Category Archives: Radioaficion - Page 3

APT = Automatic Picture Transmission (Satélites meteorológicos)

Posted by on 2015/04/06 No comments

Esta vez APT no tiene nada que ver con seguridad informática (APT = Advanced Persistent Threat) sino de nuevo, con radioafición y satélites.

Aprovechando un día de vacaciones me he entretenido en cambiarle el conector a mi SDR RTL y ponerle un pigtail con un SMA, de forma que pudiera, con un adaptador, conectarle a través de un PL 259 a mis antenas de satélite.

El objetivo, poder decodificar las imágenes del satélite METEOR M2, un satélite meteorológico ruso con el que nunca he jugado hasta ahora y que fue lanzado al espacio en junio de 2014.

El cambio de conector muy sencillo, un chorro de aire caliente con el soldador de unos segundos y 2-3 minutos más para soldar el pigtail y el receptor está actualizado.

La recepción del satélite requiere que este pase por encima de nosotros para poderlo escuchar… así que con GPredict, como he mostrado otras veces, se pueden calcular los pases.

Para probar que todo iba bien, antes de apuntar al METEOR M2, he querido probar con uno de los satélites meteorológicos clásicos, con los que ya tenía experiencia, para asegurarme de que todo iba bien y que por suerte, tenía un pase muy pronto.

Gracias a WXtoImg he podido decodificar la siguiente imagen:

Es una imagen con una calidad media, sobretodo en la parte sur, pero hay que tener en cuenta que la he grabado directamente a través del micro del ordenador… mientras con el GQrx recibía las señales del satélite y las reproducía a través del altavoz… así que entre el ruido ambiental y las propias condiciones de recepción de una imagen de este tipo, este ha sido el resultado. He reducido el tamaño de la foto para ahorrar espacio, así que la original tiene algo más de definición.

20150306 NOAA-15 wxtoimg

 

Como me gusta indicar el equipo que uso cuando publico una cosa de estas, paso a detallar el equipo utilizado:

  • X-Quad VHF antenna (the big one in the photo) 🙂
  • SDR RTL comprado en eBay.
  • GQrx para la recepción de las señales.
  • WXtoImg para la decodificación de las imágenes.
  • Ordenador MacBook con OSX.

Siguiente paso, recibir las imágenes del METEOR M2.

AO-73 satelllite Telemetry

Posted by on 2015/03/22 No comments

Today I have used the latest AO-73 satellite pass to try to receive the telemetry is always broadcasting.

The equipment used today was the following:Satellite antennas

It is quite easy to receive the sounds from the space with this equipment…. I will try to receive it with less equipment and maybe a vertical antenna during next passes 🙂

The result has been quite good as I have been able to read the data from the satellite and during the pass.
Data has been updated 2-5 times, being able, for example, to see how the temperature of the power amplifier was raising from 14 to close to 17 degrees, maybe because the transverter being used by several hamradio operators that were making many QSO at the same time.

The telemetry was received around 145.935 (+- doppler effect) BPSK.

This is how the Funcube-1 dashboard looks like with my received data:

AO-73 telemetry

It’s been a really interesting experiment!

SSTV from the ISS

Posted by on 2015/02/03 No comments

Last friday I read a new post in the ARRL web site explaining that the ISS had scheduled some SSTV transmissions during the weekend.

Not having practice SSTV for several years and not even having my satellite antennas installed may have been a problem although it is known that it is quite easy to receive the ISS when is flying above us…

So no time for plans, I would use my installed equipment for this:Gpredict screenshot

(The GPredict screenshot is not from last weekend but comming from a previous post)

With this setup was not difficult to plan the reception of the images for the following passes of the ISS over Madrid. You just need to tune your receiver in 145.900MHz FM.

This is what I got:

201502011953 201501312049 201501312043

The lines you can see in the images are usually interferences, mainly in the third one, caused by voices of a woman, speaking, probably in Russian…

KLog 0.9.0.3: A bugfix release with several upgrades

Posted by on 2015/01/13 No comments

Today I am releasing KLog 0.9.0.3.

