh, article. It, uh… 00:23:32.000 --> 00:23:34.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah, it's pretty straightforward, but… 00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:39.000 Al W5LUA: 99.9%, uh, alcohol, right? 00:23:38.000 --> 00:23:40.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah, something like that. 00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:43.000 Al W5LUA: Yeah, I bought some of that. 00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:49.000 Bob N5BRG: So when it breaks down, does it make a lot of noise, and does it damage your power supply? 00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:55.000 Barry VE4MA: No, they, uh, fortunately, it's, uh, the highest voltage is pretty low current. 00:23:56.000 --> 00:24:03.000 Barry VE4MA: And so that's… that's the one, uh, you know, it's kind of double the voltage, uh, the highest voltage is, uh. 00:24:03.000 --> 00:24:07.000 Barry VE4MA: Twice what the, uh… the one that has all the power behind it, so… 00:24:08.000 --> 00:24:20.000 Barry VE4MA: And they have a sensing circuit that's really sensitive, so I could see, uh, when I pulled to put the supply on the bench, I could see this arc gap flashing, and I thought, ooh, that's weird. 00:24:21.000 --> 00:24:30.000 Barry VE4MA: And then, uh, then I got to looking at all my connections, and, and, uh, there's, uh, there's a carbon path, okay, that's why. 00:24:31.000 --> 00:24:33.000 Bob N5BRG: Hmm. 00:24:33.000 --> 00:24:39.000 Al W5LUA: At least my power supply, when I was on 24 gigs, uh, what, a few weeks ago, it tends to get over it. 00:24:39.000 --> 00:24:41.000 Al W5LUA: And doesn't, uh… 00:24:41.000 --> 00:24:46.000 Al W5LUA: Uh, not go to transmit. It'll get the arc, indicate. 00:24:43.000 --> 00:24:45.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah. 00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:48.000 Barry VE4MA: Yep. 00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:48.000 Al W5LUA: And… and you push reset. 00:24:49.000 --> 00:24:52.000 Al W5LUA: And, uh, it gets happy again, and stays happy. 00:24:49.000 --> 00:24:51.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah. 00:24:53.000 --> 00:24:56.000 Al W5LUA: Or at least for a, you know, a sequence, but… 00:24:58.000 --> 00:25:05.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah, that's, uh, that's why I was surprised the second time I tried it, it tripped again, and I thought, oh, that's really strange. 00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:07.000 Al W5LUA: Hmm. 00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:11.000 Barry VE4MA: Pull it out of the rack, put it on the bench, put the resistive loads on it, and… 00:25:12.000 --> 00:25:15.000 Barry VE4MA: because I was suspecting, okay, well. 00:25:16.000 --> 00:25:20.000 Barry VE4MA: something else, maybe even the tube was arcing or something, who knows? I mean… 00:25:22.000 --> 00:25:26.000 Al W5LUA: My high-voltage junction box out in the shed, where it goes from. 00:25:26.000 --> 00:25:29.000 Al W5LUA: You know, the high dollar, row, high voltage cable to… 00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:34.000 Al W5LUA: some banana jacks and plugs to go out to the tube. I haven't… 00:25:34.000 --> 00:25:39.000 Al W5LUA: That's been kind of covered up for years, and there's no telling what's growing in there. 00:25:39.000 --> 00:25:41.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah. 00:25:41.000 --> 00:25:44.000 Barry VE4MA: As long as the critters haven't gotten in there… 00:25:43.000 --> 00:25:48.000 Al W5LUA: Well, yeah, big ones, but even the little ones can cause arcs, right? 00:25:47.000 --> 00:25:49.000 Barry VE4MA: Oh, yeah. 00:25:48.000 --> 00:25:51.000 Al W5LUA: So I need to check that out myself. 00:25:56.000 --> 00:26:02.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah, I was just up one of my neighboring hams towers. He had a drop of water and a heliax connector. 00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:09.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah, and connect your gasket let go, so… 00:26:11.000 --> 00:26:16.000 Al W5LUA: My 5760 receive connector had a drop of water. 00:26:16.000 --> 00:26:22.000 Al W5LUA: In the end connector, and I thought, really, it propagated throughout the whole cable, but as it turns out, it was just right there. 00:26:23.000 --> 00:26:26.000 Al W5LUA: So I took it out, blew it off. 00:26:26.000 --> 00:26:28.000 Al W5LUA: Put it back together, and it'll work fine. 00:26:29.000 --> 00:26:31.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah. 00:26:29.000 --> 00:26:34.000 Al W5LUA: So it didn't run the cable, which really surprised me, but then I'm trying to figure out, well, how the heck did it get in here? 00:26:36.000 --> 00:26:46.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah, I figured the rubber gasket and the… everything was taped up well, except right at, right where the, uh, the lockdown nut was, it wasn't, uh… 00:26:47.000 --> 00:26:55.000 Barry VE4MA: it wasn't taped at that junction, so I figured, okay, it wicked past the gasket and the end connector and filled it up, so… 00:26:49.000 --> 00:26:51.000 Al W5LUA: Oh, yeah. 00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:57.000 Al W5LUA: I cover everything. 00:26:58.000 --> 00:27:01.000 Barry VE4MA: I usually don't, but uh… 00:27:01.000 --> 00:27:07.000 Barry VE4MA: And in this… this case, it wasn't done, so… alright. Lesson learned. 00:27:07.000 --> 00:27:09.000 Al W5LUA: Yep. 00:27:13.000 --> 00:27:15.000 Barry VE4MA: How's your weather in Dallas today? 00:27:16.000 --> 00:27:19.000 Al W5LUA: 73, and rain trying to blow through. 00:27:19.000 --> 00:27:21.000 Barry VE4MA: Oh, yeah. 00:27:24.000 --> 00:27:28.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah, I think we've got rain coming tomorrow, and a little cooler, but uh… 00:27:29.000 --> 00:27:34.000 Barry VE4MA: Sure, it's nice, except for the wind right now, so there must be a front that's blowing through today, bringing the. 00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:38.000 Barry VE4MA: Sucking up the warm air from the southwest, and… 00:27:39.000 --> 00:27:41.000 Barry VE4MA: That's why we got a warm day. 00:27:51.000 --> 00:27:56.000 Barry VE4MA: I noticed the, uh, the UK Microwave group has got a meeting tomorrow. 00:27:57.000 --> 00:28:04.000 Barry VE4MA: And Dave Robinson was going to talk about GPS DOs, so I'm gonna get up at 4 in the morning to watch it. 00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:07.000 Al W5LUA: Oh, boy. 00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:08.000 Barry VE4MA: Sucker… sucker for punishment, but… 00:28:08.000 --> 00:28:12.000 Al W5LUA: I wonder if that's the same presentation he gave us a few months ago. 00:28:12.000 --> 00:28:14.000 Barry VE4MA: Oh, probably. 00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:19.000 Al W5LUA: Talked a little bit about the past and present. 00:28:18.000 --> 00:28:24.000 Barry VE4MA: Oh, yeah. Well, I should have a look at that, then I can sleep in a little later tomorrow. 00:28:24.000 --> 00:28:28.000 Al W5LUA: Yeah, that's where we talked about the crystal filter for 10 meg. 00:28:28.000 --> 00:28:31.000 Al W5LUA: I had forgotten he had talked about that. 00:28:31.000 --> 00:28:36.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah, I've forgotten, too. I'm pretty sure I saw that presentation, but uh… 00:28:36.000 --> 00:28:39.000 Barry VE4MA: I'll definitely look it up afterwards. 00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:42.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I forgot it, too. 00:28:51.000 --> 00:28:53.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I have a story. 00:28:53.000 --> 00:29:00.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Um, I took some filters down to the post office to mail to Canada. 00:29:03.000 --> 00:29:09.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Like the 200 Wavelab boards I've mailed. 00:29:09.000 --> 00:29:11.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: In little. 00:29:11.000 --> 00:29:18.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: flat rate boxes. I walked up to the kiosk, and it said, what's the zip code? 00:29:19.000 --> 00:29:20.000 Barry VE4MA: Oh, yeah. 00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:29.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And right then and there, I realized anything I'd ever sent out of the country, I had to fill out a customs form. And I had just forgot about it, and it kind of upset me. 00:29:26.000 --> 00:29:28.000 Barry VE4MA: Oh, no. 00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:33.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So. 00:29:33.000 --> 00:29:38.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I proceeded to exit rather quickly, and I left my wallet on top of the… 00:29:37.000 --> 00:29:39.000 Barry VE4MA: Oh. 00:29:38.000 --> 00:29:40.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Kiosk. 00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:46.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And I came home, and I addressed the first class envelope, and I looked it up, and it said. 00:29:47.000 --> 00:29:52.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: You know, it's gonna be $1.79 to Winnipeg. 00:29:52.000 --> 00:30:00.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So, I found the forever stamps that added up to that, and a little bit more, and I stuck them on there. The envelope closed. 00:30:01.000 --> 00:30:05.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Put a piece of tape on it, and then the doorbell rang. 00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:09.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And it was my postal carrier with my wallet. 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:11.000 Barry VE4MA: Wow. Wow. 00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:18.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And she, she was still in the building when, you know, somebody walked back there and said, hey, some dumbass left his wallet on the… 00:30:19.000 --> 00:30:31.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And she… and she opened up the wallet and got the ID out, and she said, I know these people, I take their mail out there. So, this is, uh, maybe one of the advantages of living in a very small town out in the country. 00:30:31.000 --> 00:30:33.000 Barry VE4MA: Oh, yeah. 00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:37.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Because she'd brought it right out here to me, and I was sure thankful. 00:30:36.000 --> 00:30:38.000 Barry VE4MA: Boy, that's perfect. 00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:42.000 Al W5LUA: Give her something for Christmas. 00:30:42.000 --> 00:30:44.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah, for sure. 00:30:43.000 --> 00:30:48.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Oh, we always do, but I told my wife she got a raise now. 00:30:47.000 --> 00:30:49.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah. 00:30:52.000 --> 00:30:54.000 Steve K5MNZ: Your postal… 00:30:52.000 --> 00:30:58.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I try to be real careful with that wallet and my phone, because you can't get… can't go more than about… 00:30:56.000 --> 00:30:58.000 Steve K5MNZ: What? 00:30:59.000 --> 00:31:02.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: 30 seconds without the phone. 00:31:01.000 --> 00:31:03.000 Steve K5MNZ: What'd you say? 00:31:03.000 --> 00:31:04.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Maybe. 00:31:03.000 --> 00:31:08.000 Steve K5MNZ: Your mail carrier is a little more polite than mine. When I first moved down here. 00:31:08.000 --> 00:31:14.000 Steve K5MNZ: I… I borrowed a… a pretty long trailer to carry hay bales. 00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:22.000 Steve K5MNZ: And just about the first thing I did was not realize how its turn radius worked, and I pulled out of my driveway and ran over my mailbox. 00:31:23.000 --> 00:31:25.000 Steve K5MNZ: So… 00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:41.000 Steve K5MNZ: So I went into the post office, because I know… I know they have… the highway department has responsibility for the post, it turns out, and the… anyway, I went in to find out who I contact, or what I do about putting my mailbox back up. 00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:27.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So… 00:31:42.000 --> 00:31:50.000 Steve K5MNZ: And when I went up to the window and told her my story, she turned back to the back. She said, hey, Sheila, that guy who ran over his mailbox is here! 00:31:56.000 --> 00:32:00.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Oh, a double judgment all in one sentence. 00:32:02.000 --> 00:32:05.000 Steve K5MNZ: Yeah, it was dripping with sarcasm. 00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:13.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Well, they probably don't get too many opportunities to laugh like that. 00:32:14.000 --> 00:32:20.000 Al W5LUA: Hey Steve, I know you got your headphones on, but your wife was peeking around the door. I don't know if she's trying to get your attention. 00:32:19.000 --> 00:32:27.000 Steve K5MNZ: Yeah, I heard her. She heard me talking and thought I must be talking to her, because here I am doing income tax. I'm not in a ham radio meeting. 00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:29.000 Al W5LUA: Oh, that's right. 00:32:28.000 --> 00:32:31.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: They almost got busted. 00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:32.000 Steve K5MNZ: Oh. 00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:32.000 Al W5LUA: That is… 00:32:34.000 --> 00:32:43.000 Steve K5MNZ: I already… I already declined to take her out to dinner tonight because I was going to be working on income tax, and so here she caught me. 00:32:43.000 --> 00:32:47.000 Steve K5MNZ: Talking to you guys, so I probably have to take her out. 00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:50.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Now you get, now you have to. 00:32:52.000 --> 00:32:56.000 Barry VE4MA: Well, with doing income tax, you could be talking to yourself, you know? 00:32:56.000 --> 00:32:58.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah. 00:32:58.000 --> 00:33:01.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Are you screaming and cussing to yourself. 00:33:01.000 --> 00:33:03.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah. 00:33:08.000 --> 00:33:16.000 Al W5LUA: What's nice about TurboTax, you know, if you stick a number in and you don't care for it, you go figure out why it's so high, and maybe you can do something to change it. 00:33:19.000 --> 00:33:21.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah. 00:33:19.000 --> 00:33:22.000 Al W5LUA: I always use that as an opportunity. 00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:23.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yep. 00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:30.000 Steve K5MNZ: I understand it all, I… it's just that by the end of the year. 00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:39.000 Steve K5MNZ: I don't keep it very well organized during the year, and I have to do it all now, so it just takes me a couple of days. 00:33:54.000 --> 00:33:56.000 Barry VE4MA: So, Al, I thought you were going to be away today. 00:33:57.000 --> 00:34:05.000 Al W5LUA: Um… well, I think I'm still part of the family. They decided to do, uh, dinner about 5 o'clock today. 00:34:02.000 --> 00:34:04.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: First off. 00:34:06.000 --> 00:34:10.000 Al W5LUA: So, um, I got a QRT at 4. 00:34:09.000 --> 00:34:11.000 Barry VE4MA: Oh, that's not too bad. 00:34:11.000 --> 00:34:16.000 Al W5LUA: But I'll be, uh… I'm in good shape, I think. And also, I'm gonna buy dinner for the family, so… 00:34:19.000 --> 00:34:21.000 Al W5LUA: Should make up for it. 00:34:22.000 --> 00:34:24.000 Steve K5MNZ: Would you buy dinner for my wife, too? 00:34:24.000 --> 00:34:28.000 Al W5LUA: Bring her up! 00:34:29.000 --> 00:34:32.000 Al W5LUA: We're gonna be in Garland. 00:34:41.000 --> 00:34:45.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Anybody have a source for, uh, slimline. 00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:48.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Dish bolts, the ones that go… 00:34:49.000 --> 00:34:53.000 David - KG5EIU TX: On the front of the dish, through the back to. 00:34:53.000 --> 00:34:58.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Hold the dish down, they're like, they got squares, and they're flat on one side. 00:34:58.000 --> 00:35:03.000 David - KG5EIU TX: that face the dish. I can't find the two, but I thought I had. 00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:08.000 Eric Haskell AG5XV: Um, I may have some of those. 00:35:08.000 --> 00:35:10.000 Eric Haskell AG5XV: Sir. 00:35:12.000 --> 00:35:14.000 Eric Haskell AG5XV: How many do you… you just need two? 00:35:14.000 --> 00:35:17.000 David - KG5EIU TX: I just need 2, yeah, cause the, the dish. 00:35:17.000 --> 00:35:23.000 David - KG5EIU TX: The dish slips into the mount, the slimline dish slips into the mount with two. 00:35:23.000 --> 00:35:28.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Fingers, and then there's just 2 bolts holding the dish to the arm. 00:35:29.000 --> 00:35:31.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Uh, Conno… 00:35:29.000 --> 00:35:31.000 Eric Haskell AG5XV: Holds a dish to the arm. 00:35:31.000 --> 00:35:35.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Uh, here, let me… I'll share my screen if I got privileges. 00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:37.000 Eric Haskell AG5XV: Okay. 00:35:36.000 --> 00:35:39.000 David - KG5EIU TX: I can show you what I'm talking about. 00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:43.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Let's do free farm, let's do share. 00:35:44.000 --> 00:35:46.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Is she that? 00:35:46.000 --> 00:35:48.000 Barry VE4MA: Oh, yeah. 00:35:48.000 --> 00:35:51.000 Eric Haskell AG5XV: I can't… can you make it bigger? Hold on, let me make my picture bigger, hold on. 00:35:48.000 --> 00:35:50.000 Barry VE4MA: Oh. 00:35:54.000 --> 00:35:56.000 Eric Haskell AG5XV: Okay… 00:35:56.000 --> 00:35:59.000 Eric Haskell AG5XV: Alright, uh, how long are those bolts? 00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:05.000 David - KG5EIU TX: I don't… I don't know. I don't… I can't find the two that I have, but they… they're… 00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:10.000 David - KG5EIU TX: This is the back of the dish. We're looking at the back of the dish. This is the bottom of the dish down here. 00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:15.000 David - KG5EIU TX: With these, um, moon-shaped cutouts, that's the bottom of the dish. 00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:12.000 Eric Haskell AG5XV: Mm-hmm. 00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:19.000 David - KG5EIU TX: And then, the bolts I need are… 00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:26.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Go in the front of it, but they've got a square on them so that they don't turn when you tighten down. 00:36:26.000 --> 00:36:30.000 David - KG5EIU TX: They're not very long, they're only… they're probably not even an inch long. 00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:37.000 Eric Haskell AG5XV: I've taken a bunch of those dishes apart, and I got a loose… bunch of loose hardware, so I don't know exactly what goes in those holes, but uh… 00:36:37.000 --> 00:36:39.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Yeah. 00:36:38.000 --> 00:36:43.000 Eric Haskell AG5XV: Uh, I think the only variable is linked. Do you, uh, can you… 00:36:43.000 --> 00:36:47.000 David - KG5EIU TX: They can be long. If they were 2 inches long, I wouldn't really care. 00:36:47.000 --> 00:36:49.000 David - KG5EIU TX: It's the… 00:36:47.000 --> 00:36:51.000 Eric Haskell AG5XV: Yeah, I think, I think, I think most of them are either an inch or half, uh, half an inch. 00:36:51.000 --> 00:36:58.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Yeah, I think so too. I'm worried about the front of the dish, because you want to be a smooth surface. I can't just. 00:36:58.000 --> 00:37:03.000 Eric Haskell AG5XV: Yeah, I've got some smooth surface, uh, bolts, I think, that… 00:36:58.000 --> 00:37:03.000 David - KG5EIU TX: put any old bolt in there, right? That would affect the signal? Wouldn't that affect the signal? 00:37:03.000 --> 00:37:07.000 Eric Haskell AG5XV: Yeah, okay, uh, how do we get them to you? 00:37:07.000 --> 00:37:12.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Oh, I don't know, we'll… we'll have to figure it out. I can, uh, PayPal you some money, you can… 00:37:12.000 --> 00:37:16.000 Eric Haskell AG5XV: Well, I don't even know how it costs me anything, just, uh, give me an address, and I will… 00:37:12.000 --> 00:37:14.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Mail coming. 00:37:18.000 --> 00:37:21.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Alright, Eric, I'll, uh… I'll, uh… 00:37:19.000 --> 00:37:21.000 Eric Haskell AG5XV: Hold on a second, let me tell you right now. 00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:23.000 Bob N5BRG: You can put your address in the chat if you want to. 00:37:22.000 --> 00:37:25.000 Eric Haskell AG5XV: Yeah, put the address in the chat, please. 00:37:23.000 --> 00:37:28.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Yeah, I'll put it in the chat, and uh… give me your PayPal, and I'll send you… 00:37:28.000 --> 00:37:30.000 Eric Haskell AG5XV: You don't need to see that. 00:37:31.000 --> 00:37:35.000 David - KG5EIU TX: I don't mind, you know, it's your time, too, you know, you… 00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:39.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Let me, let me buy a Starbucks coffee or something. 00:37:39.000 --> 00:37:42.000 Eric Haskell AG5XV: Uh, I'm not a coffee drinker, but it's okay. 00:37:41.000 --> 00:37:46.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Alright, well, beer, or whatever your, whatever your poison is, you know, something. 00:37:47.000 --> 00:37:51.000 Eric Haskell AG5XV: I just hope it… just keep reminding me if I… I don't want to forget it. 00:37:51.000 --> 00:37:56.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Okay, thank you for that. I… I can't even find them on eBay, and… 00:37:57.000 --> 00:38:03.000 David - KG5EIU TX: The ones I keep finding are, are there 4 bolts for the slim, for the 18 inch dish. 00:38:03.000 --> 00:38:09.000 David - KG5EIU TX: They're, they're, uh, they're easily found, but the, the 2 bolts for the slimline dish. 00:38:11.000 --> 00:38:14.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Can't find. I don't know, that's just strange. 00:38:12.000 --> 00:38:21.000 Bob N5BRG: I thought… those look like just standard carriage bolts, and you can get them at true value, but they would be rounded on the top more. 00:38:17.000 --> 00:38:19.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Oh. 00:38:21.000 --> 00:38:26.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Yeah, they gotta be flat to fit in that recessed piece so the front of the dish is still smooth. 00:38:21.000 --> 00:38:23.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah, we're… 00:38:25.000 --> 00:38:32.000 Eric Haskell AG5XV: Yeah, I think these are special engineered bolts that are, um, unique to the dish. 00:38:28.000 --> 00:38:30.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Yep. 00:38:32.000 --> 00:38:35.000 Barry VE4MA: But I don't think the round tops are gonna hurt you at all. 00:38:36.000 --> 00:38:38.000 David - KG5EIU TX: On the signal, you don't think so? 00:38:37.000 --> 00:38:40.000 Barry VE4MA: No, it's a small area. 00:38:39.000 --> 00:38:42.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Yeah, alright. Well, I was thinking… 00:38:42.000 --> 00:38:47.000 Barry VE4MA: I mean, in the meantime, go that way, you know, you can always, uh… I guess the only. 00:38:47.000 --> 00:38:53.000 Barry VE4MA: Thing, whether or not you can find one that's threaded all the way down, because they're not going to be very long. 00:38:54.000 --> 00:39:00.000 David - KG5EIU TX: No, no, they only need, like I said, they only need about an inch long. Uh, man, I… I can't believe I can't find them. 00:38:57.000 --> 00:38:59.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah. 00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:06.000 David - KG5EIU TX: I remember taking that dish apart, and I put them off to the side, said, man, I'm not gonna lose these. Of course, they're lost. 00:39:04.000 --> 00:39:06.000 Eric Haskell AG5XV: Mm-hmm. 00:39:07.000 --> 00:39:09.000 Bob N5BRG: We can't believe it either. 00:39:09.000 --> 00:39:14.000 David - KG5EIU TX: I swear the Grummins probably got out there and got him. 00:39:18.000 --> 00:39:21.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Thank you, thank you, Eric. I'm gonna, um… 00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:22.000 Eric Haskell AG5XV: Hmm. 00:39:22.000 --> 00:39:25.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Yeah, get the chat going here. 00:39:26.000 --> 00:39:34.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: All right, guys, we're getting to the top of the hour, and a shout-out to Mark, who's joined WBATGY. 00:39:34.000 --> 00:39:40.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Claudio India to November Delta Tango, and Graham McIntire. 00:39:41.000 --> 00:39:44.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: W5ISP, welcome. 00:39:46.000 --> 00:39:52.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And Al, I think it's, uh, all yours now when you want to take over the screen and. 00:39:52.000 --> 00:39:54.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: The meeting. 00:39:54.000 --> 00:39:56.000 Al W5LUA: Alright, let me, uh… 00:39:59.000 --> 00:40:03.000 Al W5LUA: Pull it up here, let's see, uh, share… 00:40:12.000 --> 00:40:14.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Let's see in the PowerPoint. 00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:20.000 Al W5LUA: Oh… oh, wait a minute, why do I have two? Okay. 00:40:21.000 --> 00:40:23.000 Al W5LUA: So you see that okay? 00:40:23.000 --> 00:40:27.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah, see the nav bar on the left, uh, F5 will make it. 00:40:27.000 --> 00:40:29.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, full screen. 00:40:32.000 --> 00:40:34.000 Al W5LUA: Hold on a second. 00:40:34.000 --> 00:40:36.000 Al W5LUA: Stop share. 00:40:38.000 --> 00:40:40.000 Al W5LUA: Share… 00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:52.000 Al W5LUA: Hmm. 00:40:53.000 --> 00:40:55.000 Al W5LUA: I see two of them here. 00:40:58.000 --> 00:41:00.000 Al W5LUA: I wonder which one. 00:41:02.000 --> 00:41:07.000 Bob N5BRG: Maybe seeing the one on your local machine, and then the one that's coming in from the Zoom Meeting, huh? 00:41:07.000 --> 00:41:09.000 Al W5LUA: Yeah… 00:41:09.000 --> 00:41:11.000 Al W5LUA: Okay. 00:41:18.000 --> 00:41:20.000 Al W5LUA: Dogg on it. 00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:23.000 Al W5LUA: Seems like I'm going in circles here. 00:41:23.000 --> 00:41:27.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Well, while you're doing that, I'm going to get the recording going, because I forgot that. 00:41:31.000 --> 00:41:33.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: to speak. 00:41:33.000 --> 00:41:35.000 Al W5LUA: Hmm. 00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:42.000 Al W5LUA: As my screen sharing is paused. 00:41:44.000 --> 00:41:47.000 Al W5LUA: Do you see anything from me here? I didn't have a problem. 00:41:46.000 --> 00:41:50.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah, I see the PowerPoint, um… 00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:52.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah, the… 00:41:52.000 --> 00:41:54.000 Al W5LUA: Splashdown? 00:41:53.000 --> 00:42:00.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I know that F5 will make it launch into a full screen where we won't see the left hand. 00:42:01.000 --> 00:42:03.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Anymore? 00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:08.000 Al W5LUA: Okay, I mean, that's 5 on my end, huh? 00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:14.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: You know, on my machine, I have to… I have to press function F5. 00:42:17.000 --> 00:42:19.000 Al W5LUA: So that's not full screen? 00:42:21.000 --> 00:42:28.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah, it's not full screen, but it's… it's visible right now. I mean, you could just go with it, what you've got right now, if you want. 00:42:29.000 --> 00:42:33.000 Al W5LUA: Yeah, I don't… we didn't have that problem when we first checked it out, did we? 00:42:33.000 --> 00:42:37.000 Barry VE4MA: Run the presentation, whatever you need to do. 00:42:33.000 --> 00:42:35.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: No. 00:42:41.000 --> 00:42:44.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: See the far left where it says, From Beginning? 00:42:46.000 --> 00:42:48.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And it has an arrow. 00:42:48.000 --> 00:42:52.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, a green filled-in triangle pointing to the right. 00:42:53.000 --> 00:42:58.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Try clicking that right under the menu option that says File. 00:43:02.000 --> 00:43:04.000 Al W5LUA: Hmm, I don't know where you're at. 00:43:04.000 --> 00:43:06.000 Barry VE4MA: Upper left corner. 00:43:09.000 --> 00:43:11.000 Al W5LUA: I don't have anything up there. 00:43:12.000 --> 00:43:23.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Oh, okay, so we're seeing something different than you, apparently, but there's a yellow band that says, back up this document, and then above that, on the far left, there says. 00:43:23.000 --> 00:43:27.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, start slideshow, and then… 00:43:27.000 --> 00:43:31.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: The leftmost button from that says From Beginning. 00:43:34.000 --> 00:43:37.000 Al W5LUA: But I need to share first, right? 00:43:37.000 --> 00:43:43.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Well, eventually, yeah, you probably have to share first, because the PowerPoint might take over. 00:43:43.000 --> 00:43:45.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: That part of your Zoom screen. 00:43:55.000 --> 00:43:59.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I've got your presentation also, if you… 00:44:02.000 --> 00:44:04.000 Al W5LUA: Hmm. 00:44:03.000 --> 00:44:05.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Need to go that way. 00:44:06.000 --> 00:44:11.000 Bob N5BRG: So they're telling you, Al, within the PowerPoint slide information. 00:44:11.000 --> 00:44:13.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: There you go. Right there. 00:44:12.000 --> 00:44:14.000 Bob N5BRG: Yeah. You got it. 00:44:14.000 --> 00:44:16.000 Al W5LUA: Is this… is this the way it's supposed to be? 00:44:16.000 --> 00:44:18.