Episode: 2216
Title: HPR2216: Working AO-85 with my son
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2216/hpr2216.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 15:49:36

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This is HPR episode 2,216 entitled, Working AO85 with my son.
It is hosted by Christopher M. Hobb and is about 17 minutes long, and Karim a clean flag.
The summary is, my son and I try to make a contact on an amateur radio satellite.
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Hello everyone, now today we're going to learn about amateur radio operators.
Okay hacker public radio, it is January 16th at almost 1500 Central.
I have my son Emerson here with me, and we're going to go try to work AO85 and see if we get anything with all the discussion about amateur radio satellites on the list I figured or not just satellites, but the round table I figured we should see if we can do some live operation.
You probably hear a lot of static and there's no guarantee that we'll pick this thing up, but we will try and hopefully it'll be a useful experience for you.
Now here we go.
Alright, let's step out back.
Every radio operator, they do something that's really fun and cool.
They use radios to pick up signals and a meter of shower you can actually bounce signals around.
Yeah, you can do meteor scatter, that's for sure.
Do we have everything?
Yeah.
Got the radio?
Okay, well I don't need the mic cable right now.
This thing is going to go over it at 303, so we're going to pick it up.
Okay, do you remember where it's going to be?
It's going to come up around there and then go...
Yeah, these trees right over here?
I just dropped by the tree.
Yeah, and at the height it'll be right over by this tree,
and then it'll stop in the chimney to give the listeners an idea.
It's coming in at 212 degrees,
a sort of south-south west.
It'll be zero degrees elevation, then at 261 degrees,
moving over towards south-south east, it's going to be at its peak,
72.25 degrees, which is not as high as I would like it,
but it's enough for us to try and pick it up.
And then when we get lost of signal, we're looking at
27.91 degrees, so almost north, north-northwest a little bit,
and it will be at zero degrees.
And it's going to pass over us here in about three minutes.
Emerson, do you remember how to call for a contact on the satellite?
What do you need to say?
Kilo Delta 5, Romeo Yankee, Oscar, Echo Mike 26, handheld.
Very good, very good.
That is our call sign, KD5, RYO, our location,
which is EM26, that's our grid square location,
and then our mode of operation is handheld.
Let me get the radio set up
to start tuning and adjust for the Doppler shift.
Now for some reason that I don't fully understand,
AO85, Doppler shift is on
transmit instead of receive, but SO50, it's on receive.
That's what I do.
Okay, we got two minutes until it starts to pass over.
Now what I'm going to do, I've got my squelch fully open,
so I'll turn the volume way up, and I'll start tuning around,
trying to pick up the satellite,
and then I'll have my son give the call if we get a break.
Now for this whole adventure, we may hear nothing but static.
Hopefully you can pick up something again,
my recording options with my handheld are limited,
and I'm looking into ways to record some traffic,
so we'll see how well this works.
Let's see.
Well, we can't do it, yeah, we got a minute and a half to go.
I know.
Okay, hopefully we'll get a contact.
Everyone, this is pretty fun, because on every satellite, there's a mic on them.
There's an antenna on it.
Yeah, it's kind of like a mic, and the antenna picks up the radio wave,
you know, now we're using right now, because all the way up,
and that's pretty much it.
And there's magnetic electrons in this, in our handheld radio.
If you're an amateur radio, you may listen.
If you're an amateur radio operator, you may listen to,
um, to learn more about amateur radio.
Yeah, well, you don't have to be a licensed amateur to listen,
but you do have to be to talk.
All right, so it's about to pass over,
so we're going to be quiet now, and turn up the radio,
so hopefully this will record and see what we can get.
Okay, yeah, we're static here right now.
I'm about 200 degrees, or 210 degrees.
Should be coming up over the horizon any minute now.
Our window of time that we can operate is about two minutes.
We've got from about 15, 10 to 15, 12 central to try and pick this thing up
before it starts to get out of the range of what my handheld can do.
Okay.
I hear anything yet.
It's 15-04 at the moment.
Getting a little quieting, but not enough.
We're going to wind in the static together isn't too bad.
I'm trying to turn myself around trying to find the signal.
We're getting some quieting so I think it's starting to come up over the horizon a bit.
It's 15.05, we're going to get in a little bit of signal, it doesn't sound like anybody's
on it.
I lost it.
It's 15.05, 30 seconds.
Get some quieting here and there.
No actual radio yet.
Still about five minutes away from near Apigee.
There we go, well, I hope you guys can hear that we're starting to pick up some people
talking.
It's 15.06, it's a great thing, it's hard to do without headphones on.
There we go, there we go, it's coming a lot of noise right now.
It's about 15.07, we're about three minutes from its peak.
Here we go, let's see if we can get anybody to come in, 15.07, 30 seconds, and we've lost
signal.
Slow Delta 5, Romeo Yankee Oscar, Echo Mike, 26, handheld.
Let's see if we can pick it up again, a little quieting here and I'll have my son call.
Here we go.
Here we go, let's see if we can get anybody to come in.
Here we go, let's see if we can get anybody to come in.
Here we go, let's see if we can get anybody to come in.
Here we go, let's see if we can get anybody to come in.
Here we go, let's see if we can get anybody to come in.
Here we go, let's see if we can get anybody to come in.
Here we go, let's see if we can get anybody to come in.
Here we go, let's see if we can get anybody to come in.
Here we go, let's see if we can get anybody to come in.
Here we go, let's see if we can get anybody to come in.
Here we go, let's see if we can get anybody to come in.
Here we go, let's see if we can get anybody to come in.
Here we go, let's see if we can get anybody to come in.
Here we go, let's see if we can get anybody to come in.
Here we go, let's see if we can get anybody to come in.
Here we go, let's see if we can get anybody to come in.