(Download KLog)

This is not a major release although it is fixing some bugs and adding some more features.

Check what Changelog os showing and feel free to contact me to suggest any feature you are missing or report any bug you may find.

Remember that we have two mailing list for KLog and you can subscribe to take part in the discussions.
You can find the information regarding the mailing lists, in the mailing list page of KLog.

January-2015 – 0.9.0.3

– Bugfix: ADIF was not properly imported when Fields where using the Type of data optional field preventing logs from Logger32 being imported. (TNX EB1TR)
– Bugfix: QSL Sent/Received status in the search box were switched.
– Bugfix: CTY.CSV was not updated if the file was already existing.
– Bugfix: Entity DB was not updated when CTY.CSV was updated.
– Bugfix: Search results showed the default Station Callsign if non was in the QSO. This lead to errors if QRZ was not the default.
– KLog recognizes now .ADIF files (instead of only .ADI).
– KLog shows now the WAZ status.
– Added a very basic support of DX Marathon (http://www.dxmarathon.com/).
– DXCluster filters are now working.
– The user can manually assign the DXCC entity for a DX.
– Improved the function to update the DB from one release to the following.
– DB file is compressed everytime KLog finishes.
– It is possible to find QSL pending to receive.
– It is possible to modify entities data in the World Editor in preferences.
– It is possible to choose in preferences whether to keep my Data Tab from one QSO to the next or not.
– GUI: A tooltip is shown in the search results showing the DXCC name / CQ zone.
– GUI: Added a button to rescore awards.
– GUI: Added a button to update the search Box without modifying the text.
– GUI: Updates Bearing/distance/… when changing Locator.
– GUI: When the QRZ lineedit is blank or the clear button is clicked, entity info is deleted (beam, distance, …).
– GUI: The IOTA continent is updated when the QRZ is modified.
– GUI: DXCluster input is disabled when not connected.
– GUI: Corrected the behaviour of the status bar.
– GUI: Added primary & secondary subdivisions in the Others Tab.
– Some other minor fixes.

KLog 0.9.0.2 released: Quick bug fix release

Posted by on 2014/12/07 No comments

I have just released KLog 0.9.0.2.
It is a quick bugfix release fixing two different bugs.

The changelog shows:

November-2014 – 0.9.0.2
– Bugfix: Right-click on search result sometimes caused KLog to crash.

November-2014 – 0.9.0.1
– Bugfix: Selected DX-Cluster servers were not used to connect. (TNX DL6FBS)

Enjoy KLog and report any bug you may find!

KLog 0.9.0 released: Kontest goes back to KLog again

Posted by on 2014/11/30 No comments

After some time adding new features and doing quite a lot of bugfixing, I have decided to release KLog 0.9.0.
For those who follow this development, you will see that KLog moved to Kontest and then came back to KLog again… I decided to keep the name KLog (at least for a while!).

So here is the release, enjoy it and please report any bug you find (I am pretty sure that you will find some!)

IMPORTANT: As KLog has been fully rewritten since version 0.7.0, it is still not been translated to many languages. Today it is only translated to English and Spanish so, if you want to help KLog to be in your language, send me an email!

KLog 0.9.0 (Nov 2014):

The Debian package will be uploaded to the Debian servers soon.

The Changelog says:

November-2014 – 0.9.0
– Ensures the ASCII requirement of ADIF.
– Updated the Preferences dialog.
– Added the About Qt help menu.
– Bugfix: Selected DX-Cluster servers were not used to connect.
– Bugfix: When selecting QSL received/sent with right click, date was not updated.
– Bugfix: Fixed the FileManager::adifReadLog to be able to read logs with several lines per QSO.
– Some other minor bugfixes.
– New feature: It is possible to show Imperial System (Miles instead of Km) data. (TNX – KF5JNU)
– New feature: It is possible to mark/look for & export requested QSL.
– New feature: It is possible to automatically mark(or not) a QSL as requested by the DX when the DX’s card is received.
– New feature: It is possible to show (or not) the callsign used in the search box.
– New feature: KLog uses bigcty.csv for normal DX & will use cty.csv for contesting.