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: You got it. 00:44:17.000 --> 00:44:20.000 Al W5LUA: Alright. Golly, it's so complicated. 00:44:22.000 --> 00:44:24.000 Al W5LUA: Alrighty. 00:44:24.000 --> 00:44:30.000 Al W5LUA: Well, I was praying that these, uh, astronauts would land successfully, or splash down successfully yesterday. 00:44:31.000 --> 00:44:34.000 Al W5LUA: And they did, so we'll talk about, uh… 00:44:34.000 --> 00:44:41.000 Al W5LUA: some fun that I had, and some other guys had here. But this is a splashdown, I think it's 7.07 PM. 00:44:41.000 --> 00:44:46.000 Al W5LUA: And I just took this picture off the TV, right? As I hit the water, so… 00:44:46.000 --> 00:44:49.000 Al W5LUA: Not a great picture, but it's good enough. 00:44:49.000 --> 00:44:54.000 Al W5LUA: So, uh, you know, Artemis is launched on, uh. 00:44:54.000 --> 00:44:58.000 Al W5LUA: April 1st, and it was a 10-day mission, and… 00:44:58.000 --> 00:45:04.000 Al W5LUA: By all means, I think it was deemed, uh, successful, and uh… 00:45:05.000 --> 00:45:07.000 Al W5LUA: I'll talk a little bit about what I did. 00:45:08.000 --> 00:45:11.000 Al W5LUA: after I found out about the event, because it's kind of late to the party. 00:45:12.000 --> 00:45:15.000 Al W5LUA: So this will be talking about my reception of Artemis II. 00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:19.000 Al W5LUA: And, um… and what I did to, uh… 00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:25.000 Al W5LUA: have a little bit of fun over the last week or so, even though it was in the middle of the night, it was really rough from that standpoint. 00:45:27.000 --> 00:45:32.000 Al W5LUA: So you've probably all seen, uh, this slide of, uh, of, uh, different. 00:45:32.000 --> 00:45:36.000 Al W5LUA: Stages of, uh, the flight. 00:45:36.000 --> 00:45:38.000 Al W5LUA: And… 00:45:38.000 --> 00:45:43.000 Al W5LUA: Actually, I didn't start listening for it until it started to leave the Earth's orbit. 00:45:43.000 --> 00:45:49.000 Al W5LUA: A lot of other guys, uh, took some pictures of it within Earth's orbit, and that kind of got me psyched up a little bit. 00:45:49.000 --> 00:45:58.000 Al W5LUA: But they say it took… takes about 4 days to get to the moon, and I would say I just listened on the last couple of days, so it was, uh… 00:45:58.000 --> 00:46:04.000 Al W5LUA: Already quite a ways, uh, on its way to the moon, probably at least a couple hundred thousand miles out. 00:46:06.000 --> 00:46:09.000 Al W5LUA: Being out, uh, $250,000 or so. 00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:15.000 Al W5LUA: There's several amateurs out there that have been, uh, put a lot of work into this, most notably. 00:46:15.000 --> 00:46:19.000 Al W5LUA: Uh, Alex, uh, K6… 00:46:19.000 --> 00:46:21.000 Al W5LUA: Oh gosh, can't remember his call. 00:46:22.000 --> 00:46:24.000 Al W5LUA: QXYQ. 00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:34.000 Al W5LUA: Oh yeah, K6VHF. Thanks, Barry, I was hoping you'd chime in. Uh, they're working with an 18.2 meter dish out in southeast Colorado. 00:46:35.000 --> 00:46:40.000 Al W5LUA: And, uh, it's a fantastic dish. I actually worked them on 1296 Terrestrial. 00:46:41.000 --> 00:46:48.000 Al W5LUA: Over, what, per 600 miles. And also, uh, our friend Pete Tyerson… 00:46:48.000 --> 00:46:55.000 Al W5LUA: OI in Kansas. He's got a 28-foot Kennedy dish, and he was also tracking Artemis. 00:46:55.000 --> 00:47:01.000 Al W5LUA: And then a 20 meter, uh, AMSAT DL dish over in, uh, over in Germany was tracking it. 00:47:02.000 --> 00:47:06.000 Al W5LUA: And Barry, I know, was working on it. Excuse me. 00:47:06.000 --> 00:47:09.000 Al W5LUA: Uh, and also CT1BYM. 00:47:09.000 --> 00:47:14.000 Al W5LUA: and several others, so I thought, well, I might as well give it a shot with my 5-meter dish. 00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:22.000 Al W5LUA: So, this is my dish. It's been up since 1995, I think. So, what is that, 30-some-odd years. 00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:29.000 Al W5LUA: And it's a fiberglass dish, but it works well to 10 GHz. But that's my primary dish. 00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:36.000 Al W5LUA: And previously, you know, there were a couple Lunar prospectors out there, and I know there's another one out there now, but. 00:47:36.000 --> 00:47:44.000 Al W5LUA: In 1998, I copied the lunar prospect around 2273 MHz, and then the Japanese lunar orbiter. 00:47:44.000 --> 00:47:53.000 Al W5LUA: On 2263. And what was kind of neat about that as they were orbiting the Earth was I can peek on moon noise, and then I peak on their signal, and I can tell. 00:47:53.000 --> 00:48:00.000 Al W5LUA: you know, we'll say what quadrant of the moon that they were in as they were going around. And what was really neat is when, uh. 00:48:01.000 --> 00:48:07.000 Al W5LUA: They go behind the moon, and the Doppler changes rather rapidly, and it goes high in frequency, then you lose it. 00:48:07.000 --> 00:48:10.000 Al W5LUA: Until it comes back around again. 00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:15.000 Al W5LUA: So, having had some success back then, I thought, well, might as well give Artemis a shot. 00:48:16.000 --> 00:48:24.000 Al W5LUA: And, of course, keep note that these are not in our hand bands. They are below the handbands, 2273 and 2263. 00:48:26.000 --> 00:48:33.000 Al W5LUA: So, what does Artemis II use for communication? Well, they've got a lot of sophisticated systems, and uh… 00:48:34.000 --> 00:48:38.000 Al W5LUA: One of them is an optical communication system using laser, and also. 00:48:39.000 --> 00:48:50.000 Al W5LUA: They use a deep space network and what they call a near space network. Well, those particular networks really consist of 2GHz, 8.4 GHz, and also 31 or 32GHz. 00:48:51.000 --> 00:48:57.000 Al W5LUA: And deep space is really more for objects that are further out than the Moon. 00:48:57.000 --> 00:48:59.000 Al W5LUA: Yeah, I think it's like, um… 00:48:59.000 --> 00:49:03.000 Al W5LUA: Oh, a million and a half miles or so is… 00:49:03.000 --> 00:49:11.000 Al W5LUA: kind of bridges between near space and deep space, so… you know, Moon's not that far away, it's only a quarter million miles, so that's kind of easy, right? 00:49:12.000 --> 00:49:18.000 Al W5LUA: And then the traditional mode of communication is the S-band, and that's kind of nice, because it allows, uh. 00:49:19.000 --> 00:49:23.000 Al W5LUA: Uh, me to use, you know, my existing system, if you will. 00:49:23.000 --> 00:49:30.000 Al W5LUA: Even though it is kind of out of band, but why not? And they use it for telemetry, voice, and data. 00:49:30.000 --> 00:49:35.000 Al W5LUA: And none of which I could really copy, other than seeing, uh, strange, uh. 00:49:36.000 --> 00:49:40.000 Al W5LUA: Uh, data, uh, out there, and a carrier. 00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:46.000 Al W5LUA: And, um… but I thought, well, it'll still be just kind of fun to see what I can hear. 00:49:46.000 --> 00:49:51.000 Al W5LUA: And look at the signal levels. And Artemis uses 22.16.5. 00:49:52.000 --> 00:50:00.000 Al W5LUA: So, if I had an SDR capable of that, that would be easy, but I didn't, so I gotta be creative and build something. 00:50:02.000 --> 00:50:10.000 Al W5LUA: But before I go ahead and do that, I thought, well, how can I track this thing? Because, you know, once it's to the moon, I mean, I've got coordinates for the moon, that's easy. 00:50:11.000 --> 00:50:15.000 Al W5LUA: But if they're on their way to the moon, I can't aim at the moon and hope to hear them. 00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:21.000 Al W5LUA: Well, um, I think it was SamG4DDK that suggested ntyo.com. 00:50:21.000 --> 00:50:27.000 Al W5LUA: And initially, I got too much advertising in there, but it seemed to have quieted itself down. 00:50:27.000 --> 00:50:32.000 Al W5LUA: And I use that as well to tell me approximately where it is. 00:50:32.000 --> 00:50:35.000 Al W5LUA: Even though I think the distance calculations are… 00:50:35.000 --> 00:50:43.000 Al W5LUA: are off, and I can't tell you why, but I can tell you, though, that once it landed. 00:50:43.000 --> 00:50:48.000 Al W5LUA: It said the altitude was minus 1,000 miles. Uh, obviously that's not true. 00:50:49.000 --> 00:50:55.000 Al W5LUA: So I figure, well, okay, that kind of confirms the fact that the altitude calculation wasn't exactly right. 00:50:56.000 --> 00:51:03.000 Al W5LUA: Or I don't understand how they're making the calculation, one or the other, but at least the, the as and else seem to be pretty accurate that it, uh… 00:51:03.000 --> 00:51:10.000 Al W5LUA: spit out, and what's really kind of nice, even if you don't know where you live, if you're connected to… if you have an IP connection. 00:51:11.000 --> 00:51:15.000 Al W5LUA: It'll give you the coordinates based on your IP address. 00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:21.000 Al W5LUA: So that's another way to go. But anyway, it came in pretty good at 33.1 and minus 96.6 for me. 00:51:21.000 --> 00:51:25.000 Al W5LUA: So I just let it use the IP address, which I think actually is out of McKinney. 00:51:28.000 --> 00:51:31.000 Al W5LUA: Um, the other, um… 00:51:31.000 --> 00:51:35.000 Al W5LUA: Website that is probably the most accurate. 00:51:35.000 --> 00:51:40.000 Al W5LUA: Even though it doesn't give you a lot of information, or I haven't found it yet, um, is the, uh… 00:51:40.000 --> 00:51:43.000 Al W5LUA: Unistellar, uh, website. 00:51:43.000 --> 00:51:48.000 Al W5LUA: And it's a move… it's for moving targets. And this is kind of slick. 00:51:48.000 --> 00:51:53.000 Al W5LUA: And, uh, I used this to just to kind of confirm that the other website wasn't, uh. 00:51:53.000 --> 00:51:58.000 Al W5LUA: too far off, and you select a target, so I selected Artemis II. 00:51:59.000 --> 00:52:03.000 Al W5LUA: you select an address, you can let it, you know, use your IP address. 00:52:03.000 --> 00:52:13.000 Al W5LUA: and you give it a range on the date and the time, and it generates data, and I didn't pay a lot of attention to the increment. 00:52:15.000 --> 00:52:17.000 Al W5LUA: I just figure, well, I'll kind of get close. 00:52:18.000 --> 00:52:20.000 Al W5LUA: And, uh, I should be able to peek up on it. 00:52:21.000 --> 00:52:24.000 Al W5LUA: This gives you some idea of the data that comes out. 00:52:24.000 --> 00:52:28.000 Al W5LUA: Uh, the right ascension and declination, if you had a polar mount. 00:52:28.000 --> 00:52:34.000 Al W5LUA: For me, uh, as Elmount, it was at 16 degrees altitude and 141 azimuth. 00:52:35.000 --> 00:52:38.000 Al W5LUA: And what… the way it turns out. 00:52:38.000 --> 00:52:45.000 Al W5LUA: The moon is at the worst place in the sky for us, because obviously they're headed on a straight line to the moon, or fairly straight. 00:52:46.000 --> 00:52:51.000 Al W5LUA: But, uh, the moon right now is in the south, it's at apogee. 00:52:51.000 --> 00:52:57.000 Al W5LUA: And… it's extremely low in the sky, like 20 degrees or so. 00:52:57.000 --> 00:52:59.000 Al W5LUA: And there was a time… 00:52:59.000 --> 00:53:01.000 Al W5LUA: Um, you know, when the, uh… 00:53:01.000 --> 00:53:03.000 Al W5LUA: Um… 00:53:04.000 --> 00:53:09.000 Al W5LUA: When the Artemis was even below that, and that's getting a little low for me in terms of, you know. 00:53:09.000 --> 00:53:14.000 Al W5LUA: not screwing up cables and such, because I'm not used to looking at the moon at the low altitude anyway. 00:53:14.000 --> 00:53:20.000 Al W5LUA: But, uh, this, um, uh, the data here agreed pretty close with, uh, the N2. 00:53:21.000 --> 00:53:24.000 Al W5LUA: Um… oh, shoot, let me go back here. 00:53:26.000 --> 00:53:31.000 Al W5LUA: I don't want to get it wrong. This guy, uh, N2YO, N2 Yankee Oscar. 00:53:32.000 --> 00:53:37.000 Al W5LUA: So I was the least happy that I could at least track the, uh, the moon, or the, uh, Artemis. 00:53:39.000 --> 00:53:46.000 Al W5LUA: And what really kind of got me going was, uh, K0PRT, this is Alex, K6QXY, posted this. 00:53:46.000 --> 00:53:51.000 Al W5LUA: This is kind of early on, on April 3rd, so it's, what, 2 or 3 days after launch. 00:53:51.000 --> 00:53:58.000 Al W5LUA: And it was showing, uh, this waveform, which was really part of a sine x over x plot. 00:53:58.000 --> 00:54:07.000 Al W5LUA: And I was hoping maybe I could see something similar to that, but I wasn't… I never really knew, you know, when it would be transmitting this, so it's kind of like potluck. 00:54:09.000 --> 00:54:15.000 Al W5LUA: And here's another plot by CT1BYM. Uh, I'm not sure how big his dish is. 00:54:15.000 --> 00:54:21.000 Al W5LUA: Uh, but I think it's… I remember seeing a picture. It's a mesh dish, so it's probably at least 3 or 4 meters. 00:54:21.000 --> 00:54:30.000 Al W5LUA: In size. And this is kind of the waveform that I was looking for. It's peaked on 2216.5, and you got a couple side lobes there. 00:54:30.000 --> 00:54:36.000 Al W5LUA: And I assume that they're transmitting data, or, you know, could even be voice, because this is also a voice channel. 00:54:39.000 --> 00:54:43.000 Al W5LUA: So, the first day for me was April… 00:54:43.000 --> 00:54:48.000 Al W5LUA: And I had… I had no success. I had hooked up, uh, my down converter to a couple of… 00:54:49.000 --> 00:54:54.000 Al W5LUA: amplifiers, and I looked at them, I spectrum analyzer, because somebody said that they could see it on there. 00:54:54.000 --> 00:55:02.000 Al W5LUA: And I saw nothing, but then realized that the ascents was backwards, and EME operation is, uh… 00:55:02.000 --> 00:55:06.000 Al W5LUA: We transmit right hand and receive left hand, and… 00:55:06.000 --> 00:55:11.000 Al W5LUA: Unfortunately, uh, I had to get the receiver over on the right-hand port. 00:55:11.000 --> 00:55:15.000 Al W5LUA: And I really didn't feel like going out there and changing things over. 00:55:15.000 --> 00:55:24.000 Al W5LUA: So I thought, well, I'll just disconnect the, uh, power, uh, going to the, uh, or the claystron going to the, uh, transmit cable. 00:55:24.000 --> 00:55:29.000 Al W5LUA: And I'll attach a down converter there, capable of receiving a 2216. 00:55:29.000 --> 00:55:32.000 Al W5LUA: and like I mentioned before, I didn't have an SDR. 00:55:33.000 --> 00:55:38.000 Al W5LUA: Uh, that would, you know, be capable of receiving that, and of course that'll change in the future. 00:55:39.000 --> 00:55:45.000 Al W5LUA: But I built up a converter, so it would down-convert to a 10 meters on my Flex 6600. 00:55:45.000 --> 00:55:48.000 Al W5LUA: All I cared was to see the signal itself. 00:55:49.000 --> 00:55:55.000 Al W5LUA: Well, if you're going to build a super converter, or down converter, you need a filter. 00:55:56.000 --> 00:56:01.000 Al W5LUA: And fortunately, uh, Kent gave me this filter quite a while ago. I never ended up using it. 00:56:01.000 --> 00:56:08.000 Al W5LUA: Probably because it's… 2304 is up towards the high end. This filter covers roughly 2180. 00:56:08.000 --> 00:56:16.000 Al W5LUA: The 2320, and you can see where 21, or 2216.5 is, that's the cursor. 00:56:16.000 --> 00:56:21.000 Al W5LUA: So I thought, well, this would be ideal. It provides a lot of, uh, LO rejection. 00:56:21.000 --> 00:56:25.000 Al W5LUA: and image rejection. So that's the heart of my converter. 00:56:26.000 --> 00:56:29.000 Al W5LUA: And here's a simple converter I built up. 00:56:29.000 --> 00:56:38.000 Al W5LUA: Um, I had to get a preamp. I know some preamps that Demi builds and also Tommy builds have some saw devices in them. Well. 00:56:38.000 --> 00:56:45.000 Al W5LUA: Sol devices cover 2400 to 2483, or, you know, frequencies higher than 2304. 00:56:45.000 --> 00:56:50.000 Al W5LUA: Uh, but I didn't get any, or didn't have any gain down at 2216. 00:56:50.000 --> 00:56:58.000 Al W5LUA: So one of Tommy's preamps was broadband, and I used it to drive this ZQL1900, which is a high dynamic range. 00:56:58.000 --> 00:57:06.000 Al W5LUA: 1900 MHz LNA and that bandpass filter, and I found a mixer that seemed to be rated at. 00:57:06.000 --> 00:57:12.000 Al W5LUA: The frequency, and my… I needed some sort of an IF amplifier. 00:57:12.000 --> 00:57:17.000 Al W5LUA: And I tried various things, like some broadband amplifiers, and I was having all sorts of trouble with. 00:57:17.000 --> 00:57:21.000 Al W5LUA: uh, LO getting into the noise figure meter, so… 00:57:21.000 --> 00:57:28.000 Al W5LUA: I found an old Janelle 144PV preamp, and you guys might remember what that is. It's like a 3N. 00:57:28.000 --> 00:57:37.000 Al W5LUA: 140 and 2 stages of, uh, bandpass filtering, one on the input and one on the output. 00:57:37.000 --> 00:57:44.000 Al W5LUA: It looked good on the noise figure meter, but it was not necessarily a broadband, um, down converter because of that. 00:57:44.000 --> 00:57:50.000 Al W5LUA: And then I, uh, use my HP signal generator at, uh, 2072 MHz. 00:57:51.000 --> 00:57:56.000 Al W5LUA: And I had a noise figure of 1.2 dB and gain of 28.7. 00:57:56.000 --> 00:57:59.000 Al W5LUA: At, uh, 2216, and I thought, that's more than enough. 00:58:03.000 --> 00:58:10.000 Al W5LUA: So, on April 6th, the morning of the day that Artemis circled around the moon, so we're on the left side of the moon. 00:58:10.000 --> 00:58:14.000 Al W5LUA: And, uh, the signal is, uh… 00:58:14.000 --> 00:58:21.000 Al W5LUA: Uh, it's Doppler shifted below because it's leaving us, and I just saw a signal at 822 Zulu. 00:58:22.000 --> 00:58:24.000 Al W5LUA: And then it disappeared. 00:58:24.000 --> 00:58:31.000 Al W5LUA: And, uh, that was confirmed by Mzeroi, and Pete and his crew up there in Kansas. 00:58:31.000 --> 00:58:36.000 Al W5LUA: They were… I think they were up all night, and of course, 0822 is not 8.22 in the morning. 00:58:37.000 --> 00:58:41.000 Al W5LUA: That's 322 AM Central Time, so… that's tough. 00:58:42.000 --> 00:58:48.000 Al W5LUA: To get up at those hours. So I trekked Artemis for the next few hours with varying success, hoping I would see the. 00:58:48.000 --> 00:58:55.000 Al W5LUA: the, uh… I'll call it the beacon again, and I figured the beacon was there so they can do Doppler measurements, and. 00:58:55.000 --> 00:59:02.000 Al W5LUA: I just wanted to take a look at it, but I knew it was below the nominal frequency, so I knew it was still going away. 00:59:04.000 --> 00:59:12.000 Al W5LUA: And at 10:15 Zulu, which is a couple hours later, besides getting tired, I started to see something happening down at the. 00:59:12.000 --> 00:59:15.000 Al W5LUA: You can see it on the top plot, down at the low end. 00:59:15.000 --> 00:59:20.000 Al W5LUA: And, um, I don't know that… you probably can't see my convert… my cursor, I'm sure. 00:59:21.000 --> 00:59:26.000 Al W5LUA: Uh, and then there's also another signal down here in the bottom. 00:59:27.000 --> 00:59:32.000 Al W5LUA: You can, okay. Alright, so there's some broadband… 00:59:32.000 --> 00:59:34.000 Al W5LUA: Uh, signal up here. 00:59:34.000 --> 00:59:37.000 Al W5LUA: And this is over in there, uh… 00:59:37.000 --> 00:59:42.000 Al W5LUA: Narrower passband, if you will, or narrower frequency range. Here is a broad. 00:59:42.000 --> 00:59:49.000 Al W5LUA: Frequency range. This is from 2213 to 2219, so maybe 6 megahertz. 00:59:50.000 --> 00:59:56.000 Al W5LUA: And this slope is most likely because of that Genel preamp. I… I'm not used to building broadband. 00:59:56.000 --> 00:59:58.000 Al W5LUA: flat receivers. 00:59:58.000 --> 01:00:04.000 Al W5LUA: But you can also see this signal, which is not the same one I'm seeing up here. 01:00:04.000 --> 01:00:11.000 Al W5LUA: So I imagine if I went down in frequency on this slice up here, I could probably see this a little bit better. 01:00:12.000 --> 01:00:21.000 Al W5LUA: But that may have been… I mean, that's a big signal right there, so I think I just kind of missed that at 10:15, but none of these last for long. 01:00:21.000 --> 01:00:29.000 Al W5LUA: And I've got no idea what schedule they're on. I mean, they're on their own schedule, and you just gotta sit yourself in front of the radio. 01:00:29.000 --> 01:00:36.000 Al W5LUA: Now, I know Pete Sias has had some other connections to some NASA sites, which kind of… 01:00:36.000 --> 01:00:41.000 Al W5LUA: Allows you to find out what they're doing, but I didn't… didn't have knowledge of that. 01:00:41.000 --> 01:00:43.000 Al W5LUA: I'm just kind of the new kid. 01:00:44.000 --> 01:00:50.000 Al W5LUA: So here's another one. This is, what, 1130 Zulu, and I see 3 little. 01:00:50.000 --> 01:00:53.000 Al W5LUA: Signals right here, and you can see some signals in between. 01:00:54.000 --> 01:01:00.000 Al W5LUA: So, it looked like a kind of a picket fence in a way, and you can see it looks a little ratty down here, like there's something going on. 01:01:03.000 --> 01:01:07.000 Al W5LUA: And here, 1134, another… another shot. 01:01:08.000 --> 01:01:12.000 Al W5LUA: 1154, a pretty good-sized signal, uh, down here. 01:01:13.000 --> 01:01:16.000 Al W5LUA: And, uh, actually, it's probably… 01:01:16.000 --> 01:01:23.000 Al W5LUA: uh, 15 dB over the noise, but it's got some real fast Doppler on it, and I gotta tell you, during the day. 01:01:23.000 --> 01:01:28.000 Al W5LUA: Uh, when I monitor this, and there's nothing else on the band, this is a super quiet. 01:01:29.000 --> 01:01:34.000 Al W5LUA: piece of land, if you will. It's just too bad our 2304 handband doesn't look this clean. 01:01:35.000 --> 01:01:40.000 Al W5LUA: And the same with 2400, but this is, uh, this is like sacred land here, frequency-wise. 01:01:41.000 --> 01:01:47.000 Al W5LUA: And I can see why they want to keep everybody away from it, but just kind of nice to… 01:01:47.000 --> 01:01:51.000 Al W5LUA: I see a clean 13 centimeter, uh, uh, spectrum for once. 01:01:52.000 --> 01:01:57.000 Al W5LUA: So, that was… that was April 6th, April 7. 01:01:57.000 --> 01:02:03.000 Al W5LUA: Artemis had already gone to the backside of the moon, the dark side of the moon, the Doppler's now positive. 01:02:04.000 --> 01:02:07.000 Al W5LUA: He's still about 200,000 miles away. 01:02:07.000 --> 01:02:10.000 Al W5LUA: And the next few slides I have show. 01:02:10.000 --> 01:02:16.000 Al W5LUA: The primary beacon signal at 2216, plus Doppler, and various other artifacts. 01:02:18.000 --> 01:02:23.000 Al W5LUA: So now I'm starting to get happy. Here's the signal at 2216.5. 01:02:23.000 --> 01:02:29.000 Al W5LUA: and uh… looks like maybe a couple kilohertz of Doppler. Now… 01:02:29.000 --> 01:02:33.000 Al W5LUA: I was just initially looking at this in the CW mode. 01:02:33.000 --> 01:02:39.000 Al W5LUA: And I did go over to the upper side beam mode so I could look at the, uh, the actual zero beat frequency. 01:02:39.000 --> 01:02:46.000 Al W5LUA: Because theoretically, if there's no Doppler, and I'm on upper sideband, I should see a zero beat at 2216.5. 01:02:48.000 --> 01:02:53.000 Al W5LUA: So the signal… I took this with… I don't think I was even peaked on… 01:02:53.000 --> 01:03:01.000 Al W5LUA: Artemis, because I lost it the day before, and I'll be darned if I was gonna lose it today. So, signals do get better, and it may be because of my tracking. 01:03:01.000 --> 01:03:06.000 Al W5LUA: Here's that 0817, we're a little bit better. You know, on the pan adapter, it shows. 01:03:08.000 --> 01:03:11.000 Al W5LUA: maybe 20 dB out of the noise. 01:03:13.000 --> 01:03:18.000 Al W5LUA: you know, I played around a little bit with the passband just to see it a little bit better. 01:03:18.000 --> 01:03:23.000 Al W5LUA: I don't like having it zero beat with the cursor, because it's kind of hard to see it. Sometimes that kind of nulls it out, and… 01:03:24.000 --> 01:03:26.000 Al W5LUA: I'd rather have it, um… 01:03:27.000 --> 01:03:33.000 Al W5LUA: Up in the audio passband, where I can at least listen to it, but you can see it's getting a little stronger, and it's actually… 01:03:33.000 --> 01:03:40.000 Al W5LUA: Uh, you can see it down here in the broadband plot. It's a… it's a pretty good signal. I mean, approaching. 01:03:41.000 --> 01:03:43.000 Al W5LUA: Oh, it does approach… 01:03:44.000 --> 01:03:48.000 Al W5LUA: Let's see… yeah, this one here, 0847. 01:03:49.000 --> 01:03:52.000 Al W5LUA: This is probably the strongest signal. 01:03:52.000 --> 01:03:55.000 Al W5LUA: And, uh, you can see it down here. 01:03:55.000 --> 01:04:00.000 Al W5LUA: Pretty substantial right here in a wider passband. Now, I did this out. 01:04:00.000 --> 01:04:06.000 Al W5LUA: But these are… these are spurs down at 29 megahertz, because my IF is 29. 01:04:06.000 --> 01:04:08.000 Al W5LUA: 100Hz. 01:04:08.000 --> 01:04:13.000 Al W5LUA: But still, uh, I was very happy, you know, with the size of this signal. 01:04:13.000 --> 01:04:18.000 Al W5LUA: And, uh, it's not S5, that just happens to be the noise level of the receiver. 01:04:18.000 --> 01:04:26.000 Al W5LUA: I don't mind the higher noise levels, because it tells me that the system's working. If I had everything resting down on S0, I wouldn't know if it was working or not. 01:04:27.000 --> 01:04:31.000 Al W5LUA: So, uh… but I hardly use an S-meter anymore. 01:04:31.000 --> 01:04:34.000 Al W5LUA: I use the, uh, the pan adapter. 01:04:34.000 --> 01:04:37.000 Al W5LUA: So, I was pretty happy with this particular, uh. 01:04:38.000 --> 01:04:40.000 Al W5LUA: Day, if you will. 01:04:40.000 --> 01:04:44.000 Al W5LUA: There's 0848, another… another good-looking signal. 01:04:44.000 --> 01:04:48.000 Al W5LUA: But it's actually peaking almost 30 dB out of the noise. 01:04:50.000 --> 01:04:56.000 Al W5LUA: And 0901, the carrier disappeared again. I'm glad I got up early to look for it. 01:04:56.000 --> 01:05:05.000 Al W5LUA: And I say most likely switch to a communications or data handling mode. I'm not sure, you know, what schedule they're on. I know N0OI. 01:05:05.000 --> 01:05:07.000 Al W5LUA: Uh, had some… 01:05:07.000 --> 01:05:14.000 Al W5LUA: Connection with some site that told them, uh, what actually was being sent at the time. 01:05:14.000 --> 01:05:18.000 Al W5LUA: But I didn't, uh, have a chance to look into that. 01:05:19.000 --> 01:05:23.000 Al W5LUA: And yesterday morning, before it splashed down. 01:05:23.000 --> 01:05:31.000 Al W5LUA: I, I got up at, you know, this is what, 6, uh, 6:30. I got up at 6:30, and I thought, oh, what the heck, I'm gonna go listen for it. 01:05:31.000 --> 01:05:39.000 Al W5LUA: And I saw something even different, but this is probably similar to what I saw earlier when it was further out. 01:05:39.000 --> 01:05:47.000 Al W5LUA: And I can actually see kind of a cluster here of signals that seem to be in higher amplitude than out here. 01:05:47.000 --> 01:05:53.000 Al W5LUA: And especially since this thing is trailing off in my receiver, I think this was really… this is the cluster right in here. 01:05:53.000 --> 01:05:55.000 Al W5LUA: that I'm seeing on the top graph. 01:05:55.000 --> 01:05:58.000 Barry VE4MA: I think that's your sine X over X, and… 01:05:58.000 --> 01:06:02.000 Al W5LUA: Yeah, I think this is the closest I've gotten to it, yeah. 01:06:03.000 --> 01:06:08.000 Al W5LUA: So, but that's not anything compared to what each size got here. 01:06:08.000 --> 01:06:12.000 Al W5LUA: As I show you… I'll show you some slides from him here in a second. 01:06:12.000 --> 01:06:15.000 Al W5LUA: I just kind of want to summarize what I was doing here. 01:06:15.000 --> 01:06:19.000 Al W5LUA: my noise figure, effective noise figure for this was about 3 dB. 01:06:19.000 --> 01:06:24.000 Al W5LUA: at the antenna, because I had a 1.2 dB noise figure. 01:06:24.000 --> 01:06:29.000 Al W5LUA: 1.9 dB a heliax, uh, getting to the, uh, the feed. 01:06:29.000 --> 01:06:34.000 Al W5LUA: And, uh, so, you know, with a 3 dB noise figure. 01:06:34.000 --> 01:06:39.000 Al W5LUA: And the third… roughly 39 dBI again, and 30 dB of… 01:06:39.000 --> 01:06:41.000 Al W5LUA: Signal to noise ratio tops. 01:06:41.000 --> 01:06:46.000 Al W5LUA: I think even a 20 dBi antenna could have seen the signal at 10 dB over the noise. 01:06:47.000 --> 01:06:52.000 Al W5LUA: And if I had a lower noise figure LNA, uh, out there, would it be even better? 01:06:52.000 --> 01:06:57.000 Al W5LUA: The problem with this is, if you're gonna get out there with a Helix antenna. 01:06:58.000 --> 01:07:04.000 Al W5LUA: and 20 DBI, you're gonna have to track it for probably hours, just so you can see. 01:07:05.000 --> 01:07:10.000 Al W5LUA: You know, everything that it's transmitting, but I'm sure they're on some sort of a schedule. 01:07:10.000 --> 01:07:21.000 Al W5LUA: But it always seemed like the, uh, the tone was in there earlier, and, uh, you know, maybe at 4 in the morning or whatever, you know, they got their wake-up call out there, possibly. I don't know. 01:07:22.000 --> 01:07:27.000 Al W5LUA: But, uh, if you're willing to spend the time at it, you know, it was some… it was fun. 01:07:29.000 --> 01:07:39.000 Al W5LUA: Now, Pete Syas, um, Pete has offered to do a presentation for us at a future meeting. Now, Pete and his crew up there have a 28-foot dish. 01:07:40.000 --> 01:07:46.000 Al W5LUA: and they're using, uh, what, a HackRF. Actually, he said he had two HackRFs. One of them. 01:07:46.000 --> 01:07:52.000 Al W5LUA: was sending… it was, uh, receiving IQ data, and they did this for hours up there. 01:07:52.000 --> 01:08:02.000 Al W5LUA: And, uh, they stored the IQ data, and now I guess they're in the process of crunching the data to look at Doppler, and that was what they primarily wanted to do. 01:08:02.000 --> 01:08:09.000 Al W5LUA: He used a second HackRF for just kind of tuning around, if you will, which was kind of basically what I was doing. 01:08:09.000 --> 01:08:13.000 Al W5LUA: With my flex. But there's his primary signal. 01:08:13.000 --> 01:08:18.000 Al W5LUA: And that was at 0730. That's pretty early in the morning, that's, uh… 01:08:18.000 --> 01:08:23.000 Al W5LUA: Oh, shoot, what is that? That's 2.30 in the morning. I'm sleeping. 01:08:24.000 --> 01:08:29.000 Al W5LUA: Here's a little bit later, 0945, and you can see some sort of a… 01:08:29.000 --> 01:08:34.000 Al W5LUA: Modulation going on, I'm not sure exactly what was being transmitted there. 01:08:35.000 --> 01:08:37.000 Al W5LUA: But this is the best plot. 01:08:37.000 --> 01:08:43.000 Al W5LUA: And, uh, I'm not sure why I don't see the sidebands in there. 01:08:43.000 --> 01:08:49.000 Al W5LUA: Unless, you know, they really are in there, but further down. But this is a nice cluster of, uh… 01:08:50.000 --> 01:08:54.000 Al W5LUA: I guess a modulation waveform of such. 01:08:54.000 --> 01:09:00.000 Al W5LUA: But, uh, I never quite saw it, but I didn't have as big a dish as what he has and what K0PRT has. 01:09:00.000 --> 01:09:02.000 Al W5LUA: But it was just a lot of fun. 01:09:02.000 --> 01:09:08.000 Al W5LUA: You know, kind of a moment's notice, uh, after they launch to try to get something going. 01:09:08.000 --> 01:09:10.000 Al W5LUA: And, uh… 01:09:10.000 --> 01:09:13.000 Al W5LUA: I, uh, enjoyed it, even though I didn't get a lot of sleep. 01:09:14.000 --> 01:09:19.000 Al W5LUA: So, um, I threw this slide in here after I sent my file to you. 01:09:19.000 --> 01:09:28.000 Al W5LUA: Uh, Jim, because, uh, the Amateur Deep Space Network is where a lot of guys hang out, and thanks for reminding me today, Barry, in your email. 01:09:28.000 --> 01:09:33.000 Al W5LUA: So I went out there and, um, actually applied for, um… 01:09:33.000 --> 01:09:40.000 Al W5LUA: membership in this group and was accepted, and I think in the future I'll try to be a little bit more prepared. 01:09:40.000 --> 01:09:43.000 Al W5LUA: Um, for the next event, whenever it is. 01:09:45.000 --> 01:09:48.000 Al W5LUA: So, like I mentioned, Pete was… Pete offered to speak. 01:09:48.000 --> 01:09:56.000 Al W5LUA: Uh, at a future meeting, which I think would be great. And, uh, but for me, it was just fun to copy it, hear the beacon signal. 01:09:56.000 --> 01:10:00.000 Al W5LUA: I did, uh, decide that, you know, considering. 