The International Space Station, ISS, has been very easy to see just after dusk for the last few evenings. The first module, called Unity, was placed in orbit in 1998.
About September 2005 I became registered as an authorised Internet Gateway, ( I-Gate ), for traffic relayed by the ISS, and seeing the ISS recently rekindled my interest. With my laptop connected simultaneously to a radio transceiver and the internet I can receive and pass on to an internet server messages, beacons, locations, and weather reports from ground-stations, sent via the ISS.
The first couple of lines of text show that I sent traffic to an address APRS via ARISS, ( the ISS ); the content is my ground-station location and a text string stating that it is an internet gateway, digital repeater and weather station. The next two lines show that 2 seconds later my transmission was relayed by the ISS, which inserted its callsign RS0ISS-4, and was received by me and any other ground-stations in range of the ISS at that time.
In lines 5 and 6, I sent a kind of greetings message to everyone, and again, 2 seconds later, receive it back. I have in the past sent personal messages to specific stations and weather, ( 'WX' ), reports; but on this occasion I didn't leave myself with enough time to download weather data from my weather station to the laptop, before the ISS was above the horizon.
It is not possible to 'I-Gate' ones own transmissions; another 'I-Gate' has to do that. My first transmission contained coordinates; so when an I-Gate in the Netherlands received it, I could then be plotted on the map. Look for the green star with 'D', meaning digital repeater. The station UT1HZM in the Ukraine appears on the map only thanks to me; I received and 'I-Gated' his transmission. A station in Belgium, using my email address, subsequently emailed me.
Quite a few stations were active during that particular ISS pass over Europe yesterday between 2139 and 2154 CET. Some of them, ( white 'WX' in a blue circle ), were transmitting weather reports.
All up and down link transmissions to and from the ISS took place on a frequency of 145.825MHz, +/- Doppler shift, with a data rate of 1200 bps, AX25 packet unprotocol information, ( UI ), frames. I used a 50 watt transmitter, TNC-2 terminal node controller with the TNC-laptop interface running at 9800bps, and 'white stick ' antenna; the software packages are AGW Packet Engine, UISS and UI-View.
Perhaps this evening I will send a weather report for all the world to see !
Click on the post title link for more information, the latest maps and traffic from the last two hours or so.