Kontest 0.0.2-alpha (Qt4 backport) windows installer

Posted by on 2014/04/21 No comments

I think I have it.

I have fixed the bug in the windows installer package of Kontest.

The package showed an error “Driver not loaded” just when the database was created so, thanks to Google I found the fix in the great stackoverflow.

So, in a few words, just add a sqldrivers folder and copy the qsqlite4.dll file in it before creating the package and you will have it!

I have done some (just a few, to be honest!) tests in a clean windows virtual host and it worked like a charm so I hope it is OK for most of the systems out there.

You can find the file http://sourceforge.net/projects/kontest/files/ in the same place as the previous days.

As always, thank you for testing and sending the bug reports!

 

Kontest 0.0.2-alpha (Qt4 backport)

Posted by on 2014/04/20 No comments

This is a quick post to tell you that I have just released a quick backport of Kontest to Qt4 (4.8.5) as some of you have told me that Qt5 is not OK for your system.

You can download from here:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/kontest/files/

For the binary packages (windows & OSX) you will have to wait a bit more or help me with them.  It’s been the first time I release software for Windows or OSX and I think I still need to learn some things 🙂

Thanks for testing!

Kontest 0.0.1-alpha or KLog 1-alpha: New alpha release

Posted by on 2014/04/18 No comments

I have rewritten completely KLog into a new software, Kontest. The name is something still to be defined so if you have any preference, please tell me what you think! Today it is called Kontest, because I wanted to give KLog contest capabilities.

Today, let me call KLog to the previous software and Kontest to the new one, so we can understand each other. 🙂

What’s new with Kontest?

My first intention was to provide all the functionalities of KLog into Kontest, before releasing, to try to avoid the maintenance of two different software packages, however, there are some differences:

  • The main difference between KLog and Kontest is that Kontest can be run in Linux, OSX and Windows.
  • Kontest uses an sqlite database and can be executed in memory or in a file, providing speed or security of your data, you choose!
  • Kontest has an improved GUI, with some more fields to manage data.

What about the contest capabilities?
Even ifKontest has been designed to allow an “easy” integration of new contest from the developer point of view although today it is not supporting ANY contest…

My intention was to provide all the KLog functionalities first, and once the day-to-day logging is working as KLog, I will start working on the contest capabilities.

What can I do now?

  • First of all, remember that this is an ALPHA release so it may (I should use will) have many bugs. Don’t trust this software to be your only logging software (yet) and know that you can loose your data!! I am just releasing this version because I believe in the RERO development philosophy.
  • Join the mailing list. We will use the KLog’s mailing list. So please, subscribe and send all the bugs and suggestions you have.
  • Help with the development. You can join me to create the best multiplatform hamradio logging software we can.

So, how can I download Kontest?

Today, you can only download Kontest from Sourceforge.

Check the following link for the downloads:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/kontest/files/

That’s all.

Again, don’t hesitate to report any bug and/or suggestion you may have.

I hope you will enjoy Kontest!

Así suena mi estación en el otro lado del mundo

Posted by on 2014/02/23 No comments

El otro día, mirando unos vídeos de radioaficionados en Youtube, me tropecé por casualidad con este video.

El video lo realizó Zamri, un radioaficionado de Malasia Occidental, mientras estaba con su estación de radioaficionado 9W2NMX.

Casualmente, en el video se escucha el comunicado que ambos realizamos en el mes de mayo de 2013. Se trata de un comunicado corto, en medio de un pile-up, pero se escucha mi señal perfectamente.

El contacto se realizó en la banda de 10m (28.500MHz), con una antena vertical HF9V.

Sin más, os dejo el video, el comunicado dura aproximadamente los 25 primeros segundos:


 

Este sitio web utiliza cookies para que usted tenga la mejor experiencia de usuario. Si continúa navegando está dando su consentimiento para la aceptación de las mencionadas cookies y la aceptación de nuestra política de cookies, pinche el enlace para mayor información.

ACEPTAR
Aviso de cookies