01:10:00.000 --> 01:10:03.000 Al W5LUA: Not all the, uh, the, uh… 01:10:03.000 --> 01:10:12.000 Al W5LUA: lunar orbiters and landers are on the same frequency, it's probably time to go buy a HackRF or something like that. 01:10:12.000 --> 01:10:16.000 Al W5LUA: And, uh, maybe I use external filtering just to, uh. 01:10:17.000 --> 01:10:25.000 Al W5LUA: keep the HackRF from being overloaded. But I was really pleasantly surprised, like I mentioned, that that band was as clean as it was there. 01:10:26.000 --> 01:10:32.000 Al W5LUA: So that's encouraging. And maybe next time I'll… I'll consider recording some signals. 01:10:32.000 --> 01:10:36.000 Al W5LUA: Uh, like, uh, Pete and the other guys were doing. Now. 01:10:36.000 --> 01:10:39.000 Al W5LUA: Pete did mention that there is a… 01:10:39.000 --> 01:10:47.000 Al W5LUA: a Korean orbiter on 2260.8, and actually, when I googled it, it looked like it had been active for a couple of years. 01:10:48.000 --> 01:10:54.000 Al W5LUA: And the Lunar Prospector was active for a couple years as well, so there's always, uh… 01:10:54.000 --> 01:10:56.000 Al W5LUA: A signal to look forward to, uh… 01:10:57.000 --> 01:11:00.000 Al W5LUA: Or look for on… on… around the moon. 01:11:00.000 --> 01:11:03.000 Al W5LUA: So, I'm looking forward to the next event. Um… 01:11:04.000 --> 01:11:09.000 Al W5LUA: Hopefully you enjoyed the presentation. Are there any questions or comments out there? 01:11:14.000 --> 01:11:19.000 Pat W5VY: Alice, this is Pat, W-5-V-Y. Do you have any idea about the, uh… 01:11:17.000 --> 01:11:18.000 Al W5LUA: Mm-hmm. 01:11:19.000 --> 01:11:24.000 Pat W5VY: Oh, the transmit in, what the ERP might be, what kind of antennas, power levels they're running. 01:11:25.000 --> 01:11:31.000 Al W5LUA: No. In fact, when I googled it, it looked like that was, uh, uh, secret information. 01:11:31.000 --> 01:11:33.000 Pat W5VY: Uh-huh. 01:11:33.000 --> 01:11:37.000 Al W5LUA: So, maybe that was just a search engine, but yeah, I tried to look for that. I don't know how it… 01:11:37.000 --> 01:11:43.000 Al W5LUA: You know, on the Lunar Prospector, we knew what it was, because I put it in my presentation back then. 01:11:43.000 --> 01:11:46.000 Al W5LUA: I forget what it was, but uh… 01:11:46.000 --> 01:11:49.000 Al W5LUA: And it was also on a different circularity. 01:11:49.000 --> 01:11:55.000 Al W5LUA: Because I didn't have to change ports, if you will, back then. So, I'm not sure if… 01:11:56.000 --> 01:12:03.000 Al W5LUA: If they're gonna, um, you know, keep the circular polarity the same as it is now, or why they even changed it, I have no idea. 01:12:04.000 --> 01:12:09.000 Al W5LUA: But I don't have any particulars on it. That'd be something that we can ask Pete Saez, or maybe. 01:12:06.000 --> 01:12:08.000 Pat W5VY: Okay. 01:12:09.000 --> 01:12:17.000 Barry VE4MA: I think I've got some information now, I'll look for it while we're talking here. I think they were… transmitter was 10 watts, I think, but I don't know what the antenna was. 01:12:09.000 --> 01:12:11.000 Al W5LUA: You don't… 01:12:13.000 --> 01:12:15.000 Al W5LUA: Okay. 01:12:17.000 --> 01:12:19.000 Al W5LUA: Okay. 01:12:19.000 --> 01:12:22.000 Al W5LUA: I assume that, um… 01:12:22.000 --> 01:12:27.000 Al W5LUA: All this stuff burned up when it separated before the capsule came in. 01:12:28.000 --> 01:12:30.000 Al W5LUA: That kind of your understanding? 01:12:34.000 --> 01:12:36.000 Bob N5BRG: Probably did, that's right. 01:12:36.000 --> 01:12:38.000 Al W5LUA: Yeah, because it looks like they're… 01:12:37.000 --> 01:12:44.000 Bob N5BRG: I can comment a little bit more on this, too. The Deep Space Network guys did work really hard on this project. 01:12:45.000 --> 01:12:51.000 Bob N5BRG: And actually, NASA put out a request some time ago for people that wanted to participate. 01:12:51.000 --> 01:12:57.000 Bob N5BRG: That had the tracking capability to monitor the… this carrier. 01:12:57.000 --> 01:13:02.000 Bob N5BRG: And, uh, against real accurate, uh, GPS-type timing. 01:13:02.000 --> 01:13:08.000 Bob N5BRG: to provide Doppler shift information back to confirm the location of the spacecraft. 01:13:08.000 --> 01:13:17.000 Bob N5BRG: They actually had the amateur community involved, and if you look on the Deep Space Exploration Society's webpage. 01:13:09.000 --> 01:13:11.000 Al W5LUA: Right. 01:13:17.000 --> 01:13:20.000 Bob N5BRG: There's an article there about that. 01:13:20.000 --> 01:13:25.000 Bob N5BRG: And they pretty heavily, uh, are involved with Sarah. 01:13:25.000 --> 01:13:35.000 Bob N5BRG: And there's a guy there, Rick K0GD, which has been in the business of making GPS systems for a long time. He was helping them a lot with the. 01:13:35.000 --> 01:13:41.000 Bob N5BRG: GPS tracking things, and I think because they were accepted and involved. 01:13:41.000 --> 01:13:48.000 Bob N5BRG: And other people were, too. They were getting this inside information, like you were talking about, about the schedule. 01:13:46.000 --> 01:13:48.000 Al W5LUA: Right. 01:13:48.000 --> 01:13:56.000 Bob N5BRG: And I have one, uh, thing that they posted here that I could share and show you if you're interested in seeing it. 01:13:57.000 --> 01:13:59.000 Bob N5BRG: That was posted. 01:13:57.000 --> 01:13:59.000 Al W5LUA: Yeah, do you want to do it now, or… 01:13:59.000 --> 01:14:02.000 Bob N5BRG: Yeah, I can do it now if you want to. 01:14:02.000 --> 01:14:04.000 Al W5LUA: Let me stop sharing. 01:14:07.000 --> 01:14:09.000 Bob N5BRG: Uh… 01:14:10.000 --> 01:14:14.000 Bob N5BRG: Well, I'll just share the entire screen and then get it to come up. 01:14:26.000 --> 01:14:33.000 Bob N5BRG: Okay, I can't do it now, because I didn't have the authority on my system. I can come back later and show you the graph. 01:14:33.000 --> 01:14:37.000 Bob N5BRG: But it was posted on the Sarah website, showing there. 01:14:37.000 --> 01:14:47.000 Bob N5BRG: tracking information in the software looked very similar to what you were showing, but what they did was they showed, like, a continuous Doppler shift. 01:14:47.000 --> 01:14:51.000 Bob N5BRG: Over time that they got from monitoring the thing. 01:14:52.000 --> 01:14:57.000 Barry VE4MA: The EIRP was plus 49 dBm. 01:15:00.000 --> 01:15:03.000 Barry VE4MA: So what's that? 80… 80 watts ERP? 01:15:07.000 --> 01:15:09.000 Al W5LUA: Do you think that the antenna had any gain? 01:15:10.000 --> 01:15:12.000 Barry VE4MA: Not a heck of a lot. 01:15:13.000 --> 01:15:15.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Was that EIRP? 01:15:15.000 --> 01:15:17.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah. 01:15:22.000 --> 01:15:24.000 Al W5LUA: At least 10 watts, right? 01:15:25.000 --> 01:15:29.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: On that. But that would be, um… 01:15:28.000 --> 01:15:32.000 Barry VE4MA: Well, 50 would be 100 watts, so 49 is 80. 01:15:30.000 --> 01:15:33.000 Al W5LUA: Yeah, I know, but at least 10 was some gain, though. 01:15:33.000 --> 01:15:35.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah. 01:15:34.000 --> 01:15:37.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah, it could be, but… 01:15:40.000 --> 01:15:41.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah. 01:15:47.000 --> 01:15:51.000 Al W5LUA: Well, anyway, it was, um, it was fun, and it was a short project. 01:15:51.000 --> 01:15:57.000 Al W5LUA: And, uh, I think it's prompted me to try to get more involved next time, but… 01:15:57.000 --> 01:16:00.000 Al W5LUA: Not to the level those guys are, I mean, that's… 01:16:00.000 --> 01:16:06.000 Al W5LUA: you know, when I talked to Pete, he was like a zombie, because he'd been up all night, and he had some help from. 01:16:06.000 --> 01:16:11.000 Al W5LUA: Some other fellows, and uh… so it was a nice project for them, so looking forward to hearing from them. 01:16:18.000 --> 01:16:26.000 Steve K5MNZ: Al, this is Steve, K5MNZ. I was curious what the… what the Doppler sounded like. Did it… was it constantly moving across your… 01:16:27.000 --> 01:16:32.000 Steve K5MNZ: Uh, receiver, were you having to retune it, or did you track it automatically, or what? 01:16:32.000 --> 01:16:38.000 Al W5LUA: It wasn't moving very fast, but I was not… that was not my primary goal, was to do that. 01:16:42.000 --> 01:16:45.000 Al W5LUA: It looks like Barry's got something here, just from K6Q, uh… 01:16:46.000 --> 01:16:47.000 Al W5LUA: VHF? 01:16:47.000 --> 01:16:49.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah. 01:16:54.000 --> 01:16:57.000 Barry VE4MA: I don't know what the heck Zoom is doing for me here. 01:16:58.000 --> 01:17:00.000 Al W5LUA: I see something. 01:17:00.000 --> 01:17:02.000 Barry VE4MA: Are you seeing something for me? 01:17:02.000 --> 01:17:04.000 Al W5LUA: Yeah. 01:17:02.000 --> 01:17:07.000 Bob N5BRG: That was for me, I'm sorry, that was for me, I got it to share all of a sudden. 01:17:03.000 --> 01:17:05.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah. 01:17:05.000 --> 01:17:07.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Oh. 01:17:06.000 --> 01:17:08.000 Al W5LUA: Oh, okay. It's from Bob. 01:17:07.000 --> 01:17:09.000 Bob N5BRG: Did you see the graph? 01:17:10.000 --> 01:17:15.000 Bob N5BRG: I'll share it again if you want to look at it. I couldn't get my microphone turned on. 01:17:15.000 --> 01:17:21.000 Bob N5BRG: It was on top of it. But this is the graph they posted on the CERA website, showing the… 01:17:21.000 --> 01:17:31.000 Bob N5BRG: same sort of… it looks like the same thing you had on one of your slides, in terms of the stuff over on the left, so I think somebody put this app together to help track this thing. 01:17:30.000 --> 01:17:32.000 Al W5LUA: Mm-hmm. 01:17:33.000 --> 01:17:44.000 Bob N5BRG: And it looks like it's bearing wildly, but this is only a… it looks like a 300 second interval here that they had on the left, so I don't know how their software works for sure, but… 01:17:45.000 --> 01:17:47.000 Bob N5BRG: Says it, so… 01:17:47.000 --> 01:17:52.000 Bob N5BRG: It says log, but I guess that means that they're logging the information, not that it's a logarithmic. 01:17:52.000 --> 01:17:54.000 Bob N5BRG: Curve… 01:17:57.000 --> 01:18:02.000 Bob N5BRG: But that's… that's just something they… they put out. I'm thinking they're going to put up a story later. 01:18:02.000 --> 01:18:06.000 Bob N5BRG: With more details about their whole event, probably. 01:18:06.000 --> 01:18:11.000 Al W5LUA: And after they regurgitate all the data, at least that's the impression I got from, uh. 01:18:11.000 --> 01:18:13.000 Al W5LUA: Pete Syiff. 01:18:13.000 --> 01:18:18.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Hey Bob, that looked like they had high watermarks on that right side graph. 01:18:21.000 --> 01:18:23.000 Bob N5BRG: Uh, I don't know… 01:18:24.000 --> 01:18:29.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Well, the top one, I glanced at it just as you turned it off. 01:18:24.000 --> 01:18:26.000 Bob N5BRG: I can… 01:18:29.000 --> 01:18:31.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Earth orbit. 01:18:30.000 --> 01:18:32.000 Barry VE4MA: Oh, yes. 01:18:32.000 --> 01:18:36.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah, 15 to 30 dB SNR. 01:18:36.000 --> 01:18:38.000 Bob N5BRG: Yeah. 01:18:37.000 --> 01:18:41.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Okay. So those are kind of the, the, uh… 01:18:41.000 --> 01:18:44.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Mid-max, I guess, that they… 01:18:44.000 --> 01:18:46.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Chose to mark there. 01:18:50.000 --> 01:19:00.000 Bob N5BRG: But you study this curve right here, or this information, you kind of got insight into how they were going about doing it for helping NASA anyway, I think. 01:19:03.000 --> 01:19:09.000 Bob N5BRG: I'm sure they're proud of what they did. They worked for several months trying to get all the pieces right. 01:19:09.000 --> 01:19:14.000 Bob N5BRG: And they were very worried about their tracking system being able to keep up and. 01:19:15.000 --> 01:19:20.000 Bob N5BRG: And to track it, and uh… apparently got it all worked out. 01:19:21.000 --> 01:19:24.000 Al W5LUA: Yeah, because, you know, when I'm tracking the moon. 01:19:24.000 --> 01:19:30.000 Al W5LUA: at least on the upper bands, if I'm off a little bit, I can change the Doppler as I sweep across the moon. 01:19:32.000 --> 01:19:37.000 Al W5LUA: So you gotta be, uh, you know, dead nuts in the center to get, uh… 01:19:37.000 --> 01:19:41.000 Al W5LUA: Accurate information. I'm not sure I could, uh, do that. 01:19:46.000 --> 01:19:50.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Do you, uh, Al, do you get a lot of, uh, EME. 01:19:50.000 --> 01:19:53.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Contacts? With your setup? 01:19:54.000 --> 01:19:56.000 Al W5LUA: Uh, yeah, I have. 01:19:56.000 --> 01:19:58.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Yeah. 01:19:58.000 --> 01:20:03.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Tens, hundreds, or thousands? What kind of… 01:20:02.000 --> 01:20:08.000 Al W5LUA: I don't know, it's probably thousands total in the last 25 years. I mean, to be honest with you. 01:20:06.000 --> 01:20:08.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Okay. 01:20:08.000 --> 01:20:13.000 Al W5LUA: Um, if you think it's pretty, you know, sparse on terrestrially. 01:20:13.000 --> 01:20:17.000 Al W5LUA: Uh, go to the moon. You'll find activity. 01:20:17.000 --> 01:20:21.000 Al W5LUA: Um, almost daily there, especially, uh, 1296. 01:20:22.000 --> 01:20:30.000 Al W5LUA: But, you know, even 432, 2 meters, 9.02, kind of by invitation, if you will, because there's so few people on. 01:20:31.000 --> 01:20:35.000 Al W5LUA: But 1296, 2304, um, very active. 01:20:36.000 --> 01:20:40.000 Al W5LUA: Uh, 3G, less so, because it's, um… 01:20:41.000 --> 01:20:43.000 Al W5LUA: It's not quite a… 01:20:43.000 --> 01:20:47.000 Al W5LUA: how would you describe it? I guess internationally, it's just not as popular. 01:20:48.000 --> 01:20:50.000 Al W5LUA: Uh, 5760… 01:20:50.000 --> 01:20:54.000 Al W5LUA: Is, you know, less than 2304. 01:20:54.000 --> 01:20:59.000 Al W5LUA: but then you get up to 10 gigahertz, there's a lot of activity. And the solar cooker. 01:21:00.000 --> 01:21:02.000 Al W5LUA: That the guys, uh… 01:21:00.000 --> 01:21:02.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Yeah. 01:21:02.000 --> 01:21:07.000 Al W5LUA: I've been talking about, you know, if you Google or Amazon solar cooker. 01:21:06.000 --> 01:21:10.000 David - KG5EIU TX: I've got one in my garage, in a box. 01:21:07.000 --> 01:21:16.000 Al W5LUA: Yeah, I think it's, like, a meter and a half or something, and a lot of guys are using that on 10 GHz and 1296. 01:21:11.000 --> 01:21:14.000 David - KG5EIU TX: 80 bucks. Yeah. 01:21:16.000 --> 01:21:21.000 Al W5LUA: And, uh, it works very well, but there's a ton of activity on the moon. 01:21:21.000 --> 01:21:24.000 David - KG5EIU TX: What, uh, if you had to pick one band. 01:21:21.000 --> 01:21:23.000 Al W5LUA: That's worth that. 01:21:25.000 --> 01:21:29.000 David - KG5EIU TX: All in, what band would you pick? 01:21:29.000 --> 01:21:32.000 David - KG5EIU TX: If you wanted to make a boatload of EME contact. 01:21:30.000 --> 01:21:32.000 Al W5LUA: For my… for my solar cooker? 01:21:32.000 --> 01:21:38.000 David - KG5EIU TX: No, no, for any, all, all things aside, if you said, if you were a new guy, and you said, hey. 01:21:38.000 --> 01:21:43.000 David - KG5EIU TX: You can pick one band to make EME contacts. What band would you suggest? 01:21:44.000 --> 01:21:46.000 Al W5LUA: Hold on. 01:21:46.000 --> 01:21:48.000 David - KG5EIU TX: To make the most contacts. 01:21:47.000 --> 01:21:49.000 Al W5LUA: Sorry about that. 01:21:50.000 --> 01:21:54.000 Al W5LUA: Uh, it's kind of a toss-up between 1296 and 10GB, I guess. 01:21:54.000 --> 01:21:57.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Okay, very good, thank you. 01:22:00.000 --> 01:22:02.000 Al W5LUA: Hmm, sorry about that. 01:22:02.000 --> 01:22:07.000 David - KG5EIU TX: And, I mean, you make a morning, noon, and night, like, doesn't matter what time of day as long as you've got. 01:22:07.000 --> 01:22:10.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Visibility to the moon, you're good to go, right? 01:22:10.000 --> 01:22:15.000 Al W5LUA: Yeah, I mean, yeah, unless it's sitting behind the sun or something, or in front of the sun. 01:22:14.000 --> 01:22:18.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Well, yeah, yeah, you gotta have visibility, yeah, okay, yeah. 01:22:17.000 --> 01:22:20.000 Al W5LUA: Yeah, like you say, visibility, yeah. And… 01:22:20.000 --> 01:22:25.000 Al W5LUA: when it's at perigee, it's better than Apogee by a couple dB, and we're… 01:22:26.000 --> 01:22:28.000 Al W5LUA: Where the moon was this past week. 01:22:28.000 --> 01:22:34.000 Al W5LUA: where the orbiter was, was near Apogee on the moon. That's why it was so low in the sky. 01:22:34.000 --> 01:22:36.000 David - KG5EIU TX: uh… 01:22:36.000 --> 01:22:40.000 David - KG5EIU TX: So, you said lower was better, or higher? 01:22:41.000 --> 01:22:44.000 Al W5LUA: Well, declination-wise, at Apogee. 01:22:44.000 --> 01:22:47.000 Al W5LUA: Um… well, I gotta be careful there. 01:22:47.000 --> 01:22:49.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah. 01:22:48.000 --> 01:22:53.000 Al W5LUA: It does shift around. It's kind of like a 20-year… 01:22:53.000 --> 01:22:58.000 Al W5LUA: Um… slow peak in there, but right now. 01:22:59.000 --> 01:23:02.000 Al W5LUA: In fact, I can't remember if that was Perigee or not. 01:23:02.000 --> 01:23:04.000 Al W5LUA: It's just low deck. 01:23:04.000 --> 01:23:09.000 Al W5LUA: but low deck doesn't always occur. Uh, it's… I think it's occurring. 01:23:09.000 --> 01:23:14.000 Al W5LUA: Closer to Apogee now, and Perigee, fortunately, is coming around. 01:23:14.000 --> 01:23:20.000 Al W5LUA: At high decks, which is really nice, because you get a lot of moon time, at least for northern. 01:23:20.000 --> 01:23:25.000 Al W5LUA: Um, uh, latitudes. But it does rotate, and… 01:23:22.000 --> 01:23:24.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Okay. 01:23:25.000 --> 01:23:31.000 Al W5LUA: be about another 20 years, and this'll repeat, but there have been times when Perigee was in the South. 01:23:31.000 --> 01:23:35.000 Al W5LUA: And, um, you know, I guess it's great for working… 01:23:35.000 --> 01:23:38.000 Al W5LUA: Guys south of the equator, but… 01:23:38.000 --> 01:23:41.000 Al W5LUA: Also, the Milky Way's down there, not great for 2 meters. 01:23:42.000 --> 01:23:44.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Okay. 01:23:44.000 --> 01:23:46.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Thank you. 01:23:45.000 --> 01:23:47.000 Al W5LUA: Hmm. 01:23:52.000 --> 01:23:55.000 Al W5LUA: Barry, did you have anything else you wanted to add? 01:23:55.000 --> 01:24:00.000 Al W5LUA: I know your experiences was kind of short to live there, but… 01:24:00.000 --> 01:24:06.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah, well, I… the only thing I would add is with that SDR, uh… 01:24:06.000 --> 01:24:12.000 Barry VE4MA: And I'm not sure what the HackRF is like, but I was using an SDR play. 01:24:12.000 --> 01:24:18.000 Barry VE4MA: Was it RSP1B, which died a few days after I went to use it. 01:24:18.000 --> 01:24:24.000 Barry VE4MA: For some odd reason, but it would allow you to store the IQ data. 01:24:24.000 --> 01:24:27.000 Barry VE4MA: And so, what, uh… 01:24:27.000 --> 01:24:36.000 Barry VE4MA: what, uh, Pete down there in Kansas was doing was storing the IQ data, and then I think they're shipping that off to NASA for analysis. 01:24:36.000 --> 01:24:41.000 Barry VE4MA: Uh, I think he got about 5 terabytes worth of IQ data. 01:24:41.000 --> 01:24:49.000 Barry VE4MA: Um, the other thing, like, they were switching modes, and I gather that, uh, when the crew was sleeping, they were… 01:24:49.000 --> 01:24:56.000 Barry VE4MA: They were powering down the wideband facility, so that sine X over X, uh, dome. 01:24:56.000 --> 01:24:58.000 Al W5LUA: Mm-hmm. 01:24:56.000 --> 01:25:04.000 Barry VE4MA: Uh, would disappear, and I don't know what they were putting up instead, but something that was saving them power, I guess, so… 01:25:05.000 --> 01:25:16.000 Barry VE4MA: Uh, yeah, so, I mean, it doesn't… it wouldn't take, uh, like, that SDR play that I had, uh, was about half price of what the, uh. 01:25:05.000 --> 01:25:07.000 Al W5LUA: Yeah, it makes sense. 01:25:16.000 --> 01:25:24.000 Barry VE4MA: the fancy ones that transmit and receive, and yet it was capable of dumping the data down if I'd had enough signal, so… 01:25:25.000 --> 01:25:27.000 Barry VE4MA: And, uh… 01:25:28.000 --> 01:25:30.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah, I guess that's about it. 01:25:31.000 --> 01:25:43.000 Barry VE4MA: I was going to say on, uh, for EME bands, if you want to work a lot of countries, go on, uh, on 1296. Uh, if you don't want to go with a bigger dish, like. 01:25:43.000 --> 01:25:55.000 Barry VE4MA: on 10 gigs, a 1 meter dish and 10 watts will get the job done at best of time conditions, so that's almost a portable rig. Well, it is a portable rig, uh… 01:25:55.000 --> 01:25:57.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Yeah. 01:25:57.000 --> 01:25:59.000 Barry VE4MA: You know, what… 01:25:57.000 --> 01:25:59.000 David - KG5EIU TX: But you say 10 watts, though. 01:25:59.000 --> 01:26:06.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah. Yeah, well, that's not so easy to do, but it is easier than, you know, 100 watt class, so… 01:26:06.000 --> 01:26:11.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Well, it's 600 watts on, uh, the 1.2, right? 01:26:10.000 --> 01:26:12.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah. 01:26:12.000 --> 01:26:14.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Um… 01:26:14.000 --> 01:26:16.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Alright, well, that's… 01:26:15.000 --> 01:26:20.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah, 1296 would be the easiest, Ben, to get on, and activity-wise, it's gonna be, uh… 01:26:20.000 --> 01:26:22.000 Barry VE4MA: Higher than 10 gigs, but… 01:26:23.000 --> 01:26:27.000 Barry VE4MA: Depending on your situation, 10 gigs is a good band, for sure. 01:26:27.000 --> 01:26:30.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Okay, good, good to know. I didn't… I… 01:26:30.000 --> 01:26:36.000 David - KG5EIU TX: I hadn't realized there would be so much activity on the moon at 10 GHz. 01:26:36.000 --> 01:26:39.000 David - KG5EIU TX: But, you know. 01:26:39.000 --> 01:26:42.000 David - KG5EIU TX: A 3-foot dish is pretty manageable. 01:26:42.000 --> 01:26:46.000 Barry VE4MA: Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's the beauty of the 10 gigs, is… 01:26:43.000 --> 01:26:45.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Um… 01:26:45.000 --> 01:26:47.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Yeah. 01:26:46.000 --> 01:26:49.000 Al W5LUA: If you want to go online, um… 01:26:49.000 --> 01:26:54.000 Al W5LUA: Whenever there's activity on 432 or above, or even 222. 01:26:54.000 --> 01:26:59.000 Al W5LUA: HB9Q logger is where most people hang out. 01:26:59.000 --> 01:27:01.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Okay. 01:27:00.000 --> 01:27:04.000 Al W5LUA: So if you just do Hb9q.ch. 01:27:04.000 --> 01:27:07.000 Al W5LUA: And, uh, go, uh, get on the logger. 01:27:07.000 --> 01:27:18.000 Al W5LUA: And, uh, pick a band, and somebody may say, hey, are you about ready to get on the air, or what, you know, what's your situation? But you can just say, hey, I'm an SWL trying to learn, you know? 01:27:19.000 --> 01:27:21.000 Al W5LUA: They're real friendly people. 01:27:21.000 --> 01:27:23.000 Al W5LUA: Um, that I've found. 01:27:23.000 --> 01:27:25.000 Al W5LUA: But then you get some idea. 01:27:25.000 --> 01:27:29.000 Al W5LUA: Of who's on the band, and you can also click on a particular call. 01:27:29.000 --> 01:27:35.000 Al W5LUA: So, when you get to a logger, uh, sometimes you may have to be patient, but put your cursor on, uh. 01:27:36.000 --> 01:27:42.000 Al W5LUA: Either his name or the call, and it should show you what the person was running. 01:27:43.000 --> 01:27:45.000 Al W5LUA: So you'll have some idea. 01:27:47.000 --> 01:27:51.000 David - KG5EIU TX: You said it was HB9Q? 01:27:50.000 --> 01:27:52.000 Al W5LUA: Yes. 01:27:59.000 --> 01:28:01.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Ah, here it is, yeah, okay. 01:28:02.000 --> 01:28:08.000 Al W5LUA: And he's got it set up where you have to… it'll… it'll log you out after a day. Used to be able to sit in it, but uh… 01:28:08.000 --> 01:28:17.000 Al W5LUA: There's so much congestion there, because there's so many people that once you get in, you're good for probably 24 hours, and then it'll… 01:28:17.000 --> 01:28:20.000 Al W5LUA: It'll, uh, sign you out, even if you don't. 01:28:20.000 --> 01:28:22.000 Al W5LUA: Not a big deal. 01:28:22.000 --> 01:28:24.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Gotcha. Okay. 01:28:25.000 --> 01:28:28.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Well, one step at a time, I'm… 01:28:29.000 --> 01:28:32.000 David - KG5EIU TX: That's my goal, is to get to EME, so… 01:28:33.000 --> 01:28:36.000 David - KG5EIU TX: That's where… that's what we're working towards. 01:28:35.000 --> 01:28:40.000 Al W5LUA: I'll have to get you over when I come back from this next trip and give you a little demo. 01:28:41.000 --> 01:28:43.000 David - KG5EIU TX: I would love that. 01:28:44.000 --> 01:28:49.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Probably should make an open house out of it out because there's several people that would probably come. 01:28:50.000 --> 01:28:52.000 Al W5LUA: Okay. 01:28:55.000 --> 01:28:57.000 Al W5LUA: Well, that's it, Jim. 01:28:58.000 --> 01:29:02.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Thank you. Any other questions for Al before we move on? 01:29:09.000 --> 01:29:13.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Okay. Um… 01:29:13.000 --> 01:29:15.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Let's move on to… 01:29:22.000 --> 01:29:24.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: propagation. 01:29:24.000 --> 01:29:26.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Presentation. 01:29:34.000 --> 01:29:43.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And I see a couple of people that are here that have contributed and collaborated, so I just wanna… 01:29:43.000 --> 01:29:48.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Um, ask you to keep me on the straight and narrow here in case I… 01:29:49.000 --> 01:29:55.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: missed something. Let me reset this, because I really want this in, uh, presenter mode. 01:29:56.000 --> 01:29:59.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Now I'm going to show my ignorance. 01:30:19.000 --> 01:30:21.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Well… 01:30:21.000 --> 01:30:33.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: we'll go ahead and get started. I'm gonna do the best I can here. I have notes on some of these slides to try to keep me from forgetting some stuff. Anyway, this is part 2. Um, we gave a Part 1. 01:30:34.000 --> 01:30:39.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, presentation at the last meeting, which was just that a month ago. 01:30:39.000 --> 01:30:53.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And there's been a lot of changes, um, and, uh, so many that it's been a little hard to keep up with, um, for my sake, and in fact, if I didn't have help from AI. 01:30:53.000 --> 01:30:58.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I literally couldn't keep up with the changes. So, uh, let's jump into it here. 01:30:58.000 --> 01:31:01.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Well, first of all, um… 01:31:01.000 --> 01:31:16.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Gotta move something out of the way here. Uh, the, um, title of this slide is Significant Discoveries, because, um, we stumbled onto this kind of, uh, as a curiosity. 01:31:16.000 --> 01:31:26.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: item. I work with AI at work, uh, quite a bit, and we've always wanted some tools around propagation that were better than. 01:31:26.000 --> 01:31:35.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: what we were doing at the time, which was a lot of guessing and scratching our head after sometimes something good would happen. 01:31:35.000 --> 01:31:41.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And just, um, writing it off when it… things didn't work. 01:31:41.000 --> 01:31:51.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: You know? So, um… several times I've said, well, I'd give anything to have a better propagation tool, but I wanted it for the higher bands. 01:31:51.000 --> 01:31:56.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Um, you know, but talking 24 and 47 GHz and higher. 01:31:56.000 --> 01:32:03.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So, in this presentation, uh, we're going to recap the beginnings and the changes that have led to a more complex project. 01:32:05.000 --> 01:32:10.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, without saying more, the single biggest boost to the project is the collaboration. 01:32:10.000 --> 01:32:24.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: of multiple team members. First of all is Graham McIntire. He's in attendance here. Whiskey 5 India Sierra Papa. He's an engineer with in-depth experience of back-end server functionality. 01:32:24.000 --> 01:32:33.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And he owns a wireless internet service with multiple microwave backhaul systems. So, in Graham, we have. 01:32:33.000 --> 01:32:37.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: An amateur radio operator with professional experience. 01:32:38.000 --> 01:32:45.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Who is acquainted with basic propagation, also had this strong desire to understand. 01:32:46.000 --> 01:32:50.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: The anomalies, uh, in propagation. 01:32:50.000 --> 01:32:59.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, and understood the terminology, um, and has a family history with, uh, his father, Greg. 01:33:00.000 --> 01:33:06.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And I don't know what else, but those are the things I do know about Graham, and there'll be more about him to come here. 01:33:06.000 --> 01:33:11.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Joe Jareka is the next one I'll mention. November 5, Papa Yankee Kilo. 01:33:11.000 --> 01:33:16.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Joe is a senior meteorologist. He's really a weather scientist. 01:33:16.000 --> 01:33:23.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: with 20 years of radar experience, uh, stationed at, uh, NWS Lubbock. 01:33:23.000 --> 01:33:25.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And he has been… 01:33:25.000 --> 01:33:29.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, responding to our ask of… 01:33:29.000 --> 01:33:34.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, scrutiny on our approach and strategies. 01:33:34.000 --> 01:33:39.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: He has given us responses, suggestions, and compliments. 01:33:39.000 --> 01:33:41.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, and critiques. 01:33:41.000 --> 01:33:51.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And I'll also mention Mike Lavelle, uh, K6ML. Mike, I don't know all of his background, but I do know he's a retired engineer at Sun Microsystems. 01:33:51.000 --> 01:33:57.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I do know he holds the 122GHz DX world record holder. He is the holder. 01:33:58.000 --> 01:34:04.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And that, in and of itself, um, has a whole story behind it, and the… 01:34:05.000 --> 01:34:18.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: somewhat manual calculations over the science involved, uh, that we are now embracing as well. So, what he brought about several years ago. 01:34:19.000 --> 01:34:25.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, it was an advanced look at the same science and same techniques that we've now. 01:34:26.000 --> 01:34:28.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Approached an automation point. 01:34:34.000 --> 01:34:43.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So, a recap of Part 1, um, the question was, what mechanism in the atmosphere enables long over-the-horizon contacts at 47 GHz? 01:34:43.000 --> 01:34:53.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: This is just the thing that bugged us, because we had, first, a, what, 57 kilometer contact, then we had a 99, then we had 117. 01:34:53.000 --> 01:35:03.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And, you know, obviously we knew there was a bending taking place, and it had to be a duct of some sort, so just started asking questions of AI. 01:35:03.000 --> 01:35:13.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Um, first we took a look at the answer that it was giving back, and it was just for a single contact. Um… 01:35:13.000 --> 01:35:21.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: We knew that the duct was based on some factors that it, uh, extracted for us and began to show us, uh. 01:35:21.000 --> 01:35:37.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: you know, what it was finding, and those were with surface-based observations. And then we asked, well, let's put in the SKUT data as well, and we added additional contacts, uh, at 47 GHz, and a couple at 24. 01:35:37.000 --> 01:35:47.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: that were in the 200 kilometer and beyond range, which seemed, uh, you know, very exceptional. So, uh, this is all going into… 01:35:47.000 --> 01:35:54.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: a conversation with Claud, an AI tool, and then we said, build a predictive tool. 01:35:54.000 --> 01:36:00.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Using everything we know up till now, and also use real-time inputs. 01:36:01.000 --> 01:36:09.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: in order to make the prediction as good as possible. So what resulted was a surface-based model. 01:36:09.000 --> 01:36:15.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: With 7 scoring elements, with calibration from just 4 contacts. 01:36:16.000 --> 01:36:22.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Here is the ASOS, uh, typical station on the left, Automated Service station. 01:36:23.000 --> 01:36:28.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And some dots on the map to the right that shows, uh, the distribution. 01:36:29.000 --> 01:36:42.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So, I won't go into great detail here, except the first couple here, but the 7 scoring factors that came out from, I would call it almost a neophyte model compared to what is going to come next. 01:36:42.000 --> 01:36:48.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: But it was enlightening, nevertheless. And this is where we were a month ago. 01:36:49.000 --> 01:37:02.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: two factors, the absolute humidity is the largest weighting factor when considering propagation, but we find out from Graham's additional work. 01:37:03.000 --> 01:37:10.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: that the humidity impacts actually flip at 10 GHz. 01:37:10.000 --> 01:37:33.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: For a benefit and we'll get into a little more detail and then on wind, whether it's calm or it's a little more than calm, this turns out to have been overweighted by our original model and we have dropped it back to an 8% weighting factor. Of course, that gives us 10% extra to deal with, which I'm not going to try to explain here, but we'll. 01:37:33.000 --> 01:37:36.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Talk about it a little bit more. 01:37:38.000 --> 01:37:52.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Some of the other, uh… I would call them dimensions is sky radiative Cooling, time of day, T over TD depression, season of the year, uh, and pressure subsidence factors. 01:37:53.000 --> 01:37:59.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So, our first map turned out to look like this. Uh, you could select an ASOS station. 01:37:59.000 --> 01:38:10.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And, um, it was writing on a composite score of the 7 factors, and it put colors up here. You could pick between 24 and 47 gigahertz. 01:38:10.000 --> 01:38:24.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: the colors would change, you could hover over them to see which station was reporting. It's just a little bit better than looking at a weather map, maybe, but, uh, it was calibrated to the contacts, and it was calibrated to. 01:38:24.000 --> 01:38:27.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Um, the factors with their weighting. 01:38:29.000 --> 01:38:34.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Now then, we asked for skew t-plots to be added, and there are, um… 01:38:34.000 --> 01:38:54.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: these factors here, which I'll touch on lightly, but we'll spend a little more time on this first one, which is min-DN over DH gradient. Uh, this requires knowing the temperature and dew point at every pressure level from surface to 200 HPA. Um, 200 HPA you might think of as the top of the troposphere. You'd have to have oxygen. 01:38:54.000 --> 01:39:05.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: If you were at that level. Inversion layers, uh, require seeing where the temperature increases with altitude, invisible from the surface observations alone. 01:39:05.000 --> 01:39:15.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: The duct layers, or known as the M profile, require computing modified refractivity at each level and finding where it decreases with height. 01:39:16.000 --> 01:39:22.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: The BL depth requires seeing where the potential temperature profile departs from the surface value. 01:39:22.000 --> 01:39:29.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And the lifted index and K-index require different pressures, temperature, and dew point simultaneously. 01:39:30.000 --> 01:39:35.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Now, on the MIN and DH, um… 01:39:36.000 --> 01:39:52.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: jump down to the bullet points here. This is really like looking up from the bottom of a swimming pool. If you've ever been on the bottom of a swimming pool with your eyes open, you can see that the light is being refracted. And RF in the atmosphere does the very same thing, and that amount. 01:39:52.000 --> 01:39:58.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: is known, or that capability is known as the refractivity index. 01:39:58.000 --> 01:40:12.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: The refractivity index of air isn't the same at every altitude. And when DN over DH exceeds minus 157 per kilometer, we have ducting. The more negative this number. 01:40:12.000 --> 01:40:15.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: The stronger the duct. 01:40:18.000 --> 01:40:27.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: The min DNDH is the minimum altitude that the tool is determining. 01:40:27.000 --> 01:40:33.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: the best DNDH occurs. And this, this plays into something important. 01:40:36.000 --> 01:40:55.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So we created some other apps, and I'll touch on these briefly, because they've largely been eclipsed now by what has come about now. But this, in the upper left was a millimeter wave link budget analyzer. You input two grids, nominal station values, such as, uh. 01:40:56.000 --> 01:41:06.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: You know, transmit power, receive, uh, bandwidth, noise figure, antenna heights, antenna gains. You click this button to analyze path. 01:41:06.000 --> 01:41:28.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And you get, uh, the kind of the middle graph here, where you see what looks like a suspension bridge. Well, that's a straight line profile over a flat Earth projection. And, um, the ragged line up at the top is the actual protrusion of the Earth bulge, so it's nowhere near line of sight in this particular. 01:41:29.000 --> 01:41:46.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: graph. And then below the suspension bridge effect image, you see the percentage of link closure, which is pretty poor in this particular case. In the upper right, this is pretty hard to see, but there is a, um… 01:41:48.000 --> 01:42:09.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: link, uh, we would call it a link margin value in dB. So, when that number's down below about 10 dB signal noise, you know, you're on the edge of being able to… now, some people would say different. They would say, well, I can work a CW signal down to 3 or 4 dB above the noise, but. 01:42:09.000 --> 01:42:21.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Um, for purposes of this kind of, uh, analysis, it's just not that accurate, so you would need, uh, more than 10… more than 3 dB, for sure. Um… 01:42:21.000 --> 01:42:32.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: The Skew-T plot have now been added, so the lower right-hand side shows an analysis of the Skew-T plot with an indication of where the ducts are and additional metrics. 01:42:33.000 --> 01:42:51.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Here was an additional app that we made. This was more about how did a contact occur? So, it's, uh, what it did was it, uh, accepted two grid points and the time of day and the date, and then it would go back and find the SKUT plots. 01:42:51.000 --> 01:43:02.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: the observations on the surface, and it would piece together an explanation as to how that contact occurred. Um, that was pretty interesting to me, uh, for about. 01:43:02.000 --> 01:43:21.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: 30 minutes, and just, uh, looking at a couple of, uh, cool contacts we had. We made the app load with a contact that my partner and I made, uh, Paul, uh, K-I-5-E-M-N. We made this contact with Pat, W-5 in, uh. 01:43:21.000 --> 01:43:45.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: The 10 GHz and up contest and he was in EchoMic 23 Alpha Oscar and we were in Echomic 02. This was a 350-something kilometer 10 gig contact and it was a good one for us. It gave us all those extra points and it was a typical early morning. 01:43:45.000 --> 01:44:00.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: um, 10GHz contact. Not that uncommon, but between two rovers, uh, really 3 rovers, uh, two on my side and one up on Pat's side, with antennas that are 4 feet off the ground, um, we'll take it. 01:44:04.000 --> 01:44:19.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So, these apps really were complementary, and the original seven scoring factors, even though they're surface weather model bobs, they answer the question, based on what's happening at the surface right now, how favorable. 01:44:20.000 --> 01:44:22.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Do conditions look? 01:44:22.000 --> 01:44:33.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: That's about what we've always had, but this put it together in a graphical interface where we could quickly change where we wanted to look, and that kind of thing. 01:44:33.000 --> 01:44:41.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: The derived propagation parameters from the addition of the skew T sounding, either the actual radios on balloon launch. 01:44:41.000 --> 01:44:47.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: which, by the way, is only twice a day, or the GFS model forecast, which we had also brought in. 01:44:48.000 --> 01:44:54.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Answers a different question. What is the actual vertical structure of the atmosphere, and is a duck physically present? 01:44:55.000 --> 01:45:04.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Of course, this information will get old, I mean, just minutes could make the difference, hours could make the difference, but it's trying to be predictive. 01:45:07.000 --> 01:45:19.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So, all the apps then incorporated Skew-T from REOB, um, and we see this temperature and dew point profiles from real radio sound balloon launches at 0 and 1200 Zulu. 01:45:19.000 --> 01:45:27.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: and GFS forecast soundings from an API for a free service from OpenMedia.com. 01:45:28.000 --> 01:45:42.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: It gave us the observed and FORECAST toggle that you can see in this panel heading that is in one of the apps, where you can click between observed and FORECAST, and in the FORECAST, you can select 6, 12, 24, and 48 hours. 01:45:43.000 --> 01:45:53.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: we were trying to move to a prediction, and I mentioned Mike Lavelle here again, because K6ML had this method with Wendy.com years ago. 01:46:00.000 --> 01:46:06.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Okay, as I'm saying here, if I can get my finger to work, let's put it to use. 01:46:06.000 --> 01:46:14.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So, what we did, and this is all, um, superseded somewhat now, but just a week ago. I mean, just a week ago. 01:46:14.000 --> 01:46:22.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: we were looking at these applications and the predictions. I was also looking at some of what Graham was developing. 01:46:22.000 --> 01:46:34.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And the statement here is, start observing the app predictions in real-time data versus actual conditions. So we were getting beacon reports, uh… 01:46:34.000 --> 01:46:42.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: pretty consistently from different people. Um, Keith, WB5ZDP, was good to tell us about… 01:46:42.000 --> 01:46:49.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: uh, beacon signal levels. He was listening to a 10 and a 24 GHz beacon. 01:46:50.000 --> 01:46:55.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Um, sometimes the 10 was stronger than the 20, you know, was up. 01:46:56.000 --> 01:47:01.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: More than the 24 over nominal, and sometimes the 24 was up. 01:47:01.000 --> 01:47:07.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: over the 10. So, you know, it was kind of behaving like we were learning to understand it. 01:47:07.000 --> 01:47:15.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And then we start anticipating a truck roll, which I'll borrow from Mike Lavelle. It's a great description, because it takes planning. 01:47:16.000 --> 01:47:21.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Heck, I have to get my wife out here to help me load some stuff. I'm getting so weak, and it's so heavy. 01:47:23.000 --> 01:47:32.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: But what triggers are we watching for? Well, first of all, all of us know that if the weather changes and we get good conditions and the weather stays stable. 01:47:33.000 --> 01:47:35.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: That's probably gonna bode well for us. 01:47:36.000 --> 01:47:41.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So, I started looking last weekend, uh, for… 01:47:41.000 --> 01:47:47.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: What would happen when that front came through, which wiped out our microwave activity day? 01:47:43.000 --> 01:47:45.000 Eric Haskell AG5XV: Nope. 01:47:46.000 --> 01:47:48.000 Eric Haskell AG5XV: Okay. There you go. 01:47:47.000 --> 01:47:50.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Behind the front. 01:47:51.000 --> 01:47:54.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: There was a prediction for Monday. 01:47:54.000 --> 01:47:59.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And set that front roll through Saturday into Sunday. 01:48:00.000 --> 01:48:06.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And behind that front, there was some good-looking predictions in the tools that we have. 01:48:07.000 --> 01:48:11.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And they were not only good for Monday, they were good for Tuesday. 01:48:11.000 --> 01:48:16.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: In fact, they were so good, it was hard to believe. I was beginning to wonder. 01:48:16.000 --> 01:48:26.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: But the conditions did turn favorable, and it was time to start talking to some people and seeing who was going to be available. Now, I still work. 01:48:27.000 --> 01:48:34.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: May 29th is my last day. I'm 74 years old, and I'm ready to get out of there. 01:48:35.000 --> 01:48:36.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Been a long time. 01:48:37.000 --> 01:48:50.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And, um, I still work, so Monday was one of the really busy days, and just not available to me, but Tuesday morning, I could squeeze in a few hours of radio time, so I got ahold of some people. 01:48:52.000 --> 01:49:04.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And here's what we got accomplished, and we'll cover a little about how the tools helped us here. You're probably not going to be able to read these grids, but first, Steve, K5MNZ, he just wanted to check out his. 01:49:05.000 --> 01:49:10.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: LNA that he had put on his 10-gig rig, and he'd been jonesing for a few weeks to. 01:49:10.000 --> 01:49:19.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: get out there and try it, and then we got rained out on Saturday, so he was ready to jump out there. Uh, he had found a high spot in a pasture. 01:49:19.000 --> 01:49:30.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: on his ranch, uh, where the ground sloped away a little bit better than, like, from his driveway. And so, we said, okay, uh, I'll set up an, uh, AM-12. 01:49:30.000 --> 01:49:38.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, it's about a 100-kilometer path. Uh, we set up to go on the air right at sunup, so… 01:49:38.000 --> 01:50:00.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: before sunlight really we were on the air, the signals were extremely strong, and you would kind of expect that at 100 km but it was a good checkout, um, and I know Steve really appreciated it. And so then I got back in the truck and drove down to Hillsboro, which was not too far away, and I had got ahold of. 01:50:00.000 --> 01:50:12.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Keith, who needed another grid on 24 GHz, and this is a high spot that I have, but if you look at the path profile on the right-hand side, it's nowhere near line of sight. 01:50:12.000 --> 01:50:17.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yet we had good, strong signals, uh, at 129 clicks. 01:50:20.000 --> 01:50:33.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I want to compare, uh, from our original tools, some numbers right here, because the story is in here. And you will see, uh, on the top. 01:50:33.000 --> 01:50:51.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: data panel that, um, this is 7am on Tuesday. We had a good number on the D and DH gradient, but we had excellent numbers in all the other categories, and it indicated that a duck was right on the ground, basically. 01:50:51.000 --> 01:50:55.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, within 17 meters of the ground. 01:50:55.000 --> 01:51:01.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I won't go into all of these details, uh, but there is explanation. 01:51:01.000 --> 01:51:07.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, further on. Then, looking this morning at this same path. 01:51:07.000 --> 01:51:18.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, the only number that looks good is the top number, which is the D and DH. However, if you look at this closer, you realize that that duct that it's talking about. 01:51:18.000 --> 01:51:26.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: is 3 miles high, so there's no coupling possibility. None at all. Now, if you were on one of those mountains out where. 01:51:27.000 --> 01:51:35.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: the California guys live, you might have some chance at it, but you're not gonna launch into a 3-mile-high duct from the ground. 01:51:35.000 --> 01:51:38.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: You can see the duct on the left side. 01:51:38.000 --> 01:51:41.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Compared to this low duck in the top panel. 01:51:47.000 --> 01:51:57.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: This is a slide from last month's presentation. I wanted to repeat it in here, both from a sanity check for me, uh, but also for you, because where we were at then was. 01:51:57.000 --> 01:52:03.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: We had 4 data points in one geographic corridor, in one climate regime. 01:52:04.000 --> 01:52:09.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: That would be 500 mile radius of Dallas. 01:52:10.000 --> 01:52:18.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And I said in this presentation last time, 2 or 3 years of community submissions across different geographies and seasons. 01:52:18.000 --> 01:52:25.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: could give us enough data to start answering questions that nobody in the amateur microwave world has good answers to yet. 01:52:25.000 --> 01:52:38.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: things like what the minimum atmospheric signature is that can support a 47 GHz duct contact, or whether there's a seasonal pattern to boundary layer inversion contacts outside of Texas, or how the required drugs. 01:52:38.000 --> 01:52:45.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: duct strength scales with path length. This would be novel empirical work. 01:52:45.000 --> 01:52:57.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Now, to be sure, there were some people that could figure this out, but as far as, uh, sharing it on a broader basis, this is where we found ourselves headed. 01:52:57.000 --> 01:53:07.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So I'm going to call this next section a transformation in analysis. Graham McIntire shifts the project into high gear. 01:53:07.000 --> 01:53:21.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: First of all, he expands the dataset, and uh… Graham, if I get this wrong, I think the first algorithm we called ALGO2 versus the original one that we had. 01:53:21.000 --> 01:53:29.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, for the original apps, uh, sweeps in about 58,000 contest QSOs. 01:53:30.000 --> 01:53:39.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, which is 6 years of contacts, and these we cross-referenced with actual weather conditions at the time of the contact. 01:53:39.000 --> 01:53:47.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: This became the largest empirical millimeter wave propagation dataset assembled for amateur radio. 01:53:47.000 --> 01:53:52.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: That did not take an hour. That took days. 01:53:53.000 --> 01:53:58.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And I think at one point, um, Graham told me he had to change servers. 01:53:58.000 --> 01:54:09.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: That might have been when you were importing HRRR data, but he had to, uh… he was still hitting thresholds on the data rights to the so-called disk. It's solid state nowadays, but… 01:54:09.000 --> 01:54:21.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: ALGO 3 add in 18,000… 18,500 commercial link measurements, which are from the WISP backhaul links at 11, 24, and 68 GHz. 01:54:21.000 --> 01:54:29.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: This is continuous 24-7 signal monitoring with fixed paths, known geometry, and real-time calibration data. 01:54:38.000 --> 01:54:48.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Graham also identified additional weather data sources and created interfaces to them. Among them are the upper air soundings. 01:54:48.000 --> 01:54:54.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: HRRR model data, i.e. MRE gridded hourly weather. 01:54:55.000 --> 01:54:59.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Shuttle SRTM terrain elevation data. 01:54:59.000 --> 01:55:06.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: the commercial link validation, and the solar indices. Anything you want to add here, Graham? 01:55:06.000 --> 01:55:14.000 Graham McIntire: Yeah, just a couple things. Um, yeah, as you mentioned about things changing rapidly, now there's 10 different criteria instead of 7. 01:55:15.000 --> 01:55:22.000 Graham McIntire: that just changed within the last hour, based on new backfill data. We're also pulling ERA5 data now. 01:55:22.000 --> 01:55:28.000 Graham McIntire: Because HR only goes back to 2014, so any contacts that we had before that date. 01:55:28.000 --> 01:55:31.000 Graham McIntire: Uh, we have to get the data from that. 01:55:31.000 --> 01:55:36.000 Graham McIntire: Um, and with the commercial link data, uh, it's valuable. 01:55:37.000 --> 01:55:45.000 Graham McIntire: But in the opposite way that most people think, since all of my links are point-to-point, you know, I need the maximum signal strength, maximum modulation. 01:55:45.000 --> 01:55:50.000 Graham McIntire: When ducting happens, it ends up, uh… 01:55:50.000 --> 01:55:58.000 Graham McIntire: causing multipath with the links, and it drops the signal levels. So, we're actually looking for drops on my commercial links. 01:55:58.000 --> 01:56:01.000 Graham McIntire: Mean better propagation for amateur radio. 01:56:07.000 --> 01:56:09.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: That's interesting. 01:56:15.000 --> 01:56:21.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Now let's just talk about some of the new applications that have been spun off from, um… 01:56:22.000 --> 01:56:28.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: two things, I would say. First is, uh, Graham's ability as a developer. 01:56:28.000 --> 01:56:36.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, to, uh, use modern tooling. And I'm not talking about AI. AI is definitely underneath. 01:56:36.000 --> 01:56:42.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: But, uh, just modern programming tooling, which is a whole world unto itself. 01:56:42.000 --> 01:56:56.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I'm familiar with some of it, but not to the extent that Graham is in his area, and he has been able to leverage these tools to quickly develop applications that leverage the data. 01:56:57.000 --> 01:57:04.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So, incorporating the live scoring data and propagation grid scores. 01:57:04.000 --> 01:57:09.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: We have a map that is, uh, covers the continental U.S. 01:57:09.000 --> 01:57:14.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: At .125 degree resolution. 01:57:15.000 --> 01:57:24.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: The update cadence of the data is stated here. Hourly HRRR based by propagation grid worker. 01:57:24.000 --> 01:57:29.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: and 10-minute ASOS adjustments by the ASOS adjustment worker. 01:57:31.000 --> 01:57:33.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: per grid point. 01:57:33.000 --> 01:57:38.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: The composites store 0 through 100 with 9 individual factor scores. 01:57:39.000 --> 01:57:45.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: is calculated. The bands that are scored are 902. 01:57:45.000 --> 01:57:49.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, through 241 GHz. 01:57:49.000 --> 01:57:55.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: The retention is the two most recent valid times kept older data is pruned automatically. 01:57:58.000 --> 01:58:05.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Now, usually live demos don't go well, but I'm gonna try to take you through. 01:58:05.000 --> 01:58:10.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: The web pages now that illustrate these various functions. 01:58:10.000 --> 01:58:26.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: which these are all different from our original apps, because they really eclipse those apps, but we will leave them up for a little while. So let me see if I can do this without wrecking us. 01:58:27.000 --> 01:58:36.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Alright, this is the first one, you should be seeing the path calculator, so you can see all of these items across the top here, uh, which… 01:58:37.000 --> 01:58:47.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: all have a page underneath them. This first one is the path calculator, uh, which is similar to one of our apps, only now it's sitting on a whole lot of data. 01:58:48.000 --> 01:58:55.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And I have run this earlier today, so I'm gonna put this grid in. This is the grid, uh, that I go to that's about, uh… 01:58:55.000 --> 01:59:14.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: 2 miles from my house. I do have to flip over the interstate, so it takes me about 10 minutes to get there in traffic. But, um, my grid here is EM12IL74DR, and I noticed all you have to do is put a call sign in here. I'm not sure how Graham's doing that. 01:59:15.000 --> 01:59:17.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: But… he's doing it. 01:59:16.000 --> 01:59:22.000 Graham McIntire: It does a QRZ lookup, and then geocodes the address that's in there. 01:59:22.000 --> 01:59:26.000 Graham McIntire: So, if we have a deal box or something, it's gonna be wildly off. 01:59:22.000 --> 01:59:25.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I got you, okay. 01:59:27.000 --> 01:59:33.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Okay. Now I got a little more power on 10GHz, so I'm just gonna run this for 10GHz. 01:59:33.000 --> 01:59:36.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: My inten- uh, well, let's say that… 01:59:36.000 --> 01:59:41.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: My antenna is, uh, 5 feet high, and Al's is 60. 01:59:42.000 --> 01:59:50.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I'll put those parameters in there. My transmit gain on the antenna is probably 33 dBi. 01:59:50.000 --> 01:59:57.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And Al's probably got that on… at least on his… oops… on his receive antenna. 01:59:59.000 --> 02:00:05.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Let's calculate the path, clicking the Calculate Path button. And here it gives us a little map. 02:00:06.000 --> 02:00:08.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: We can zoom in a little on that. 02:00:09.000 --> 02:00:15.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Shows us the, uh, topo path in the frontal zone on the bottom side there. 02:00:16.000 --> 02:00:20.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Says it's 94.2 kilometers. 02:00:21.000 --> 02:00:28.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, it's given us a pretty good score. This is a little light, but it says 69 over 100. 02:00:29.000 --> 02:00:39.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And here's the link budget. So, uh, it calculates total path loss at 231.3 dB, and it's given us all this, uh… 02:00:39.000 --> 02:00:42.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Power budget information here. 02:00:42.000 --> 02:00:55.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And it's saying your margin's about 11 dB. So it's probably a little stingy, but maybe not. Maybe these conditions are not all like, oh, well, it's raining. So that's one problem. 02:00:55.000 --> 02:01:01.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Um, not that that stops us on 10 GHz, but it might stop me from getting out of my truck. 02:01:01.000 --> 02:01:05.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Humidity's 90… is getting a score of 95. 02:01:09.000 --> 02:01:16.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So, you know, there's some yellows here that are, you know, indicating downgrades. And so, there you go. 02:01:17.000 --> 02:01:25.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: That's the path calculator. Now let's just raise this to 24GHz. Let's just say I could make all that much power. 02:01:23.000 --> 02:01:25.000 Graham McIntire: It also has… 02:01:25.000 --> 02:01:28.000 Graham McIntire: Sorry, at the bottom, it also has… 02:01:26.000 --> 02:01:28.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And let's see how it changes. 02:01:28.000 --> 02:01:31.000 Graham McIntire: The prediction over time, based on the data we have right now? 02:01:31.000 --> 02:01:33.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: It's doing what? 02:01:32.000 --> 02:01:39.000 Graham McIntire: Uh, at the very bottom of the page, it shows that same contact, whether it's going to improve or. 02:01:39.000 --> 02:01:42.000 Graham McIntire: Decrease over the next… 02:01:40.000 --> 02:01:44.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah. These little, uh, vertical blocks. 02:01:44.000 --> 02:01:47.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Have, oh, you can hover over it. 02:01:48.000 --> 02:01:54.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So at 0300 UTC, well, we won't be up, I won't get Al up at that time. That's 45. 02:01:55.000 --> 02:02:03.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: 44. Okay, so, but we switched this to 24, and automatically looks like we got a penalty of 20 dB, at least. 02:02:04.000 --> 02:02:10.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah, if we went back and looked at this free space loss and gaseous, uh… 02:02:10.000 --> 02:02:12.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: losses. 02:02:13.000 --> 02:02:18.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And then, of course, it's even calculating diffraction loss, which would be terrain. 02:02:18.000 --> 02:02:23.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Um, you know, you can get a quick look at how this, how this is gonna work or not work. 02:02:25.000 --> 02:02:28.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Next, I want to go to the map. 02:02:33.000 --> 02:02:35.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Now… 02:02:36.000 --> 02:02:42.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I like to spin this up to about 24 GHz. There's 24. 02:02:43.000 --> 02:02:46.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And automatically, you see the decay. 02:02:46.000 --> 02:02:48.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: and conditions. 02:02:49.000 --> 02:02:52.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So we're down in the pores. 02:02:52.000 --> 02:02:54.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: and marginals. 02:02:55.000 --> 02:03:01.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And this is McKinney up here. This is Greenville, one of our haunts on 47. 02:03:02.000 --> 02:03:06.000 David - KG5EIU TX: So, is this, is this saying that even right now. 02:03:06.000 --> 02:03:11.000 David - KG5EIU TX: At 24 GHz, even if you had line of sight, it'd be poor, or is this for the ducting? 02:03:12.000 --> 02:03:21.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Now, this would not, uh, cover, like, a line of sight. Uh, that would be on the page I was previously on, where… 02:03:16.000 --> 02:03:18.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Okay. 02:03:17.000 --> 02:03:19.000 Graham McIntire: Notice. 02:03:20.000 --> 02:03:22.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Okay, that's what I thought, just making sure. 02:03:22.000 --> 02:03:30.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah, well, we would put in two, you know, point A and point B, and it would detect that it's line of sight. It's gonna give you a bunch of thumbs up. 02:03:31.000 --> 02:03:38.000 David - KG5EIU TX: But this, but this map chart right here with what you're showing is not line of sight. 02:03:38.000 --> 02:03:43.000 David - KG5EIU TX: With the colors. Like, right now, it looks like the poor 33 to 49. 02:03:44.000 --> 02:03:45.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Right? 02:03:45.000 --> 02:03:50.000 Graham McIntire: Yes, this… this map completely ignores line of sight. It's only looking at… 02:03:46.000 --> 02:03:48.000 David - KG5EIU TX: No matter what point you were… 02:03:49.000 --> 02:03:53.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Yeah. Anything in that… anything in this range, if you… 02:03:51.000 --> 02:03:53.000 Graham McIntire: propagation. 02:03:53.000 --> 02:03:58.000 David - KG5EIU TX: weren't… didn't have line of sight, there's no ducting really available, right? Is that… 02:03:58.000 --> 02:03:59.000 Graham McIntire: Right, because line of sight's the… 02:03:58.000 --> 02:04:00.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: That's right. 02:04:01.000 --> 02:04:03.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Making sure. 02:04:05.000 --> 02:04:08.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: But if we flip this back to 10 GHz… 02:04:08.000 --> 02:04:10.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: The picture will get better. 02:04:14.000 --> 02:04:16.000 David - KG5EIU TX: So, this is saying… 02:04:16.000 --> 02:04:19.000 David - KG5EIU TX: If you didn't have line of sight. 02:04:20.000 --> 02:04:24.000 David - KG5EIU TX: you might still be able to make a 10 GHz connection, is that… is that right? Okay. 02:04:22.000 --> 02:04:24.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yes. 02:04:27.000 --> 02:04:32.000 Graham McIntire: You can also click on any spot on the map, and it'll show you the, um, the weighted propagation. 02:04:32.000 --> 02:04:34.000 Graham McIntire: For it. 02:04:32.000 --> 02:04:37.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah. When I do that, I want to be on 24. 02:04:37.000 --> 02:04:47.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So let's look and find… so there's a… kind of a corridor right here, there's actually a little green right here, but if we click over here by Canton. 02:04:48.000 --> 02:04:51.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: See, we get a 50 over 100. 02:04:53.000 --> 02:04:55.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: But if we click here… 02:04:56.000 --> 02:04:59.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: near where Keith lives. 02:04:59.000 --> 02:05:03.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Air Levonne, 43 over 100. 02:05:06.000 --> 02:05:08.000 Mike K6ML: So, is this color coding showing… 02:05:09.000 --> 02:05:14.000 Mike K6ML: Uh, propagation from a particular point to each of these color-coded points. 02:05:14.000 --> 02:05:18.000 Mike K6ML: Or is it just the loss over that region? 02:05:18.000 --> 02:05:26.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I believe it's right over that region. It's aggregating all of the vertical atmosphere data. 02:05:28.000 --> 02:05:34.000 Graham McIntire: Yeah, so what it's doing is each of those little blocks that you see is one… 02:05:34.000 --> 02:05:39.000 Graham McIntire: vertical slice of the atmosphere that we get from HRR data. Um… 02:05:39.000 --> 02:05:50.000 Graham McIntire: So, it's taking each one of those vertical slices and applying our algorithm to it based on the weather conditions right now in that slice. 02:05:50.000 --> 02:05:57.000 Graham McIntire: how well do we think propagation is going to work? And that's what the plus down at the bottom does as well. 02:05:54.000 --> 02:05:56.000 Mike K6ML: Okay. 02:05:58.000 --> 02:06:03.000 Graham McIntire: HRR is an aggregated weather. 02:06:03.000 --> 02:06:09.000 Graham McIntire: Uh, that takes into account all sorts of things, and NOAA puts out the model every hour that updates. 02:06:09.000 --> 02:06:17.000 Graham McIntire: Uh, current plus 12 hours. So you can click, you know, plus 12 and see, okay, with the current knowledge we have right now. 02:06:17.000 --> 02:06:21.000 Graham McIntire: This is what it'll look… what the same thing will look like in 12 hours. 02:06:21.000 --> 02:06:27.000 Mike K6ML: But this is like passing through that cell, there's a certain loss, but wouldn't that have to be at a certain altitude also? 02:06:28.000 --> 02:06:33.000 Graham McIntire: Uh, that's what the antenna height on the right is. So, when you click on a spot. 02:06:31.000 --> 02:06:33.000 Mike K6ML: Well… 02:06:33.000 --> 02:06:41.000 Graham McIntire: Um, it's still a little too splotchy than it should be, because it's actually taking into account SRTM elevation data. 02:06:41.000 --> 02:06:43.000 Graham McIntire: Um, and the… 02:06:44.000 --> 02:06:52.000 Graham McIntire: you know, everything is, like Jim said, everything is changing, like, hourly at this point, so it doesn't take into account, like. 02:06:49.000 --> 02:06:51.000 Mike K6ML: Right, but… 02:06:52.000 --> 02:06:59.000 Graham McIntire: You know, the… the elevation of somebody receiving it, or something like that. 02:06:59.000 --> 02:07:05.000 Graham McIntire: There is a tool that's very, very early for planning rover missions that will do things like that. 02:07:05.000 --> 02:07:07.000 Graham McIntire: Uh, but right now, it doesn't. 02:07:07.000 --> 02:07:12.000 Mike K6ML: Okay, so these are basically individual conditions at individual points. 02:07:12.000 --> 02:07:15.000 Mike K6ML: at the height of the antenna. So, essentially. 02:07:15.000 --> 02:07:18.000 Mike K6ML: One of the two endpoints on the contact. 02:07:18.000 --> 02:07:21.000 Graham McIntire: Correct. Yeah, it's… it's… 02:07:19.000 --> 02:07:25.000 Mike K6ML: Uh, you haven't really got to the point where you're saying, I can pick two points, and. 02:07:25.000 --> 02:07:28.000 Mike K6ML: Figure the elevation profile along… 02:07:28.000 --> 02:07:31.000 Mike K6ML: And figure the loss of each of those segments. 02:07:31.000 --> 02:07:36.000 Graham McIntire: Well, that's what the path, uh, that Jim showed up a little while ago does. 02:07:34.000 --> 02:07:36.000 Mike K6ML: So, would you have… 02:07:36.000 --> 02:07:38.000 Graham McIntire: Yes. 02:07:36.000 --> 02:07:38.000 Mike K6ML: That's based on the actual… 02:07:40.000 --> 02:07:53.000 Graham McIntire: And then the… the rover planer is the ultimate… it's not up right now, it's… it's very broken. Um, but it's the ultimate… if I'm gonna go plan a Saturday or something to go out and make contacts. 02:07:53.000 --> 02:08:01.000 Graham McIntire: you'll be able to select, uh, you know, say I want… I want to work these stations, and they're gonna stay at home, and I'm gonna rove. 02:08:01.000 --> 02:08:06.000 Graham McIntire: It'll actually plot out a map showing these are the ideal places for you to go. 02:08:06.000 --> 02:08:09.000 Graham McIntire: To work all of the people that are going to be stationary. 02:08:10.000 --> 02:08:15.000 Mike K6ML: Okay, so essentially you get a plot like this for each of those stations, saying. 02:08:16.000 --> 02:08:20.000 Mike K6ML: Uh, all the other places on the map, how good the signal would be. 02:08:21.000 --> 02:08:23.000 Graham McIntire: Right. 02:08:23.000 --> 02:08:29.000 Graham McIntire: Yeah, this… this map is just a… a basic… if I'm sitting here with an antenna at whatever height. 02:08:29.000 --> 02:08:32.000 Graham McIntire: What is the propagation gonna look like? 02:08:32.000 --> 02:08:37.000 Graham McIntire: using the algorithm that we've determined. Yeah. 02:08:34.000 --> 02:08:36.000 Mike K6ML: Yeah, where you're at. 02:08:40.000 --> 02:08:46.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Would it be, uh, possible, or maybe, uh, to have in the path calculator part, uh. 02:08:47.000 --> 02:08:50.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Maybe the, like, a pick list for the beacons? 02:08:51.000 --> 02:08:53.000 Graham McIntire: Yes, that's… 02:08:52.000 --> 02:08:54.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah, we're gonna get to that. 02:08:53.000 --> 02:08:59.000 Graham McIntire: All of these are planned as well, um, for both automated and manual, um. 02:08:54.000 --> 02:08:55.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Okay, okay. 02:08:59.000 --> 02:09:10.000 Graham McIntire: beacon, uh, report collection. Because that's the one critical thing… sorry if I'm stealing your thunder, Jim. The one critical thing we need to make things much better is just more data. 02:09:10.000 --> 02:09:21.000 Graham McIntire: we can get all of the weather data we have right now, it's amazing, but we still need, okay, I heard this beacon at exactly this time and day, and its signal level was X. 02:09:13.000 --> 02:09:15.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Right. 02:09:21.000 --> 02:09:24.000 Graham McIntire: We need that throughout the year. 02:09:24.000 --> 02:09:29.000 Graham McIntire: Um, I had tried training a machine learning model based on the data we have now. 02:09:29.000 --> 02:09:35.000 Graham McIntire: And it didn't work very well, because the vast majority, probably 90% of the contacts we have. 02:09:36.000 --> 02:09:43.000 Graham McIntire: were during the contests. So it weighs very, very heavily on those months, and it says, oh, you're in April now. 02:09:43.000 --> 02:09:48.000 Graham McIntire: there's no contacts that are confirmed, or fewer contacts that are confirmed, so I'm going to rate it really poorly. 02:09:44.000 --> 02:09:46.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Bye. 02:09:48.000 --> 02:09:50.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Got it. 02:09:48.000 --> 02:09:51.000 Graham McIntire: So we just need more data from everybody. 02:09:52.000 --> 02:09:57.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Are the… do the beacons report back into, like, is there, like, an RBN? 02:09:52.000 --> 02:09:55.000 Bob N5BRG: Isn't there… isn't there a… 02:09:57.000 --> 02:10:00.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Part to the beacons or not, I'm not even sure. 02:10:00.000 --> 02:10:02.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Okay. 02:10:04.000 --> 02:10:10.000 Bob N5BRG: So, what about data that's been done from contract studies? 02:10:10.000 --> 02:10:17.000 Bob N5BRG: like, I'm familiar with one study, it was atmospheric data from… the study was by the Air Force, it was quite a few years ago. 02:10:17.000 --> 02:10:28.000 Bob N5BRG: But I think there are other microwave studies that have been done for propagation. Is that… have you got… looked at that data and potentially using any kind of data of that type? 02:10:28.000 --> 02:10:35.000 Graham McIntire: It probably is, because we… we're pulling… I forget the name now, the… 02:10:37.000 --> 02:10:41.000 Bob N5BRG: So AI has found it, you think, in pulling it in. 02:10:41.000 --> 02:10:45.000 Graham McIntire: Well, it's the… the RF propagation, um… 02:10:46.000 --> 02:10:53.000 Graham McIntire: I'll just call it a white paper. Um, but it's… it's taken that into account. Oh, ITURP.453-14. 02:10:54.000 --> 02:10:58.000 Graham McIntire: So it's taken all of that into account as well. 02:10:55.000 --> 02:10:57.000 Bob N5BRG: Yeah. 02:10:58.000 --> 02:11:00.000 Graham McIntire: Uh, and if you want to read through. 02:11:00.000 --> 02:11:02.000 Graham McIntire: everything. I'll paste the link to the… 02:11:03.000 --> 02:11:07.000 Graham McIntire: The current, uh, plain text version of the algorithm. 02:11:08.000 --> 02:11:10.000 Bob N5BRG: Okay. 02:11:15.000 --> 02:11:21.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Great questions and discussion. I flipped this up to 47 giga. 02:11:21.000 --> 02:11:28.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah, here's, I've got to turn my volume down. I have to turn it up to hear you guys turn it down, because it sounds like I'm shouting in it. 02:11:29.000 --> 02:11:37.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: But, uh, look here at 47GHz, and there's… actually looks better than 24, and, you know, that's not uncommon that there'd be… 02:11:38.000 --> 02:11:41.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, some distance from the. 02:11:42.000 --> 02:11:46.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: the attenuation line, but as I come in here… 02:11:48.000 --> 02:11:50.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Brian to come in here. 02:11:50.000 --> 02:12:00.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Oh, there's Allen, Texas. This may be as far in as I can come. Yeah, I think it is. So, I was looking back here to the west. 02:12:00.000 --> 02:12:09.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: It looks like, uh, there is a possibility that you could hear a beacon at Denton if it was on top of a woman's dorm. 02:12:09.000 --> 02:12:27.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: at 47 gigahertz. Now, there's no ERPs in here, or, you know, other data, but if I could see a bunch of grain between Denton and Allen, then I would expect if I call Al, he's listening to the 47 beacon successfully. 02:12:28.000 --> 02:12:43.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So it's interesting that we have some good conditions on 47GHz, and some not so good, at the same time that we have differences at 24. There's just a lot of empirical testing, uh, sounds like we need to do. 02:12:44.000 --> 02:12:51.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Now, while I'm here, I'm gonna come over, because this is something that Graham added, cause… 02:12:51.000 --> 02:12:56.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: He told me, hey, we have the data, why don't we just have a weather map? So, if I click on this… 02:12:56.000 --> 02:13:01.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: to the right, you can get to this a couple different ways, but if I click on Weather Map. 02:13:05.000 --> 02:13:12.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And, Graham, you may have to step us through this, but I… temperature, I understand, surface temperature. 02:13:14.000 --> 02:13:18.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And it correlates somewhere between 15 and 30 degrees centigrade. 02:13:19.000 --> 02:13:22.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And then there's… these others. 02:13:25.000 --> 02:13:32.000 Graham McIntire: Yeah, most of them, um… essentially, this whole project has taught me that. 02:13:26.000 --> 02:13:27.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Okay. 02:13:32.000 --> 02:13:38.000 Graham McIntire: Um, I need to learn more meteorology, because we're… we're basically doing what meteorologists do. 02:13:38.000 --> 02:13:46.000 Graham McIntire: And then try and predict things that, you know, ducks in the atmosphere may only be a meter high. 02:13:46.000 --> 02:13:51.000 Graham McIntire: We don't know how thick they are, and then if a slight breeze comes in, it could knock the top off of one. 02:13:52.000 --> 02:13:58.000 Graham McIntire: Um, the… most of them don't matter too much. Uh, PWAT has to do about the… 02:13:58.000 --> 02:14:04.000 Graham McIntire: The total moisture content of the atmosphere, and refractivity is the… 02:14:04.000 --> 02:14:10.000 Graham McIntire: Um, from the NOAA satellites, uh, how… 02:14:10.000 --> 02:14:14.000 Graham McIntire: Reflective the ground is compared to… 02:14:14.000 --> 02:14:18.000 Graham McIntire: Uh, past times. So, typically. 02:14:18.000 --> 02:14:26.000 Graham McIntire: you know, dense clouds, dense humidity in the atmosphere. It just started raining here now, so it's probably gonna get more dense soon. 02:14:26.000 --> 02:14:32.000 Graham McIntire: Uh, but they're… this is essentially the raw HRR information that we get. 02:14:32.000 --> 02:14:37.000 Graham McIntire: Uh, and then the next row of things is all at different altitudes. 02:14:40.000 --> 02:14:47.000 Graham McIntire: So, you can also skip to… like, you can go to ducting if you want, uh, and that's where the HRR data. 02:14:47.000 --> 02:14:55.000 Graham McIntire: uh, detects that there are ducts. Uh, it's very, very coarse, uh, it's only doing… 02:14:55.000 --> 02:15:05.000 Graham McIntire: 250 meter vertical slices of the atmosphere, uh, so it has to be a very big duct, very stable for it to see it whatsoever. 02:15:07.000 --> 02:15:11.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Are we getting data up here to the, like, would cover the Great Lakes? 02:15:11.000 --> 02:15:17.000 Graham McIntire: Yes. Yeah, it covers, uh, it's a latitude, uh, but it covers all. 02:15:17.000 --> 02:15:19.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Okay, here's some. 02:15:17.000 --> 02:15:20.000 Graham McIntire: All of the continental U.S. Yeah. 02:15:19.000 --> 02:15:21.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yep. 02:15:28.000 --> 02:15:34.000 Graham McIntire: But like I said, this… this ducting is only… hey, this is a really, really, really big duct. 02:15:34.000 --> 02:15:42.000 Graham McIntire: But conversely, that may not be ideal, because it may not be the right size to be able to refract. 02:15:42.000 --> 02:15:46.000 Graham McIntire: say, 10 GHz waves. It could be way too big. We don't know. 02:15:49.000 --> 02:15:55.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Okay, very good. Looks like they got a little bit going on, as you might expect in the Gulf. 02:15:57.000 --> 02:15:59.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And… 02:15:59.000 --> 02:16:03.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: No joy for you, uh, Ben. It's not going that high. 02:16:04.000 --> 02:16:10.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Alright, I'm getting bogged down here, so let me keep moving. Um… 02:16:10.000 --> 02:16:12.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Beacons. 02:16:13.000 --> 02:16:18.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Okay, so we have input some beacons here. Um, this is… 02:16:18.000 --> 02:16:24.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: a facility or feature. Let me go to Submit Beacon to just show you what the… 02:16:24.000 --> 02:16:26.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Input looks like. 02:16:27.000 --> 02:16:32.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I think that Graham built this overnight, because it looks like. 02:16:33.000 --> 02:16:38.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: There's some new stuff here. So you put in a frequency, a call for the beacon. 02:16:38.000 --> 02:16:42.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: The grid. You can get real granular here. 02:16:42.000 --> 02:16:47.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: or the lat-long. But if you put in the grid, it will calculate the lat-long, and vice versa. 02:16:48.000 --> 02:16:52.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And you give the EIRP in milliwatt. 02:16:52.000 --> 02:16:55.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: The height above ground for the antenna. 02:16:55.000 --> 02:17:02.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And whether or not, um, there's a… there's a bearing, or for a directional array. 02:17:02.000 --> 02:17:06.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: On the beacon, or the word omni. 02:17:06.000 --> 02:17:09.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And then if there is a… 02:17:10.000 --> 02:17:13.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: directional array… 02:17:13.000 --> 02:17:18.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: you put the beam width here, and I assume this is the 3 dB beam width? 02:17:21.000 --> 02:17:23.000 Graham McIntire: Yes, yeah. 02:17:23.000 --> 02:17:29.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah, we haven't even talked about this, although I assumed it was the 3 dB bandwidth, and… 02:17:29.000 --> 02:17:36.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I input a couple of beacons with that understanding, or really mine. 02:17:36.000 --> 02:17:39.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So then there are these modes. 02:17:43.000 --> 02:17:45.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: To select… 02:17:48.000 --> 02:17:52.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And then whether or not it's on the air, and some additional notes. 02:17:54.000 --> 02:17:57.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So, these are the ones that we have input. 02:17:56.000 --> 02:18:01.000 Mike K6ML: Just a comment on the modes, uh, some beacons support more than one mode. 02:17:59.000 --> 02:18:01.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yes. 02:18:02.000 --> 02:18:05.000 Mike K6ML: So, I don't know if you'll be able to do that. 02:18:02.000 --> 02:18:04.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah. 02:18:05.000 --> 02:18:08.000 Mike K6ML: Put in 2 or 3 modes, or… 02:18:08.000 --> 02:18:14.000 Graham McIntire: I can change it so we can do that. There's also a notes section, uh, so you can put in, you know, this… 02:18:13.000 --> 02:18:15.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah. 02:18:14.000 --> 02:18:16.000 Graham McIntire: And then this… 02:18:15.000 --> 02:18:30.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah, so the note on mine right now says, modulates CW carrier and Q65C60, but I chose the Q65C60 as the mode, but when you sweeten it up, then. 02:18:31.000 --> 02:18:35.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I'll, uh, add the other, or change the other, or you can help me change the other. 02:18:36.000 --> 02:18:39.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: We'll see, I do have editability. 02:18:41.000 --> 02:18:50.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, let's just look at Greg's beacon right here, uh, AA5C, ECOMI 13, Sierra Fox. 02:18:51.000 --> 02:18:56.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: 500 milliwatts, 75 feet above the ground. 02:18:57.000 --> 02:19:02.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And then if we click down here where it says show estimated Current Coverage. 02:19:05.000 --> 02:19:10.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: It shows a sweet spot right in here, and we can hover. 02:19:10.000 --> 02:19:12.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, we can zoom in and look… 02:19:12.000 --> 02:19:17.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: There looks like it's reaching, uh, the Sulphur River on the… 02:19:17.000 --> 02:19:20.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Northside, or Red River, it's called there. 02:19:21.000 --> 02:19:24.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, getting down to Dallas. 02:19:26.000 --> 02:19:29.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Out maybe to… 02:19:30.000 --> 02:19:33.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Commerce and Sulphur Springs. 02:19:34.000 --> 02:19:37.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: But this is in the good. 02:19:38.000 --> 02:19:39.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Green. 02:19:40.000 --> 02:19:42.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Now, there's a… 02:19:42.000 --> 02:19:47.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Calculation that's scoring and estimating the. 02:19:48.000 --> 02:19:50.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Signal strength. 02:19:50.000 --> 02:19:53.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And then, of course, right around the beacon. 02:19:53.000 --> 02:19:56.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Like at Le Von. 02:19:56.000 --> 02:20:01.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: we could get a signal report from Keith. Looks like it's minus 99 dB. 02:20:01.000 --> 02:20:05.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Um, so that's probably rocking your S meter pretty good. 02:20:12.000 --> 02:20:17.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Here's the list we have so far. We have KM0T. 02:20:17.000 --> 02:20:19.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And, uh… 02:20:19.000 --> 02:20:21.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Iowa. 02:20:21.000 --> 02:20:26.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: We have a few of the beacons that are on the women's dormitory. 02:20:26.000 --> 02:20:29.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: At 280 in Denton. 02:20:36.000 --> 02:20:42.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So that's beacons. Now let's look here if we haven't lost you, so this is the contact map. 02:20:42.000 --> 02:20:48.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I assume that this is everything that's in our database. Is that a fair statement? 02:20:48.000 --> 02:20:53.000 Graham McIntire: Yes. It's… it pulls live, so if you add a new contact, it'll show up immediately. 02:20:54.000 --> 02:21:03.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah. Yeah, I've seen that. So let's just zoom in on Winnipeg here, and there will be an observation here, Barry, and that is that. 02:21:04.000 --> 02:21:13.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: If the contacts were logged in such a way that they only use 6-digit grid versus a 10-digit grid. 02:21:13.000 --> 02:21:16.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: It's gonna have a more precise location. 02:21:17.000 --> 02:21:22.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, then you will see right here. So as you see, there's 2. 02:21:23.000 --> 02:21:27.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And I'm pretty sure this is you in all cases. 02:21:30.000 --> 02:21:36.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: But I see a high frequency one right here, so let's just click on that. 02:21:32.000 --> 02:21:34.000 Barry VE4MA: No, we… 02:21:36.000 --> 02:21:38.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: If we can. 02:21:39.000 --> 02:21:43.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: It takes a knack to get the finger here. 02:21:41.000 --> 02:21:43.000 Pat W5VY: Yes. 02:21:44.000 --> 02:21:50.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Okay, 75 gigahertz, single sideband, 37 kilometers. 02:21:51.000 --> 02:21:53.000 Pat W5VY: Okay. 02:21:51.000 --> 02:21:55.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: VE4 to VE4 M8 to SA. 02:21:55.000 --> 02:21:57.000 Pat W5VY: The ones that want to come back. 02:21:57.000 --> 02:22:00.000 Pat W5VY: But what's… there are… I guess there are no… 02:21:59.000 --> 02:22:04.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Now, by clicking View Details, you can see… 02:22:03.000 --> 02:22:06.000 Pat W5VY: Okay, don't worry. 02:22:05.000 --> 02:22:07.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: The detail of this contact. 02:22:11.000 --> 02:22:13.000 Pat W5VY: Hard… hard to do. 02:22:14.000 --> 02:22:19.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Now, I'm gonna guess that this is a resolution issue again, where… 02:22:16.000 --> 02:22:18.000 Pat W5VY: Okay. 02:22:19.000 --> 02:22:30.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Your partner may have been on top of this, Pete, but because of the 4-digit grid, or 6-digit grid, it's centered that, and it's placed it over here. 02:22:24.000 --> 02:22:26.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah. 02:22:32.000 --> 02:22:35.000 Barry VE4MA: Yeah, they were on top of a 22-story building. 02:22:36.000 --> 02:22:43.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Okay, that wouldn't… this is SRTM data, so this would be the ground. 02:22:47.000 --> 02:22:54.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Anyway, you see a lot of information here that was, uh, the real-time data at the time. 02:22:56.000 --> 02:22:58.000 Pat W5VY: Okay. 02:23:01.000 --> 02:23:04.000 Pat W5VY: And it's gonna have a puppy dog. 02:23:03.000 --> 02:23:07.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: There's an HRR model profile here. 02:23:07.000 --> 02:23:09.000 Pat W5VY: Okay. 02:23:14.000 --> 02:23:24.000 Mike K6ML: So, if we look at a contact that we made, and we notice that the data could be improved, is there a way to edit the database, uh, looking at this page? 02:23:24.000 --> 02:23:26.000 Mike K6ML: To correct things? 02:23:26.000 --> 02:23:32.000 Graham McIntire: Yes and no. Right now, uh, there is user registration, but right now only Jim and I have admin. 02:23:33.000 --> 02:23:38.000 Graham McIntire: Um, there's that flag is invalid, but that's more right now for… 02:23:38.000 --> 02:23:44.000 Graham McIntire: Like, this is just blatantly wrong, you know, 10,000 kilometer link or something. 02:23:44.000 --> 02:23:48.000 Graham McIntire: Um… I'll make a note to add that, though. 02:23:47.000 --> 02:23:55.000 Mike K6ML: Yeah, because then you can basically crowdsource the removing of the poison data, you know, making it, uh, pure. 02:23:53.000 --> 02:23:56.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: There you go. Yep. 02:23:54.000 --> 02:24:02.000 Graham McIntire: Yeah, exactly, and things like, oh, I know I was on top of this 22-story building, and not on the ground next to it. 02:24:01.000 --> 02:24:05.000 Mike K6ML: Yeah, well that you would just change your antenna height to say… 02:24:05.000 --> 02:24:07.000 Mike K6ML: About 220 feet or whatever. 02:24:07.000 --> 02:24:12.000 Graham McIntire: Right. Yeah, and that's one of the biggest problems, is just 6-digit grids. 02:24:08.000 --> 02:24:10.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Good one. 02:24:13.000 --> 02:24:19.000 Graham McIntire: Um, I just had to delete 800-something contacts, because they had the same source and destination grid. 02:24:19.000 --> 02:24:23.000 Graham McIntire: So, it looks like they're standing right next to each other. 02:24:23.000 --> 02:24:29.000 Mike K6ML: Yeah, but they're probably not too interesting in training the database anyhow, because if they were in the same grid. 02:24:28.000 --> 02:24:30.000 Graham McIntire: Exactly. 02:24:33.000 --> 02:24:40.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, this probably looks familiar to Tony, although, uh, it'd give you a headache if you look at it very long. 02:24:40.000 --> 02:24:43.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: These are Lake Erie… 02:24:43.000 --> 02:24:49.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Point-to-point contacts in the contest, probably more than anything. 02:24:51.000 --> 02:24:55.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And you can dig right down into it and find yourself. 02:24:55.000 --> 02:24:58.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Um, just takes a little time. 02:25:00.000 --> 02:25:09.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: But this is what is sitting in our database. Uh, Mike, I know that the world record contact is in here. 02:25:09.000 --> 02:25:16.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I can't remember if it was precisely on the mountaintops, but I think one side is. 02:25:20.000 --> 02:25:24.000 Mike K6ML: Yeah, I was gonna get back to you on that. I noticed the height profile. 02:25:24.000 --> 02:25:29.000 Mike K6ML: Seems to be like a flat Earth, not a curved Earth, because… 02:25:29.000 --> 02:25:32.000 Mike K6ML: Uh, the path was nearly obstructed. 02:25:32.000 --> 02:25:36.000 Mike K6ML: You can probably click on it, and I can just illustrate it right now, but… 02:25:37.000 --> 02:25:41.000 Mike K6ML: Because there's only one 122 contact in there, I think. 02:25:37.000 --> 02:25:39.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Um… 02:25:41.000 --> 02:25:43.000 Mike K6ML: You can find it by the color. 02:25:43.000 --> 02:25:47.000 Mike K6ML: Uh, move up across the bay, or to the right of the bay. 02:25:46.000 --> 02:25:51.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Well, there, there's a K6ML to KB6BA and N9JIM. 02:25:50.000 --> 02:25:53.000 Mike K6ML: That's it. That's the one, yeah. 02:25:53.000 --> 02:25:55.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yep. 02:25:57.000 --> 02:26:01.000 Mike K6ML: So, when I look at this on, hey, what's Earth, uh… 02:26:01.000 --> 02:26:07.000 Mike K6ML: The curved earth profile shows that spike in the middle, nearly intersecting the path. 02:26:08.000 --> 02:26:14.000 Mike K6ML: so I don't know whether this was done as a flat Earth, and it doesn't have the Earth's curvature included, or… 02:26:14.000 --> 02:26:16.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah. 02:26:14.000 --> 02:26:19.000 Mike K6ML: It's because the endpoints are wrong. The endpoints are both elevated, so that looks approximately right. 02:26:20.000 --> 02:26:24.000 Mike K6ML: And it's 10-digit grids, so… not sure what's wrong, but… 02:26:24.000 --> 02:26:29.000 Graham McIntire: The display itself isn't showing that correctly. 02:26:24.000 --> 02:26:26.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yes. 02:26:29.000 --> 02:26:36.000 Graham McIntire: Uh, the actual algorithm and scoring does take into account not only the curvature of the Earth, but also the. 02:26:36.000 --> 02:26:40.000 Graham McIntire: The steroid bulge, the fear of his. 02:26:39.000 --> 02:26:43.000 Mike K6ML: Good, okay, so it's just the illustration here that's room. 02:26:44.000 --> 02:26:46.000 Mike K6ML: Great. 02:26:48.000 --> 02:26:54.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Graham, how hard would it be to toggle this view to a curved Earth view back and forth? 02:26:55.000 --> 02:27:00.000 Graham McIntire: Uh, that's what I was just making a new issue for. I've created a few since this meeting started. 02:27:01.000 --> 02:27:06.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Okay, yeah. Uh, we have a Kanban board with… 02:27:06.000 --> 02:27:10.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: You know, it looks like a professional project. 02:27:13.000 --> 02:27:27.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Alright, um, the last thing is just to look at this database, because I want to illustrate one, um, we'll pick a piece of poison, okay? And that is, I saw a contact that was… 02:27:27.000 --> 02:27:33.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: wrong, and it's between these two operators. Mrs. Pat. 02:27:33.000 --> 02:27:35.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And Paul Perryman. 02:27:36.000 --> 02:27:41.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And… if you look at this contact right here. 02:27:41.000 --> 02:27:43.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: It's a… 02:27:43.000 --> 02:27:45.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Contest contact… 02:27:45.000 --> 02:27:49.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Where Pat was at Millwood Lake. 02:27:51.000 --> 02:28:00.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And that's not EchoNancy 33. It's this… here's the reciprocal contact logged by Pat. 02:28:01.000 --> 02:28:05.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Where he got it right, EM33AQ. 02:28:06.000 --> 02:28:14.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So this one needs correction, because it shows a 1264. 02:28:10.000 --> 02:28:12.000 Pat W5VY: No. 02:28:14.000 --> 02:28:17.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: kilometer contact. 02:28:18.000 --> 02:28:22.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And Pat wasn't up there in wherever that is. 02:28:21.000 --> 02:28:23.000 Barry VE4MA: Minnesota. 02:28:24.000 --> 02:28:27.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Iowa. 02:28:26.000 --> 02:28:28.000 Barry VE4MA: Okay. 02:28:28.000 --> 02:28:37.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So, bad data does exist, and we need that ability to correct that, or flag it as invalid. 02:28:38.000 --> 02:28:44.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And get it corrected. So… you can submit a contact here. 02:28:45.000 --> 02:28:47.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Here's the submit page. 02:28:48.000 --> 02:28:54.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: You can also do this by way of uploading a CSV file. 02:28:55.000 --> 02:29:01.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Which is the way that I've done it when I got, um, inputs from different folks. 02:29:03.000 --> 02:29:08.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Unless I just got a single contact, and then I just use this page. 02:29:10.000 --> 02:29:15.000 Mike K6ML: I'll make a suggestion for a way to sort of review the contacts. 02:29:15.000 --> 02:29:19.000 Mike K6ML: Uh, if you had the option to say on the contact map. 02:29:20.000 --> 02:29:23.000 Mike K6ML: Show all contacts involving K6ML. 02:29:23.000 --> 02:29:28.000 Mike K6ML: Then I could, at my leisure, go in and… 02:29:28.000 --> 02:29:34.000 Mike K6ML: improve the data on each of those contacts based on whatever I know, like the exact time of day, or… 02:29:35.000 --> 02:29:37.000 Mike K6ML: Uh, antenna height, stuff like that. 02:29:37.000 --> 02:29:39.000 Mike K6ML: Uh… 02:29:39.000 --> 02:29:44.000 Mike K6ML: And so, this along the lines of my earlier comment about crowdsourcing the, uh… 02:29:44.000 --> 02:29:46.000 Mike K6ML: Purifying of the data. 02:29:47.000 --> 02:29:49.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So, a filter on the map. 02:29:50.000 --> 02:29:56.000 Mike K6ML: To say, just show me somebody, you know, a certain station's contacts, and then that station could go in. 02:29:50.000 --> 02:29:53.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: By… a call sign. 02:29:56.000 --> 02:29:59.000 Mike K6ML: And, you know, if you added this edit mode. 02:30:01.000 --> 02:30:07.000 Mike K6ML: You know, if they were a member of the website or whatever, they could then validate all their contacts. 02:30:07.000 --> 02:30:11.000 Mike K6ML: You know, probably take them a while, but they wanted to. 02:30:08.000 --> 02:30:10.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Good suggestion. 02:30:11.000 --> 02:30:17.000 Graham McIntire: Yeah, the map is a good suggestion. Right now, you can also search, like Jim was doing just a minute ago. 02:30:17.000 --> 02:30:19.000 Graham McIntire: On the raw context page. 02:30:18.000 --> 02:30:20.000 Mike K6ML: Oh, search is fine, too, yeah. 02:30:21.000 --> 02:30:22.000 Mike K6ML: But it… 02:30:21.000 --> 02:30:26.000 Graham McIntire: Yeah, you can search for both sides of the contact if you need to search for a specific one or something. 02:30:27.000 --> 02:30:36.000 G Paul Perryman: I'm sorry I'm late, but how… I fat-figured that, obviously, so what in the process would have caught that? Because that's clearly an error on my part. 02:30:38.000 --> 02:30:40.000 Graham McIntire: Uh… 02:30:38.000 --> 02:30:41.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Well, if we… why would we catch that? 02:30:41.000 --> 02:30:48.000 Graham McIntire: It's all user-submitted data, so if somebody says they did this contact, we just have to kind of trust that it's right. 02:30:49.000 --> 02:30:56.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah, and we actually have a user that has a contact over 1,000 kilometers that's legitimate. 02:30:56.000 --> 02:30:58.000 Mike K6ML: Yeah, if you have… 02:30:56.000 --> 02:30:59.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I just happened to find that one, Paul, because… 02:30:59.000 --> 02:31:03.000 G Paul Perryman: Yeah, because it's clearly wrong… 02:30:59.000 --> 02:31:03.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: It was on the first page, the first time I looked at the data. 02:31:03.000 --> 02:31:05.000 Mike K6ML: This is a broken… 02:31:03.000 --> 02:31:11.000 G Paul Perryman: And I was curious where that data even came from, because I don't ever remember submitting anything like that to anybody. 02:31:05.000 --> 02:31:07.000 Mike K6ML: Yeah. 02:31:12.000 --> 02:31:14.000 Graham McIntire: Uh, a lot… 02:31:12.000 --> 02:31:14.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Turned in a contest log. 02:31:12.000 --> 02:31:20.000 Mike K6ML: It's probably… it's probably a busted context log. You probably have a log check report on that contact, because one of the grids is wrong. 02:31:20.000 --> 02:31:24.000 G Paul Perryman: And this is from the last contact, right? Last contact? 02:31:24.000 --> 02:31:26.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: 24, probably. 02:31:26.000 --> 02:31:28.000 Graham McIntire: Uh, all of them. 02:31:28.000 --> 02:31:30.000 G Paul Perryman: All of them. 02:31:28.000 --> 02:31:30.000 Graham McIntire: Since 2019. 02:31:30.000 --> 02:31:36.000 G Paul Perryman: So, if… because I haven't been on any of these bands within the last couple years, so… 02:31:37.000 --> 02:31:48.000 G Paul Perryman: it makes me want to go back and find that contact, and see what the real genesis of it is, but if it… I put it in as a contest log entry, and it's that far out of whack. 02:31:49.000 --> 02:32:01.000 G Paul Perryman: I would have seen that when I was calculating my score and stuff, and it would have stuck out like a sore throat. So somewhere, either in the translation from the big database, or somewhere along the way, there's a foul ball. 02:32:01.000 --> 02:32:06.000 G Paul Perryman: And I want to make sure, if it was me and Fatfingered, I'll own it. But if not, if it is. 02:32:06.000 --> 02:32:14.000 G Paul Perryman: that I need a corrective thing in my own process, right? If I look at my contacts and go, hey, that's wrong. I could have seen that a mile away. 02:32:14.000 --> 02:32:21.000 Graham McIntire: Yeah, this is exactly what we got from the ARRL, so whatever's in their database is exactly what went into ours. 02:32:21.000 --> 02:32:28.000 Mike K6ML: Yeah, if you… if you did a log check report on that year's contest, you probably find the ARRL docs that contact. 02:32:21.000 --> 02:32:23.000 Pat W5VY: Uh… 02:32:28.000 --> 02:32:30.000 Mike K6ML: Because it was an error. 02:32:31.000 --> 02:32:33.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Very possibly. 02:32:35.000 --> 02:32:40.000 G Paul Perryman: Okay. Well, I've only been in, like, 2 contests, so it shouldn't be too hard to find where this thing came from. 02:32:41.000 --> 02:32:43.000 Pat W5VY: Well, Paul… 02:32:42.000 --> 02:32:46.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: We have the date, Paul, it's in the, it's in 24. 02:32:43.000 --> 02:32:45.000 G Paul Perryman: Yeah. 02:32:44.000 --> 02:32:46.000 Pat W5VY: Look… 02:32:46.000 --> 02:32:48.000 Pat W5VY: Right. It's, um… 02:32:48.000 --> 02:32:53.000 Pat W5VY: You've got EN30… EN23AQ, it should be Echo Mike. 02:32:51.000 --> 02:32:54.000 G Paul Perryman: Yeah, I… I see the problem. 02:32:53.000 --> 02:32:55.000 Pat W5VY: Yeah. 02:32:54.000 --> 02:33:04.000 G Paul Perryman: Yeah, I see the problem. Clearly, Pat, I was foul balled, but I, I, you know, I would have thought I'd seen it when I put it in, because it would have had a great big score or something, right? 02:32:56.000 --> 02:32:58.000 Pat W5VY: Yeah. 02:33:05.000 --> 02:33:08.000 Pat W5VY: Yeah, probably would have been. 02:33:06.000 --> 02:33:08.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah. 02:33:08.000 --> 02:33:10.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Well, you need to tighten up, buddy. 02:33:11.000 --> 02:33:14.000 G Paul Perryman: Oh yeah, that's it. 02:33:15.000 --> 02:33:17.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Nice try. 02:33:17.000 --> 02:33:19.000 G Paul Perryman: Get dragged together. 02:33:20.000 --> 02:33:24.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Alright, we gotta get back to this. We're having too much fun. 02:33:26.000 --> 02:33:32.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Okay, so I wanted to kind of come to a close with this one. 02:33:32.000 --> 02:33:38.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Um, there's a quote from a guy named George Box. Some of you may have heard this, but… 02:33:39.000 --> 02:33:42.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: All models are wrong, some are useful. 02:33:43.000 --> 02:33:46.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And I just need to… 02:33:46.000 --> 02:33:56.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: remind us that there are limitations, uh, because they are simplifications of reality. I think these are pretty close. 02:33:56.000 --> 02:34:02.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: But they can't capture every detail or nuance of the systems they represent. 02:34:03.000 --> 02:34:09.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: The usefulness of a model should be judged by its ability to provide insights and guide decision-making. 02:34:10.000 --> 02:34:21.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Rather than the absolute accuracy. And I think this is where we will go for the next years. And I hope by the time we get through this… 02:34:21.000 --> 02:34:28.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Spring-summer slash late summer, fall period, we will have enough empirical. 02:34:29.000 --> 02:34:32.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Experience. 02:34:32.000 --> 02:34:39.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: To be able to say that, you know, to what extent we can trust this, and to what value it has become. 02:34:40.000 --> 02:34:42.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I know one thing. 02:34:42.000 --> 02:34:47.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: We've got to be careful of our thinking of saying… 02:34:48.000 --> 02:34:51.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: We're only gonna go out on microwave activity days. 02:34:52.000 --> 02:35:01.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Because we ran an analysis on the last couple of years on how many times we would have had good conditions on 47 GHz. 02:35:01.000 --> 02:35:09.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Of course, they run in scales, so it's, like, average to good to great to excellent. 02:35:09.000 --> 02:35:11.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: But we had… 02:35:11.000 --> 02:35:16.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: 5 or 6 that we missed, completely, because they were not on mad days. 02:35:16.000 --> 02:35:20.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Or other days that I could get off work. 02:35:20.000 --> 02:35:25.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So, I think this is gonna have to help us change our thinking. 02:35:25.000 --> 02:35:33.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Sure, we still want to go on the microwave activity days and get out there, but the expectations should be… 02:35:33.000 --> 02:35:44.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: lowered or heightened according to what we're seeing in the predictions. And then you don't get all disappointed because you drove 50 miles or 100 miles or 150 miles. 02:35:45.000 --> 02:35:47.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And the band was flat. 02:35:48.000 --> 02:35:54.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Whereas, if it looks good on Wednesday, and you can make it happen, then… 02:35:55.000 --> 02:35:59.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: That might become our operating mode in the future. 02:36:00.000 --> 02:36:02.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Sure will be mine. 02:36:02.000 --> 02:36:06.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: We need to prove by testing. 02:36:06.000 --> 02:36:10.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And that's all I've got on that. 02:36:10.000 --> 02:36:14.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Other discussion or questions? Thank you for the discussion so far. 02:36:15.000 --> 02:36:22.000 Bob N5BRG: I have a couple of comments. First of all, on the modeling thing, I think models are… truly can be good, and. 02:36:22.000 --> 02:36:27.000 Bob N5BRG: Over time, they get better and better. Just look at the weather forecasting over the years, it's gotten better and better. 02:36:28.000 --> 02:36:32.000 Bob N5BRG: And so this… the work you guys are doing on this will make it better. 02:36:32.000 --> 02:36:44.000 Bob N5BRG: And the other thing is that on the, uh, refractive index thing, uh, you know, if you… if you equate this to, like, fiber optics, there's a step index fiber where light bounces off. 02:36:44.000 --> 02:36:49.000 Bob N5BRG: The true change in index of refraction of the materials. 02:36:49.000 --> 02:36:57.000 Bob N5BRG: And follows its path down the fiber, and then there's a graded index, which it means it's bent gradually as it. 02:36:57.000 --> 02:37:00.000 Bob N5BRG: Moves away from the center of the fiber. 02:37:00.000 --> 02:37:03.000 Bob N5BRG: And I think you can have the same scenario in a dot. 02:37:03.000 --> 02:37:13.000 Bob N5BRG: And in the fiber, if you have a step index, then you can have signals arriving at the end at different times, because they can follow many different paths. 02:37:13.000 --> 02:37:18.000 Bob N5BRG: And less so if you have graded index, so it makes it better for higher frequency. 02:37:19.000 --> 02:37:26.000 Bob N5BRG: So if we have graded index type ducking, then I think that could be better. So it's just a non-linear. 02:37:26.000 --> 02:37:34.000 Bob N5BRG: Index of refraction, or a differential type refraction as it moves through the atmosphere, I believe. 02:37:35.000 --> 02:37:37.000 Bob N5BRG: That's just my thought, anyway. 02:37:37.000 --> 02:37:42.000 Graham McIntire: Right, and that's… that's exactly what it's just starting to do with more detail. 02:37:42.000 --> 02:37:54.000 Graham McIntire: about the… you know, like, right now we're basically taking a crashed airplane and trying to figure out why it crashed. We know the conditions are like this. What went into making it? 02:37:54.000 --> 02:37:59.000 Graham McIntire: Like this. So, the first step is identifying those ducks, and then, like you said. 02:37:59.000 --> 02:38:04.000 Graham McIntire: It's only going to be refractive for a certain… a certain frequency. 02:38:05.000 --> 02:38:10.000 Graham McIntire: So that's why, uh, some things like typically 10 and 24 gig. 02:38:10.000 --> 02:38:16.000 Graham McIntire: are inverse with each other, so if it's a really good 10 gig day, it's gonna be a bad 24 gig day. 02:38:16.000 --> 02:38:22.000 Graham McIntire: But there could be multiple ducks, there could be all sorts of things, we don't know. That's… we're just… 02:38:22.000 --> 02:38:29.000 Graham McIntire: Right now, we're trying to collect as much data as we possibly can to kind of gradually improve the model, so it gets a little better every time. 02:38:38.000 --> 02:38:40.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Thank you for that, Bob. 02:38:42.000 --> 02:38:47.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Would, uh, like, WSJTX data be worthwhile? 02:38:48.000 --> 02:38:51.000 David - KG5EIU TX: If you had… if you had, uh, two stations that… 02:38:51.000 --> 02:38:57.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Could transmit, or beacons that could report back on what they actually are getting. 02:38:58.000 --> 02:39:00.000 Graham McIntire: Uh… 02:38:59.000 --> 02:39:00.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yes. 02:39:01.000 --> 02:39:07.000 Graham McIntire: Yeah, they definitely could. Um, what I'm working on right now, it's very early, um. 02:39:07.000 --> 02:39:12.000 Graham McIntire: But, like, the… the beacons on TWU are non-line of sight to me. 02:39:12.000 --> 02:39:20.000 Graham McIntire: Um, so I'm working on… I still have to put in connectors on the coax that's sitting outside in the ring now. Um… 02:39:20.000 --> 02:39:26.000 Graham McIntire: I'm gonna put up a received dish to an SDR, and basically take, you know, one minute. 02:39:26.000 --> 02:39:34.000 Graham McIntire: to 5-minute measurements of the signal level. The raw signal doesn't matter, it's just how it varies based on the weather data. 02:39:29.000 --> 02:39:31.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Alright. 02:39:34.000 --> 02:39:40.000 Graham McIntire: So essentially, the plan is to build out a bunch of those, and say. 02:39:34.000 --> 02:39:36.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Right. 02:39:40.000 --> 02:39:42.000 Graham McIntire: You know, hey, if you want to participate. 02:39:42.000 --> 02:39:51.000 Graham McIntire: Listen to whatever beacon, that's why the beacon page came about. So then we'll be able to see, okay, these are the reports that this beacon is getting. 02:39:51.000 --> 02:40:01.000 Graham McIntire: and then from that, go back and train our model. So none of what's on the site right now is training the model. That happens offline, because it's just way too intense. 02:40:01.000 --> 02:40:03.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Yeah. 02:40:02.000 --> 02:40:08.000 Graham McIntire: It's just data collecting, and then every time there's an update to our propagation model. 02:40:08.000 --> 02:40:12.000 Graham McIntire: that gets reflected back in the code. So, like, that's changed… 02:40:12.000 --> 02:40:16.000 Graham McIntire: twice, I think, since the meeting started, because I've been working on it. 02:40:15.000 --> 02:40:24.000 David - KG5EIU TX: kind of like a whisper… like a… like a whisper-type setup, right? Where I could set up… I could set my dish up in the backyard and hook it up to the computer, and… 02:40:18.000 --> 02:40:21.000 Graham McIntire: Exactly. I can tweet. 02:40:19.000 --> 02:40:21.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah. 02:40:24.000 --> 02:40:28.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Let it run for an hour or two, and you would have that data. 02:40:26.000 --> 02:40:38.000 Graham McIntire: Right, because we need to see what happens during various precipitation types, what happens if it's foggy outside, what happens when our front comes through, like, all the different variables. We have to account for all of those. 02:40:39.000 --> 02:40:45.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: We're looking for really permanent, um, monitoring, David, where. 02:40:45.000 --> 02:40:52.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: We set up a receiving system that is up 24-7. 02:40:46.000 --> 02:40:47.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Yeah. 02:40:52.000 --> 02:40:57.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And it will have a specific job to do. 02:40:52.000 --> 02:40:54.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Yeah, that'd be cool. 02:40:57.000 --> 02:40:59.000 David - KG5EIU TX: That would be cool. 02:40:59.000 --> 02:41:10.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And, um, we're talking to different folks right now. Uh, we'll have a report on it more later, but, uh, the idea would be to sample. 02:41:10.000 --> 02:41:21.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: multiple beacons at one receiver using an SDR receiver, and then link that information back into the model, um… 02:41:15.000 --> 02:41:17.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Yeah. 02:41:21.000 --> 02:41:28.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Now, you couldn't use the same receiver to do 24 and 47, but you could listen to 2 or 3. 02:41:28.000 --> 02:41:32.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: 47 beacons on a single SDR. 02:41:31.000 --> 02:41:33.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Right. 02:41:32.000 --> 02:41:40.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So, we're working on that, that's, uh, that's something to come, because we realized, and Bob really was the one that brought this up last meeting. 02:41:41.000 --> 02:41:56.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: is that the most valuable data… well, I mean, it's a toss-up, but I mean, the most valuable continuous training data will be links that are monitored 24-7 on the frequencies we're interested in. 02:41:58.000 --> 02:42:04.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Then, of course, the, uh, community, um, crowdsourcing it, as Mike calls it. 02:42:04.000 --> 02:42:08.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, inputting their contacts, and… 02:42:08.000 --> 02:42:18.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: giving us data away from the contest period. We do have data away from the contest periods, but… you know, the great vast majority of the data is. 02:42:18.000 --> 02:42:23.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: from 10 GHz and up contest for 6 years. 02:42:25.000 --> 02:42:27.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Yeah. 02:42:28.000 --> 02:42:33.000 Mike K6ML: So the other thing is that at least your early data and the contest data is largely. 02:42:34.000 --> 02:42:39.000 Mike K6ML: I made a contact, and from the mode, you're inferring a certain minimum. 02:42:39.000 --> 02:42:41.000 Mike K6ML: Uh, margin. 02:42:41.000 --> 02:42:46.000 Mike K6ML: Whereas with the beacons and WSJT, you can have signal reports. 02:42:46.000 --> 02:42:49.000 Mike K6ML: And you can know what the actual margin was. 02:42:50.000 --> 02:42:52.000 Graham McIntire: Right. 02:42:50.000 --> 02:42:52.000 Mike K6ML: On a scale. 02:42:50.000 --> 02:42:52.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: You… you're right. 02:42:52.000 --> 02:42:54.000 Graham McIntire: That's what we need more of, um… 02:42:55.000 --> 02:43:01.000 Graham McIntire: Because it's… I mean, it's already valuable that we know that the contacts were made, but it's also… 02:43:01.000 --> 02:43:07.000 Graham McIntire: Important that we know when they couldn't be made, and there's not a log that. 02:43:07.000 --> 02:43:10.000 Graham McIntire: Will allow us to do that, except by continuous monitoring. 02:43:10.000 --> 02:43:22.000 Mike K6ML: The extinction on the contest data between… this guy was 5'9+, rocking me out of my chair, and I barely made this contact. Well, if it says CW, you know it was weak, but that's about it. 02:43:15.000 --> 02:43:17.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah. 02:43:17.000 --> 02:43:19.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah. 02:43:22.000 --> 02:43:28.000 Graham McIntire: And all of the… all of the propagation data and signal levels and things like that just presume CW. 02:43:28.000 --> 02:43:31.000 Graham McIntire: Because that's gonna be best case for everything. 02:43:32.000 --> 02:43:36.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah, so we don't have that dynamic range to know… 02:43:37.000 --> 02:43:45.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: This was a Q65 contact at the very edge, minus 26, versus… 02:43:45.000 --> 02:43:49.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: You know, positive 10. 02:43:46.000 --> 02:43:50.000 Mike K6ML: Well, yeah, so the point is, for some of these… 02:43:50.000 --> 02:43:56.000 Mike K6ML: Yeah, the point is, for these modes, for the beacons and WSJT. 02:43:57.000 --> 02:44:00.000 Mike K6ML: now you have that data. So, any other, uh… 02:44:01.000 --> 02:44:04.000 Mike K6ML: Entry in the record, or whatever was the actual signal level. 02:44:04.000 --> 02:44:06.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yep. 02:44:08.000 --> 02:44:12.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Well, it goes without saying that we've come a long ways in a month. 02:44:12.000 --> 02:44:15.000 Mike K6ML: Yeah, sure, it's amazing. 02:44:12.000 --> 02:44:16.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: When we had 4 contacts. 02:44:18.000 --> 02:44:21.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And now we're having a discussion about… 02:44:21.000 --> 02:44:33.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: continuous monitoring of beacons, which, you know, there's a lot of work to that. I know that Mike Lavelle is, uh, the beacon builder, you might say, and I think that goes back to your satellite days. 02:44:35.000 --> 02:44:38.000 Mike K6ML: No, no, I just got the job this week, that's it. 02:44:45.000 --> 02:44:47.000 Bob N5BRG: Kind of faded out. 02:44:45.000 --> 02:44:51.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: But every time I see an email from the Bay Area Society, they're. 02:44:52.000 --> 02:45:03.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: you know, Mike is working on a beacon, and I can sympathize with that. In fact, that's the subject of the next presentation. 02:45:02.000 --> 02:45:08.000 Bob N5BRG: Let me just mention that ideally what we would be monitoring on the beacons, I think, is. 02:45:08.000 --> 02:45:12.000 Bob N5BRG: Vertical and horizontal polarization reception. 02:45:12.000 --> 02:45:18.000 Bob N5BRG: And then you would also know what you… what was happening to the signal as it was passing through these. 02:45:19.000 --> 02:45:22.000 Bob N5BRG: Different ducting systems. 02:45:26.000 --> 02:45:28.000 Bob N5BRG: Just to make it more complicated. 02:45:27.000 --> 02:45:33.000 Mike K6ML: Well, right now, the whole model… I think the whole model right now assumes everything's horizontal, right? I mean, there's no… 02:45:32.000 --> 02:45:34.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah. 02:45:33.000 --> 02:45:36.000 Mike K6ML: No statement about polarization anywhere. 02:45:37.000 --> 02:45:40.000 Graham McIntire: Well, but it… it… it would benefit… 02:45:40.000 --> 02:45:44.000 Graham McIntire: I mean, it gets exponentially more difficult like that. 02:45:43.000 --> 02:45:48.000 Mike K6ML: Yeah, yeah, I'm just… I think it's fair, I mean, that's what we're all using. I mean, the… 02:45:49.000 --> 02:45:54.000 Mike K6ML: People… on moon mounts, they worry about polarization, but on terrestrial, everybody. 02:45:54.000 --> 02:45:56.000 Mike K6ML: It's pretty much horizontal. 02:45:56.000 --> 02:45:58.000 Graham McIntire: Yep. 02:46:00.000 --> 02:46:07.000 Bob N5BRG: But you may find out that you… you're missing the boat, and you… if you had a switch to switch between the two modes, you might be. 02:46:07.000 --> 02:46:10.000 Bob N5BRG: Able to make a queue that you couldn't make before. 02:46:10.000 --> 02:46:16.000 Mike K6ML: Yeah, no, my point is just nobody's generating transmissions on the other polarization listening. 02:46:14.000 --> 02:46:17.000 Bob N5BRG: Don't have any data to work with, yeah, okay. 02:46:17.000 --> 02:46:22.000 Mike K6ML: So, you can't collect that data at the moment, and we're not marking it either. 02:46:20.000 --> 02:46:28.000 Graham McIntire: But if it's being transmitted horizontally, it gets bounced around in a duct, it can easily do all sorts of weird things. 02:46:29.000 --> 02:46:31.000 Bob N5BRG: Yeah. 02:46:39.000 --> 02:46:43.000 David - KG5EIU TX: A side question for you guys, since it's starting to get storm season, what's the. 02:46:43.000 --> 02:46:46.000 David - KG5EIU TX: What's the minimum height, or… 02:46:46.000 --> 02:46:49.000 David - KG5EIU TX: You'd look for maybe making rain scatter contact. 02:46:49.000 --> 02:46:51.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Ideally. 02:46:50.000 --> 02:47:00.000 Graham McIntire: Um, brain scatter is one thing that this whole project data set, everything completely ignores. It does not care about it whatsoever. 02:46:57.000 --> 02:46:59.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Yeah. Yeah. 02:47:00.000 --> 02:47:02.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Alright. 02:47:00.000 --> 02:47:06.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah, you get on Slack, and you get on, um, rainscatter.com. 02:47:06.000 --> 02:47:10.000 David - KG5EIU TX: And go after it, okay. I didn't know, just from experience. 02:47:07.000 --> 02:47:10.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And observe, yeah. 02:47:10.000 --> 02:47:18.000 David - KG5EIU TX: I mean, it's like, don't waste your time on 20,000 foot clouds, you know… Okay. 02:47:15.000 --> 02:47:17.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah, don't waste your time. 02:47:19.000 --> 02:47:27.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: We love the 50 to 70,000 tops with high reflectivity. 02:47:28.000 --> 02:47:33.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: When it's between us and the station we're trying to work. 02:47:34.000 --> 02:47:36.000 David - KG5EIU TX: That's what I was after. Thank you. 02:47:37.000 --> 02:47:43.000 Mike K6ML: Well, I guess to that point, though, your database does include contest contacts, some of which are rain scattered. 02:47:43.000 --> 02:47:46.000 Mike K6ML: And they're not flagged as such, probably. 02:47:48.000 --> 02:47:52.000 Graham McIntire: Right, and the… the… some of the… 02:47:52.000 --> 02:47:57.000 Graham McIntire: Uh, context that it did import were… it had some EME and some rain scatter. 02:47:57.000 --> 02:48:00.000 Graham McIntire: Where we could, we filter those out? 02:48:00.000 --> 02:48:05.000 Graham McIntire: But that's part of the whole crowdsourcing, because we only know what we have. 02:48:05.000 --> 02:48:07.000 Graham McIntire: What we could find. 02:48:09.000 --> 02:48:11.000 Mike K6ML: Well, then… 02:48:09.000 --> 02:48:11.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Um… 02:48:11.000 --> 02:48:21.000 Mike K6ML: As part of… I was gonna say, as part of that review process, you could have a place for users to indicate that it wasn't a straight terrestrial contact, it was a rain scatter. 02:48:11.000 --> 02:48:13.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Sorry, Mike, go ahead. 02:48:21.000 --> 02:48:23.000 Mike K6ML: Or it was an EME. 02:48:23.000 --> 02:48:28.000 Mike K6ML: Uh, and then you can either reject it or put it in a different VIN in the model. 02:48:29.000 --> 02:48:31.000 Graham McIntire: Right. 02:48:31.000 --> 02:48:36.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Um, Graham, is… is it possible to… 02:48:37.000 --> 02:48:40.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: evaluate the… 02:48:41.000 --> 02:48:49.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Well, I guess rain scatter, you know, is performed forward scatter and backscatter, but for the forward scatter case. 02:48:50.000 --> 02:48:59.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Could we know that there was a potential… well, first of all, it's a 10 GHz contact over 500 kilometers. 02:48:59.000 --> 02:49:06.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Second, there's a proximity of thunderstorm activity near the midpoint. 02:49:07.000 --> 02:49:11.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: At that time in space, at that gate. 02:49:13.000 --> 02:49:15.000 Graham McIntire: Uh, it… 02:49:15.000 --> 02:49:20.000 Graham McIntire: Depends. We should be able to figure that out, it just… it's not… 02:49:21.000 --> 02:49:25.000 Graham McIntire: Indicated right now, because we… we have all of the weather data. 02:49:26.000 --> 02:49:34.000 Graham McIntire: Essentially, behind the scenes, what the site is doing is when contacts are submitted, it goes and fetches the historical weather data. 02:49:34.000 --> 02:49:44.000 Graham McIntire: as much as it possibly can for those two spots and everything in between, up to a certain resolution. Uh, and then it runs the algorithm on it and then shows the results. 02:49:45.000 --> 02:49:50.000 Graham McIntire: Um, but since we already have that data, there's nothing preventing us from saying. 02:49:50.000 --> 02:49:56.000 Graham McIntire: It looks like there was possible rain scatter, you know, in between the two points. 02:49:56.000 --> 02:50:02.000 Mike K6ML: Maybe you could do a cooperative thing with Kent… I'm sorry, I don't remember his name, but mrinkscatter.com. 02:50:02.000 --> 02:50:07.000 Mike K6ML: To just basically apply his algorithm to the historical data and generate. 02:50:06.000 --> 02:50:08.000 Graham McIntire: Mm-hmm. 02:50:07.000 --> 02:50:13.000 Mike K6ML: You know, he generates maps basically showing where the reflection… likely reflection point is. 02:50:14.000 --> 02:50:16.000 Mike K6ML: For the given current weather. 02:50:16.000 --> 02:50:18.000 Mike K6ML: And a current path. 02:50:19.000 --> 02:50:23.000 Mike K6ML: So, you know, maybe you can leverage what he's already done. 02:50:24.000 --> 02:50:30.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I'll call that a rainy day project, Graham, no pun intended. 02:50:28.000 --> 02:50:30.000 Mike K6ML: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 02:50:29.000 --> 02:50:33.000 Graham McIntire: It's raining right now. 02:50:35.000 --> 02:50:37.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Okay. 02:50:38.000 --> 02:50:48.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Oh, that's an interesting thought, though, those, uh, try to flag those rain scatter contacts, and just, like Mike says, put them in a different bin, because I think we're gonna be going there before it's over. 02:50:53.000 --> 02:51:05.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I mean, if you've got a mountain of data and it can give you one more, uh, analysis that can be useful that we've never had before, then why not go for it? 02:51:06.000 --> 02:51:12.000 Graham McIntire: Oh, exactly, and the whole point, like you were saying, Jim, is to get people out there and to make contacts. 02:51:12.000 --> 02:51:19.000 Graham McIntire: So, it doesn't really matter the method of how to make it, just, hey, if you can make it, go out there and do it. 02:51:21.000 --> 02:51:23.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I appreciate that. 02:51:25.000 --> 02:51:29.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: All right, well, let's go on to the beacon project here. 02:51:29.000 --> 02:51:38.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Um… along those same lines as we've been talking, I mean, all of our beacon projects have been, um… 02:51:38.000 --> 02:51:44.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: For the purpose of furthering propagation studies and helping us. 02:51:45.000 --> 02:51:55.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: understand the unknown, I guess. Now we know more, but we'd like the validation, and we'd like to incorporate this constant monitoring. 02:51:55.000 --> 02:51:59.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, back in. So, first of all, you've got to have the source of the signal. 02:52:00.000 --> 02:52:06.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And so, here comes another one. Now, I promised this one, uh, to Al. 02:52:06.000 --> 02:52:16.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So, um, I think he intends to ask for it to be co-located on one of Greg's, uh, one of Graham's towers. 02:52:16.000 --> 02:52:24.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: But I'm gonna hand it to him, and shake his hand and see where it ends up. 02:52:25.000 --> 02:52:34.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So let's get started. First of all, we based the design on the same RF deck that's in the tri-band beacon. 02:52:34.000 --> 02:52:40.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So if you're looking at this, you see 10 GHz on top, 24 in the middle. 02:52:40.000 --> 02:52:46.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: With the GPS and distribution unit at the back. And then you see the 47 on the bottom. 02:52:47.000 --> 02:52:50.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: All of these are driven by R of zeros. 02:52:50.000 --> 02:52:54.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: and various LOs. 02:52:54.000 --> 02:52:58.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, to be mixed and then, uh, arrive at the RF frequency. 02:53:00.000 --> 02:53:06.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Okay. Here is the original, uh… 02:53:07.000 --> 02:53:11.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: tri-band beacon RF Deck. 02:53:12.000 --> 02:53:18.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And this is an 8x10 inch chunk of quarter inch aluminum. 02:53:18.000 --> 02:53:26.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, so you'll see the RF0 in the back left. Um, there's a 435MHz saw filter. 02:53:27.000 --> 02:53:29.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Kind of here… 02:53:30.000 --> 02:53:33.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And then… you see… 02:53:34.000 --> 02:53:39.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, the tuning LO in the back here. 02:53:39.000 --> 02:53:45.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And these two inputs, plus the, um… 02:53:46.000 --> 02:54:01.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Let's see, what am I missing? No, there's just two inputs, so it'll be the IF and the LO are coming into this board with the pipe cap filters. And then the RF output, uh, which is mixed and amplified and filtered. 02:54:01.000 --> 02:54:10.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: is coming through this attenuator on the lower right, and then through this blue cable up to the quadrupler. 02:54:11.000 --> 02:54:16.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Which then is got a waveguide attachment to this W1 GHz horn. 02:54:19.000 --> 02:54:29.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And that's how that goes. And so, uh, I wanted to make a smaller package, uh, so that you don't have to bear-hug it when you pick it up. 02:54:30.000 --> 02:54:35.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And… so I'll get to that here in a minute, but this is the topology. 02:54:35.000 --> 02:54:45.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So, again, you've got the RF0 on the far left, which will modulate CW plus a carrier plus Q65. 02:54:46.000 --> 02:54:50.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Runs through a sawtooth filter here. 02:54:50.000 --> 02:54:54.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: The third Harmonic is picked off. 02:54:55.000 --> 02:55:07.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And we go into this, uh, WA1 MBA board. Now, he made these special after, uh… if you saw this tri-band beacon in Tucson, it had all the discrete components on it. 02:55:07.000 --> 02:55:14.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: It didn't have this nice little board that's… he barely can… I mean, it's just a little tiny board, it's about that big. 02:55:16.000 --> 02:55:21.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So, and it takes, uh, an LO input, uh, IF input. 02:55:22.000 --> 02:55:29.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, does some, uh, amplification, some filtering with the three pot cap filters. 02:55:30.000 --> 02:55:37.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: and then out comes, um, 11772. Now, the one… the frequency I've got here… 02:55:37.000 --> 02:55:41.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: is the way that Al's beacon is designed. 02:55:41.000 --> 02:55:51.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Because it will come in at a frequency that is, um… it's 10 kilohertz away, I can't remember if it's higher or lower than the other beacon. 02:55:53.000 --> 02:55:59.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: It's… it's higher. About 10 kilohertz higher. 02:55:59.000 --> 02:56:07.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And so I had to get to these, uh… that was all about just programming the, uh, dB6NTLO. 02:56:08.000 --> 02:56:14.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Because, you see, its frequency is 113370875. 02:56:14.000 --> 02:56:21.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And once that's mixed with 435, you come out with 11772.0875. 02:56:21.000 --> 02:56:27.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: You multiply that times 4, you come in at 47088.350. 02:56:29.000 --> 02:56:36.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: That'll make sense. I think our other one's at 360, so I might have that backwards, which one's the higher and lower? 02:56:36.000 --> 02:56:47.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Um, the levels are really super important, and I can never remember them, so I've written them down on this sheet so that I won't forget them. 02:56:47.000 --> 02:56:57.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: But, you know, there's a sweet spot for this mixer. It's a mini-circuits mixer on that board. It calls for 7 dBm, and that's the perfect… 02:56:57.000 --> 02:57:09.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: input. And then, um, this Quadrupler's kind of sensitive, you don't want to exceed 6 dBm, so I had to mess with the attenuators, uh… 02:57:09.000 --> 02:57:25.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: You know, you use a really cheap 3 dB attenuator and it attenuates 6 dB at this frequency. So anyhow, I just kept trying to keep using a cheap attenuator until I found the right, uh, level and I got it right. 02:57:25.000 --> 02:57:35.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Out comes 12 dBm from the Quadrupler. The Sectoral horn is 19 dBi. I calculate losses are probably around .7. 02:57:37.000 --> 02:57:42.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: This is a direct attach in the new design. No waveguide. 02:57:43.000 --> 02:57:46.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And then, uh, so it gives you an ERP of about a watt. 02:57:51.000 --> 02:58:13.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I wanted to show you the effect of this sawtooth filter. Of course, those of you that have experience know how well they work, but this thing is really pretty awesome. It turns the spectrum over here on the left, which is 1 gig wide, and there's our signal of interest right there. Drops it by about 2 or 3 dB inserted, but look how it cleans up things. 02:58:19.000 --> 02:58:30.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: The signal tone spacing's kind of tricky on these, um, 47 gig beacons. I'm not going to go over this, but it is in here should you want it. 02:58:30.000 --> 02:58:40.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: The main thing is, you've got to get the tone spacing to come out right, or otherwise, if you say you're transmitting Q65C60. 02:58:40.000 --> 02:58:47.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Well, the receiving party is gonna dial that in on their WSJTX. 02:58:47.000 --> 02:58:59.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And if your spacing's goofy, they won't be able to decode it. So, as we go up, uh, first by the Harmonic, because we picked off the third from 145. 02:58:59.000 --> 02:59:09.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: That's a times 3 multiplier. And then we quadruple… the mix doesn't add anything, so you don't have to consider the tone spacing in the mix. 02:59:09.000 --> 02:59:22.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: But when you multiply through the quadrupler, you end up with a multiplication factor of 12. The non-intuitive thing is that you have to set the R of zero up. 02:59:23.000 --> 02:59:38.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: for 1740 for a specific reason to get the tone spacing right. And you'll have to do this math here. If you do it and understand it, um, I'll give you a gold star. 02:59:38.000 --> 02:59:45.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Here is the actual RF0 config. This is the, you know, this with the design will get you right there. 02:59:45.000 --> 02:59:51.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Multiplication factor is 12. Here's the frequency of 1740 MHz. 02:59:51.000 --> 03:00:10.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And here is the, uh, string for the default call sign. Now, this is the important thing, the W5LUA stroke B, that's used in CW string, and the bottom W5LUA stroke B is used in the Q65. The grid. 03:00:10.000 --> 03:00:21.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I stuck it in here, but it's never really used. And the reason why is because of this config up here that says, wait for valid GPS before transmitting. 03:00:21.000 --> 03:00:37.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: 1 equals yes. Now, why did I do that? Why do you wait for a valid GPS signal before you transmit? Well… I modified the code. 03:00:37.000 --> 03:00:45.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So… this test up here is testing that switch. And if… 03:00:45.000 --> 03:00:48.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I have configured it as such, which I have. 03:00:49.000 --> 03:00:54.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Then it drops to, while not valid, just yield. 03:00:55.000 --> 03:00:58.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Else, get the locator. 03:00:58.000 --> 03:01:00.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And that's the magic. 03:01:00.000 --> 03:01:04.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And it will just go get the the. 03:01:04.000 --> 03:01:15.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: uh… decompose the GPS string, we'll do the math, it will get the locator, and now we have the locator for where the box is at at the moment. 03:01:18.000 --> 03:01:27.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Then we just stick a zero on the end of that string. You know, indexing in these bit byte arrays starts at zero, so… 03:01:27.000 --> 03:01:34.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: This is actually the 7th position, because we've got 6 characters in this locator variable. 03:01:35.000 --> 03:01:43.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And then we're going to copy the call, which is from the previous configuration, where we said W5LUA stroke B. 03:01:46.000 --> 03:01:54.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: into the MGM message, which is the WSJT message that's going to be transmitted. It's called MGM message. 03:01:54.000 --> 03:01:57.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Then we stick a space. 03:01:58.000 --> 03:02:01.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Then we stick the locator. 03:02:01.000 --> 03:02:03.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Which is 6 long. 03:02:03.000 --> 03:02:07.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And then we stick a terminating zero into memory there. 03:02:09.000 --> 03:02:21.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Then we fall down here, and we call the setup Q65. With the given mode, Q65C, whatever's configured back here by this value where it says. 03:02:21.000 --> 03:02:27.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Where's it say? Where's it say? Where's it say? Here, at the bottom. 03:02:28.000 --> 03:02:39.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Q65 mode number 12, it doesn't… it doesn't show you with the dot dot dots, but 12 is Q6560C. And that's how it does it. 03:02:40.000 --> 03:02:48.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: To program the DB6NT frequency, I'm talking to Greg McIntire now, because he's done the pain here. 03:02:49.000 --> 03:02:57.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: If this is what you're trying to get to, in my case it was on the new beacon, I want to get 11.337.087.500. 03:02:58.000 --> 03:03:09.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: you come in like this. So, first of all, I left it like this on purpose because there's a difference between that V and that V. The second V is a lowercase V. 03:03:09.000 --> 03:03:14.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And you have to use case-sensitive commands here. 03:03:14.000 --> 03:03:21.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: You can use putty, you don't have to use this thing, but there's a lot of ways to communicate with the LO. 03:03:21.000 --> 03:03:26.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: But here, I'm saying, um, gigahertz frequency is 011. 03:03:26.000 --> 03:03:30.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: It acknowledges that with an A. A is the happy path. 03:03:31.000 --> 03:03:34.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Megahertz frequency is 337. 03:03:35.000 --> 03:03:37.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: A for happy path. 03:03:37.000 --> 03:03:43.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: lowercase K for kilohertz frequency, ought 87. 03:03:43.000 --> 03:03:45.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: A for happy. 03:03:45.000 --> 03:03:51.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, somehow I did it twice, it don't mind that. It's sticking these in, you know, register positions. 03:03:51.000 --> 03:03:54.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And then finally, Hertz frequency. 03:03:54.000 --> 03:03:56.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: 500. 03:03:57.000 --> 03:03:59.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And that is how we build. 03:03:59.000 --> 03:04:09.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: that string up there, and don't forget to put in the SFR command, that saves the frequency into EEPROM. So now you can turn the thing off and on. 03:04:10.000 --> 03:04:21.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Come back. So here's the math. You take the LO, add the IF frequency, that gives you a number, multiplied times 4. 03:04:21.000 --> 03:04:26.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: There's your frequency. Final R frequency. 03:04:27.000 --> 03:04:31.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Ready to deploy. Here it is in its little package. 03:04:31.000 --> 03:04:37.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: You got the W1, uh, WA1 MBA board over here on the left. 03:04:39.000 --> 03:04:44.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: got a sectoral horn here. I can also switch this to a, um… 03:04:45.000 --> 03:05:07.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Conical horn, but, um, I figure if Al puts this close by, it's going to be really loud anyway, and so getting more of an omni pattern would probably be better than the conical horn, especially if we have a receiver out to the west that will be monitoring the beacon 24/7. 03:05:08.000 --> 03:05:12.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Back in the background here is the quadrupler. 03:05:12.000 --> 03:05:15.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: On the lower deck is the RF0. 03:05:16.000 --> 03:05:22.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, little power supply, and you can't see it tucked in, uh, back here on the backplane, but the… 03:05:22.000 --> 03:05:26.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: DB6NTLO is back there. 03:05:26.000 --> 03:05:33.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And then this box, this black box slung down here is the GPS. 03:05:33.000 --> 03:05:39.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And below that, there's a terminal strip, uh, with all the DC connections. 03:05:40.000 --> 03:05:45.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: To drive this, you either have, uh, 12 volts on the tower. 03:05:45.000 --> 03:05:48.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Or I have a hundred… 03:05:49.000 --> 03:05:54.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: amp-hour LiPo in a 100-watt panel, solar panel. 03:05:54.000 --> 03:05:59.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And a controller that will give you power. 03:05:59.000 --> 03:06:03.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: For up to three days of cloudiness. 03:06:03.000 --> 03:06:14.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So… we can withstand up to 3 days. Now, this beacon does not have remote turn on and turn-off capabilities, so once it gets flipped on, and there's the switch on the right. 03:06:15.000 --> 03:06:20.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: My dad used to say X equals 2 pi over square root of LC, but where the the switch? 03:06:22.000 --> 03:06:24.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: There's the switch. 03:06:29.000 --> 03:06:37.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So, I wanna give you a demo, and you, you know, my comment, usually demos don't go well, but I've been letting this stuff. 03:06:37.000 --> 03:06:43.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: burn in over here for the whole time we've been on this meeting, so… I'm gonna switch cameras… 03:06:45.000 --> 03:06:47.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Um… 03:06:48.000 --> 03:06:52.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And I'll also switch the audio. 03:07:04.000 --> 03:07:07.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Let's see, what am I doing wrong? 03:07:21.000 --> 03:07:28.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Somehow I need to get this in the main screen, don't I? 03:07:37.000 --> 03:07:39.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Um… 03:07:41.000 --> 03:07:49.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: It doesn't work that way. I thought it would. Um, we've got a… 03:07:49.000 --> 03:07:56.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: camera trained on the beacons. I see that it's up in a picture that would normally show my face. 03:07:56.000 --> 03:08:02.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Um, let me see if I can at least get the audio to track over there. 03:08:07.000 --> 03:08:09.000 Mike K6ML: Think I need to stop screen sharing. 03:08:09.000 --> 03:08:11.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Okay. 03:08:10.000 --> 03:08:12.000 Mike K6ML: To get the camera. 03:08:14.000 --> 03:08:16.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Might make a difference, huh? 03:08:34.000 --> 03:08:36.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I don't know why. 03:08:37.000 --> 03:08:41.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Is the beacon the both boxes, or is it just the one on the far right? 03:08:42.000 --> 03:08:45.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: It is both boxes. Can you hear me okay? 03:08:45.000 --> 03:08:50.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Yeah, you're a little muffled, but yeah, we can hear you just fine, so it's, the whole beacon is both of these boxes then. 03:08:47.000 --> 03:08:49.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Okay. 03:08:50.000 --> 03:09:00.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: No, um, let me see if I can position my computer so that I can talk and point at the same time. I actually do have a pointer. 03:09:00.000 --> 03:09:05.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So this is the IF radio up here, and there are 2 signals. 03:09:02.000 --> 03:09:04.000 David - KG5EIU TX: 705. 03:09:05.000 --> 03:09:09.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And they're 10 kilohertz apart. I'll turn up the volume. 03:09:16.000 --> 03:09:18.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So, um… 03:09:19.000 --> 03:09:23.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: This is the new beacon down here. 03:09:23.000 --> 03:09:25.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Okay. 03:09:24.000 --> 03:09:26.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So… 03:09:26.000 --> 03:09:28.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: The multiplier's back here… 03:09:29.000 --> 03:09:33.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: The filter board's here, the RF0 is here. 03:09:33.000 --> 03:09:35.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: The GPS is here. 03:09:37.000 --> 03:09:42.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: This is the other beacon over here with 3 different RF boards. 03:09:41.000 --> 03:09:43.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Okay. Okay. 03:09:42.000 --> 03:09:45.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: The 47 is turned on. 03:09:44.000 --> 03:09:46.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Alright. 03:09:46.000 --> 03:09:53.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And I want this to ID in CW, so folks that don't know CW will know which one this one is tracking. 03:09:55.000 --> 03:10:03.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: This one on the left is the W5LUA beacon. This one on the right will sign W5HN. 03:10:03.000 --> 03:10:05.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Stroke V. 03:10:08.000 --> 03:10:13.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Here, after we listen to this for a few minutes, I'm going to demonstrate how the. 03:10:14.000 --> 03:10:19.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Um, remote control works through a cell phone app. 03:10:19.000 --> 03:10:28.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: and it will communicate with this device up here. I don't think you can see the antennas that are up here. I've got, you know, a stack of antennas on top of the beacon. 03:10:29.000 --> 03:10:33.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: But, um, it's constantly monitoring for commands. 03:10:33.000 --> 03:10:38.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And when it receives those commands, it will, uh, analyze them through the Arduino program. 03:10:38.000 --> 03:10:43.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: and then turn on the appropriate MOSFET, which in turn turns on the different RF depths. 03:10:43.000 --> 03:10:51.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Right now, we've just got the GPS turned on, and we've got the 47 deck, uh, on. 03:10:52.000 --> 03:10:57.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Here comes our CW. So, whatever I'm tuned to here… 03:10:58.000 --> 03:11:01.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, we'll hear the ID here in a minute. 03:11:05.000 --> 03:11:07.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: It's this one we're listening to. 03:11:16.000 --> 03:11:22.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So, it's gonna… both beacons are gonna sign EM12IL, because that's where we're at. 03:11:22.000 --> 03:11:27.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: We're at my house right now. I pulled this off the… I had this on the tower. 03:11:27.000 --> 03:11:33.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Um, and I pulled it off. So, we're listening to the right hand beacon right now, which. 03:11:34.000 --> 03:11:41.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, sines W5HN, but it right now has a grid of EM12. 03:11:41.000 --> 03:11:46.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: IL. Now we'll spin up here and listen to the other one. 03:11:54.000 --> 03:11:59.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: All you have to do is do anything here, and you'll get Doppler. 03:12:03.000 --> 03:12:08.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Any wiggle… this is the 47 rig, by the way, this is the… what's doing the receiving. 03:12:08.000 --> 03:12:11.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: But again, if I wiggle my hand… 03:12:15.000 --> 03:12:20.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Anything. I can walk clear across the shop, be 20 feet away, and you can hear Doppler. 03:12:21.000 --> 03:12:29.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, from all the signal bouncing around in here. Now, to set up the IF rig, I had to turn the RF gain all the way down as far as it would go. 03:12:29.000 --> 03:12:35.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, cause it's just swamping, uh, these 47 GHz signals are swamping. 03:12:40.000 --> 03:12:47.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Again, we're listening to this one. If you can see this red light right here, that will flash the CW when it comes. 03:12:47.000 --> 03:12:53.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Right now, it just pulses on every symbol, uh, every group of symbols that are sent. 03:12:54.000 --> 03:12:58.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: The yellow light is, uh, the GPS heartbeat. 03:13:17.000 --> 03:13:22.000 David - KG5EIU TX: These beacons are only 1 way, right? They transmit only, they won't receive a signal and report back. 03:13:17.000 --> 03:13:19.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And there you go. 03:13:23.000 --> 03:13:25.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: No, they're transmitters. 03:13:25.000 --> 03:13:27.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: They're transmitters. 03:13:27.000 --> 03:13:33.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Alright, now I'm gonna use my phone. It's right here, and you can see I'm monitoring our broadcast. 03:13:34.000 --> 03:13:39.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And I'm gonna go to the app where we do these commands. 03:13:39.000 --> 03:13:41.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And here it is. 03:13:41.000 --> 03:13:47.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And so, I'm going to turn on the 10GHz beacon, which is this command right here. 03:13:48.000 --> 03:13:53.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And you click this arrow, and that will turn on this top deck. 03:13:55.000 --> 03:13:57.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So, first you'll see… 03:14:18.000 --> 03:14:20.000 Al W5LUA: I think we lost Jim. 03:14:23.000 --> 03:14:25.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Come back, we… 03:14:26.000 --> 03:14:28.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Coming… 03:14:30.000 --> 03:14:33.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Back here, I don't think that'll probably show up. 03:14:38.000 --> 03:14:40.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Uh-oh. 03:15:00.000 --> 03:15:03.000 Al W5LUA: Oh, he lost you, Jim. Oh, he is muted, isn't he? 03:15:03.000 --> 03:15:15.000 Bob N5BRG: Well, I think he had two different monitors going, and one of them was muted, and he may not realize the other one has dropped out yet, so hopefully he's watching and can see that he's missing out. 03:15:15.000 --> 03:15:20.000 David - KG5EIU TX: He'll get to do it twice, he'll get dry run… he's doing a dry run now, and he'll do it again. 03:15:17.000 --> 03:15:19.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yep. 03:15:19.000 --> 03:15:21.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Can you hear me? 03:15:21.000 --> 03:15:23.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Yeah, we're back, you're back, we can hear you now. 03:15:22.000 --> 03:15:24.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Okay. 03:15:35.000 --> 03:15:45.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Okay, yeah, I think I, uh, shut down my monitor by accident, uh, pressing all the buttons on the… I was showing how to send commands to the beacon. 03:15:45.000 --> 03:15:53.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And if you're still watching, we'll turn it off. And, um, that's… we can throw this out here in front here, so it's… 03:15:53.000 --> 03:15:56.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: First, we'll turn off the tin. 03:15:56.000 --> 03:15:59.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Which is the top, uh, top deck. 03:16:01.000 --> 03:16:02.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Let's turn off. 03:16:03.000 --> 03:16:05.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: 24… 03:16:06.000 --> 03:16:08.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Turn off. 03:16:08.000 --> 03:16:10.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And 47. 03:16:11.000 --> 03:16:13.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, power off. 03:16:15.000 --> 03:16:20.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And then finally, GPS. power off. 03:16:22.000 --> 03:16:30.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Now, those go through a queue, so they may take a minute to get there, but eventually all of that will acquiesce and, uh… 03:16:30.000 --> 03:16:36.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: it will shut down. The only thing that will stay on is the, uh, cell phone monitoring. 03:16:37.000 --> 03:16:41.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: That's up there? And it'll stay on at all times. 03:16:41.000 --> 03:16:46.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Um, this beacon box here is drawing. 03:16:46.000 --> 03:16:50.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: A little bit more than 5 amps when it's all up. 03:16:50.000 --> 03:16:52.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So, um… 03:16:52.000 --> 03:16:57.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: If it's on a solar-powered battery, it's gonna have to be pretty healthy. 03:16:57.000 --> 03:17:01.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And it would, uh… 03:17:01.000 --> 03:17:04.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Be better if it's on power. 03:17:04.000 --> 03:17:08.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I'm using a 20 amp LiPo on it right now. 03:17:15.000 --> 03:17:18.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Um, so I can take questions. 03:17:18.000 --> 03:17:20.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: If there are any. 03:17:24.000 --> 03:17:31.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Is there a Wi-Fi option for the app that you're using, and then the cellular control board? 03:17:33.000 --> 03:17:39.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: There is… I know there is, there is not, uh, it's not employed here. 03:17:38.000 --> 03:17:40.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Okay. I was just curious. 03:17:39.000 --> 03:17:43.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: But, I do know there are, um, options. 03:17:51.000 --> 03:17:53.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Any other comments? 03:18:01.000 --> 03:18:06.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah, I think we're down to the 24 GHz is still lit. 03:18:13.000 --> 03:18:20.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah, so, um, wanted to have the ability to turn stuff on and off here because of. 03:18:20.000 --> 03:18:23.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Originally, I thought it would be powered by solar. 03:18:24.000 --> 03:18:26.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And… 03:18:26.000 --> 03:18:31.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: It would be an economical thing to turn on just one. 03:18:31.000 --> 03:18:37.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Check the propagation, and turn it off, and turn on another one, check the propagation. 03:18:38.000 --> 03:18:46.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: But in light of what we've talked about today, it might be best to try to locate this where we will have. 03:18:46.000 --> 03:18:49.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, continuous power. 03:18:50.000 --> 03:19:00.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Okay, everything has turned off in here. The only thing I see is, um, the DC-to-DC converter showing 5 volts. 03:19:00.000 --> 03:19:05.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And that's over to this, uh, hologram card, which has the cell. 03:19:06.000 --> 03:19:11.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: uh, connectivity. It's blinking… it's steady red and blinking blue. 03:19:11.000 --> 03:19:16.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Which means it has a signal. Let's gonna show you these antennas, maybe you can see them. 03:19:17.000 --> 03:19:25.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Now, there's a, uh, radome on the left side, that's 10 GHz. That's a 40 slot. 03:19:25.000 --> 03:19:27.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: 40 Alfred Slott. 03:19:28.000 --> 03:19:30.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: On the far right is a… 03:19:30.000 --> 03:19:34.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: It's at least 40 slots on 24GHz. 03:19:35.000 --> 03:19:38.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And then the middle antenna is the cell phone. 03:19:59.000 --> 03:20:04.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Well, I'll bring up the agenda, which we've kind of, um, jumped through. 03:20:06.000 --> 03:20:15.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And then we'll just see what else we've got here. We're getting, uh, upwards of… 4 hours in the meeting now. 03:20:17.000 --> 03:20:23.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I note that we have a pretty strong attendance. 03:20:25.000 --> 03:20:32.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I believe we're going to try to be back at David's place this next month. 03:20:55.000 --> 03:21:02.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: All right, um, did you see the agenda? 03:21:03.000 --> 03:21:07.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Welcome to North Texas microwave Slide. 03:21:07.000 --> 03:21:09.000 David - KG5EIU TX: We can see that just fine. 03:21:09.000 --> 03:21:14.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Okay. Uh, so this was what we just did. 03:21:15.000 --> 03:21:20.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Here's some notifications of what else has left this. 03:21:20.000 --> 03:21:28.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: important to note that the Central States VHF, uh, has their spring sprints. 03:21:31.000 --> 03:21:33.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: We had talked about potential. 03:21:34.000 --> 03:21:38.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Um, antenna tune-up party on the 24th. 03:21:38.000 --> 03:21:42.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I guess we need to think about this some more. 03:21:46.000 --> 03:21:48.000 Al W5LUA: I think you mean the 25th? 03:21:49.000 --> 03:21:52.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Did we mean the 25th? 03:21:51.000 --> 03:21:54.000 Al W5LUA: Yeah, the 24th is a Friday. 03:21:56.000 --> 03:22:00.000 Al W5LUA: Unless we're talking about me. 03:22:00.000 --> 03:22:03.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Oh, really? Okay, let's see, what do you think? 03:22:05.000 --> 03:22:10.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Is May 24th a Saturday? 03:22:11.000 --> 03:22:13.000 Al W5LUA: Sunday. 03:22:12.000 --> 03:22:14.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Sunday. 03:22:15.000 --> 03:22:19.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Okay. 03:22:19.000 --> 03:22:28.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Well, my fingers are going all over the pulse. I tried to write on my piece of paper while I had it over the keyboard. 03:22:29.000 --> 03:22:38.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, I guess we just need to circle back and think about the tune-up party. We talked first about being 122GHz. 03:22:38.000 --> 03:22:40.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I think. 03:22:41.000 --> 03:22:44.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And I'd love to do that. 03:22:44.000 --> 03:22:48.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Just to get the dust knocked off the gear. 03:22:52.000 --> 03:22:54.000 Al W5LUA: Yeah, I probably won't be around that weekend. 03:22:56.000 --> 03:22:58.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Okay. 03:22:58.000 --> 03:23:02.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Well, that ain't no fun. 03:23:02.000 --> 03:23:03.000 Al W5LUA: And… 03:23:04.000 --> 03:23:12.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Okay, uh, here's the May schedule, so we're coming up on this now. May 2nd, uh, be our activity day. 03:23:12.000 --> 03:23:18.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Um, spring sprint on 902 and above, same day. 03:23:18.000 --> 03:23:21.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And a meeting on May 9th. 03:23:21.000 --> 03:23:27.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And then 6 meter spring sprint on May 9th also. Here's our perpetual stuff. 03:23:33.000 --> 03:23:36.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Then… 03:23:39.000 --> 03:23:44.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Anybody got anything else they'd like to talk about, or show off, or brag about? 03:23:52.000 --> 03:23:55.000 Al W5LUA: You've done a lot of good work there, Jim. 03:23:55.000 --> 03:23:57.000 Al W5LUA: We appreciate it. 03:24:00.000 --> 03:24:05.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Thank you. I need to make arrangements to come up and drop this beacon off to you. 03:24:10.000 --> 03:24:12.000 Al W5LUA: Nope, we can do that. 03:24:14.000 --> 03:24:16.000 Al W5LUA: Talk to you off channel. 03:24:14.000 --> 03:24:20.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Big shout out to… big shout-out to Greg for, uh, talking… talking to me about some, uh, different… 03:24:20.000 --> 03:24:23.000 David - KG5EIU TX: 10 GHz things, and… 03:24:23.000 --> 03:24:28.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Uh, I posted a link out there, I don't know if everybody saw it, but it was for printing, uh. 03:24:30.000 --> 03:24:32.000 David - KG5EIU TX: A slimline… 03:24:32.000 --> 03:24:34.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Feedhorn holder. 03:24:34.000 --> 03:24:37.000 David - KG5EIU TX: And I actually printed one, so… 03:24:37.000 --> 03:24:42.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Um, it turned out pretty well. That's why I need the bolts for the dish. 03:24:43.000 --> 03:24:45.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Cool. 03:24:47.000 --> 03:24:54.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Um, David, what's the inside diameter of that clamp when it's… when it's snugged all the way? 03:24:55.000 --> 03:25:02.000 David - KG5EIU TX: A good question, I don't have that off the top of my head, but this is what I'll be using with it, this, uh… 03:25:03.000 --> 03:25:07.000 David - KG5EIU TX: What is it, uh, IOJXX? 03:25:08.000 --> 03:25:13.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Will it fit around the neck there, the, the… 03:25:11.000 --> 03:25:14.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Yeah, there's a… there's a, uh… 03:25:14.000 --> 03:25:16.000 David - KG5EIU TX: A spacer. 03:25:16.000 --> 03:25:19.000 David - KG5EIU TX: There's a… there's a spacer that it goes on. 03:25:20.000 --> 03:25:24.000 David - KG5EIU TX: So this, this, this latches up really nice. 03:25:24.000 --> 03:25:28.000 David - KG5EIU TX: And then, this fits… this fits really, really nice. 03:25:24.000 --> 03:25:26.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Okay. 03:25:28.000 --> 03:25:30.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Hope you can see it. 03:25:30.000 --> 03:25:35.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Gotcha. Now, was this… did you make the spacer, or where did that come from? 03:25:34.000 --> 03:25:38.000 David - KG5EIU TX: So, the spacer came with the… 03:25:38.000 --> 03:25:43.000 David - KG5EIU TX: the feed horn that I… I got this from, uh, DX Engineering, it's out of Italy. 03:25:44.000 --> 03:25:50.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Okay. What, what is the, what is the, uh, spacer made out of? 03:25:50.000 --> 03:25:53.000 David - KG5EIU TX: This spacer is 3D printed. 03:25:54.000 --> 03:25:56.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So it's a resin. 03:25:56.000 --> 03:26:01.000 David - KG5EIU TX: It's, it's a resin, yeah, it's probably PETG or maybe ABS. 03:26:02.000 --> 03:26:05.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: That's gonna be UV proof, right? 03:26:05.000 --> 03:26:07.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Yes, yes. 03:26:06.000 --> 03:26:09.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Okay. 03:26:09.000 --> 03:26:11.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Very good. 03:26:10.000 --> 03:26:16.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Yeah, the, uh, the, the, the bracket I… that I… this is printed in ABS. 03:26:16.000 --> 03:26:21.000 David - KG5EIU TX: So, UV… UV resistant, UV proof. 03:26:24.000 --> 03:26:26.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Alright. 03:26:24.000 --> 03:26:27.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Barry, do you have the death ray there? 03:26:27.000 --> 03:26:32.000 David - KG5EIU TX: And I ordered the Down East Microwave Transverter. 03:26:31.000 --> 03:26:33.000 Barry VE4MA: For me. 03:26:32.000 --> 03:26:35.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Very good. 03:26:45.000 --> 03:26:50.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Is that a lethal, uh, weapon you've got, Barry? 03:26:50.000 --> 03:26:55.000 Barry VE4MA: Uh, this is my Artemis feed that I had for my 8-foot offset dish. 03:26:56.000 --> 03:26:58.000 Barry VE4MA: I don't know if I can get it in the picture. 03:27:00.000 --> 03:27:02.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah, it's showing up. 03:27:03.000 --> 03:27:13.000 Barry VE4MA: This, uh, I've got the, uh, preamps and, uh, bandpass filter, because I was concerned about, uh, overload from cell sites, and… 03:27:13.000 --> 03:27:16.000 Barry VE4MA: Because 2.1 gigs is fairly close, so… 03:27:16.000 --> 03:27:18.000 Barry VE4MA: And, uh… 03:27:20.000 --> 03:27:30.000 Barry VE4MA: Now, it's hard to see the feed, but it's… I had to use a mesh. This is about 1 foot in diameter, so this is a 1.88 wavelength W2 IMU feed. 03:27:30.000 --> 03:27:35.000 Barry VE4MA: Which is basically what I think Al and I are using on, uh, 24, and… 03:27:35.000 --> 03:27:40.000 Barry VE4MA: It's, uh, really efficient for, uh, an offset dish. 03:27:41.000 --> 03:27:46.000 Barry VE4MA: And this thing is about 3 feet long, so it really sticks out in front of the… 03:27:46.000 --> 03:27:56.000 Barry VE4MA: you know, of the dish, and was one of the problems I had, uh, when I tipped down 14 degrees was as low as I could go before the feed would hit the ground, so… 03:27:59.000 --> 03:28:05.000 Barry VE4MA: And then there's a circular polarization section here made out of old coffee cans, uh, small coffee cans. 03:28:11.000 --> 03:28:15.000 Barry VE4MA: Anyway, it was all for naught, or… 03:28:12.000 --> 03:28:14.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: No. 03:28:16.000 --> 03:28:21.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Does the wire mesh serve the purpose of keeping the birds out? 03:28:21.000 --> 03:28:25.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Plus, some RF steering. 03:28:25.000 --> 03:28:29.000 Barry VE4MA: Uh, it… it's strictly, uh… 03:28:29.000 --> 03:28:34.000 Barry VE4MA: RF steering and it didn't do anything to keep the birds out, I, uh. 03:28:34.000 --> 03:28:36.000 Barry VE4MA: I ended up, uh… 03:28:37.000 --> 03:28:42.000 Barry VE4MA: Having to stuff some plastic bags in the horn so that the snow didn't accumulate. 03:28:46.000 --> 03:28:52.000 Barry VE4MA: Because, uh, you know, when it's mounted in the dish, it's pointed up, right? So… 03:28:53.000 --> 03:28:55.000 Barry VE4MA: Low elevation. 03:29:04.000 --> 03:29:06.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: That's cool. 03:29:06.000 --> 03:29:07.000 Barry VE4MA: That's all I've got. 03:29:21.000 --> 03:29:27.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Okay, uh, we'll swing through this, uh, old business, new business. 03:29:28.000 --> 03:29:34.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Um, I did note that the micro-grant from Irving Club Materials is out there. 03:29:38.000 --> 03:29:46.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I'll get to that, uh, and probably list this 47 GHz beacon, uh, seeking some… 03:29:46.000 --> 03:29:50.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Funding back to the… back to our club. 03:29:51.000 --> 03:29:57.000 David - KG5EIU TX: They're, uh, they're expecting a, uh, I talked, I talked up the NTMS guys pretty heavy. 03:29:58.000 --> 03:30:01.000 David - KG5EIU TX: They're looking forward to the submission. 03:30:01.000 --> 03:30:04.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Good. Thank you. 03:30:01.000 --> 03:30:06.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Happy to help with the mission, or if you guys want to do a WebEx? 03:30:06.000 --> 03:30:10.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Or, uh, Zoom, or whatever, let me know, happy to help. 03:30:11.000 --> 03:30:13.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Okay. 03:30:13.000 --> 03:30:19.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Um, I don't believe that Wes is with us, but we got a report from him. 03:30:19.000 --> 03:30:26.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, Al and I did on paid members, and… 03:30:26.000 --> 03:30:38.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: After Al made a email asking for support, the number of paid members, I think it basically doubled, didn't it, Al? 03:30:38.000 --> 03:30:41.000 Al W5LUA: Yeah, that's correct. Uh, so what's 60-some. 03:30:42.000 --> 03:30:44.000 Al W5LUA: And a lot of donations as well. 03:30:46.000 --> 03:30:48.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Yeah. 03:30:49.000 --> 03:30:52.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: So, good things to report there. 03:30:56.000 --> 03:31:10.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Uh, so we know that these costs continue to increase. Um, we're obviously ahead at this point. We'd like to stay that way, and, um, it's coming up time to. 03:31:10.000 --> 03:31:17.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Think about the, um… ARRL Spectrum Defense Fund donation. 03:31:25.000 --> 03:31:31.000 Al W5LUA: I would certainly make a recommendation that we do a donation. It's been, I think, a year or so. 03:31:35.000 --> 03:31:39.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: All right, uh, do you have an amount in mind, um, Al? 03:31:38.000 --> 03:31:41.000 Al W5LUA: Well, I think we've done 300 in the past. 03:31:44.000 --> 03:31:49.000 Al W5LUA: I mean, that's… a lot of members, but, uh, you know, maybe… 200, maybe? 03:31:56.000 --> 03:31:58.000 Al W5LUA: We do have reserve. 03:32:03.000 --> 03:32:09.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I think we should go 300 and keep up the pace that we have in the past when things weren't as good. 03:32:15.000 --> 03:32:17.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Anybody want to second that? 03:32:22.000 --> 03:32:24.000 Bob N5BRG: I'll second it. 03:32:23.000 --> 03:32:25.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Bob seconds it. 03:32:24.000 --> 03:32:26.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Yeah. I'll throw it. 03:32:27.000 --> 03:32:29.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Anybody opposed? 03:32:30.000 --> 03:32:32.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Alright, so Carrie… 03:32:33.000 --> 03:32:44.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Um, here's some… kind of a stale slide, but anyway, we do have the option to, uh, donate now on the homepage. 03:32:44.000 --> 03:32:49.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: And, uh, people are using it, so it's been good decisions. 03:32:49.000 --> 03:32:54.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: I think Bob was the one that suggested we do that, and uh… it paid off. 03:32:57.000 --> 03:33:00.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Do you have any motion to adjourn? 03:33:02.000 --> 03:33:04.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Motion to adjourn. 03:33:05.000 --> 03:33:07.000 Barry VE4MA: Seconded. 03:33:05.000 --> 03:33:15.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: There's a second, couple seconds. All right, guys, uh, really appreciate your attendance today, and your, uh… 03:33:06.000 --> 03:33:08.000 Bob N5BRG: Second. 03:33:15.000 --> 03:33:17.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Contributions? 03:33:18.000 --> 03:33:25.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: It's exciting times, and uh… gotta probably expect even better. 03:33:27.000 --> 03:33:29.000 Barry VE4MA: Thanks for all the good work, Jim. 03:33:30.000 --> 03:33:32.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: You bet. 03:33:30.000 --> 03:33:32.000 Al W5LUA: Thank you, Jim. 03:33:30.000 --> 03:33:32.000 David - KG5EIU TX: Thank you, Jim. Thanks, everybody. 03:33:32.000 --> 03:33:34.000 Pat W5VY: Thanks, Jim. 03:33:32.000 --> 03:33:35.000 NTMS_Zoom_Host: Thank you. Bye bye all. 03:33:35.000 --> 03:33:36.000 Barry VE4MA: 73. 03:33:35.000 --> 03:33:37.000 Steve K5MNZ: Thanks, Jim.