Portable Station for Greencube We’ve been having a lot of fun with the Greencube (IO-117) satellite, so I decided to put together a portable ground station for activating grid squares. I wanted a station that – Has adequate antenna gain and power for reliable Greencube operation Uses solar-battery power so that it is quiet when operating in public places Uses computer management for Doppler correction Can provide accurate grid locator information via  a GPS receiver Is easy to set up in the field in less than 30 minutes Station Components We already have a solar-battery power system t ..read more

W6PQL 2 Meter 1.5 Kw Linear Amplifier I’ve recently upgraded the Amplifier for our 2m EME station to one that can provide full-duty cycle operation at 1500 watts. The digital modes used for EME on 2m (JT65 and Q65) require an amplifier that can sustain full output for periods of 1 minute or more as well as sustain full power operation at a 50% duty cycle over an extended period of time. I’ve had great experiences with Jim Klitzing, W6PQL’s amplifiers in our station so I contacted Jim to build a new 2m amplifier for our EME station. Construction and Setup W6PQL 2m 1.5 Kw Linear Amplifier Int ..read more

LEO Pack Transportable Satellite Antenna System Quite a few folks have the M2 Antenna System LEO pack antenna. I wanted to see how this antenna system would perform with Greencube (IO-117). Our LEO Pack is set up on a Glen Martin roof tower that we’ve modified to create a transportable ground station. Here are some of the specs for the setup we’ve tested: M2 LEO Pack Antennas (2MCP8A and 436CP16) Alpha-Spid Az/El Rotator M2 Polarity Switches installed in both antennas Advanced Receiver Research coax-powered preamps installed at both antennas+ The specifications for the 70cm antenna are as ..read more

AB1OC Satellite Worked All States (WAS) I have worked and confirmed all states in the USA for some time now except for Hawaii. It is simply impossible to work Hawaii from my location in New England via a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite. Fortunately, the Greencube (IO-117) Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellite has made a contact with Hawaii possible. The next challenge was finding an active Amateur Radio satellite operator set up for Greencube. Developing a Plan KH6WI is QRV in Hawaii! After doing some online research, I was pleasantly surprised to find Eric Olson, KH6WI, was preparing a porta ..read more

Typical Greencube Pass Providing DX Possibilities Greencube (IO-117) is a Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellite that carries a 70cm digipeater. This satellite can provide DX contacts covering a wide area around an Amateur Radio satellite ground station. Putting together a station and the necessary software to use Greencube is not difficult. If you already have a computer-controlled satellite ground station that works on 70cm, you may already have most of what is needed. We’ll cover Greencube (IO-117) setup in detail in this article. Operating with Greencube – What’s Required Greencube (IO-117 ..read more

Greencube (IO-117) The Amateur Radio satellite community is fortunate to have a relatively new Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellite. The satellite is named Greencube or IO-117. Here’s some more information about Greencube from the S5Lab Research Team: GreenCube is a 3U CubeSat aimed at demonstrating an autonomous biological laboratory for plants cultivation on-board a CubeSat platform. The satellite project is managed by the S5Lab research team at Sapienza University of Rome and it involves ENEA (the Italian National Agency for New T ..read more

I want to thank all our followers and subscribers for making stationproject.blog a useful and popular resource for the Amateur Radio community. We’ve hit a significant milestone of late – we’ve surpassed 1 Million views. We very much appreciate your support for our site! Fred, AB1OC The post Thank You To Our Readers – Over 1 Million Views! appeared first on Our HAM Station ..read more

First 3 Element LFA Antenna on the Tower Our new Loop Fed Array (LFA) antennas, phasing lines, and power dividers have arrived from InnoVAntennas. Our plan for this phase of our project includes the following steps: Build mounts for the stack Power Dividers Design and a mounting and truss system for the 3 Element LFA yagis in our stacks Build the first 3-element LFA yagis, test mount it on our Tower, and adjust the SWR Build the additional ten 3-element LFA yagis Build the 7-element LFA and adjust its SWR Power Dividers We are using Power Dividers from InnoVAntennas to construct our three ..read more

6m Antenna choices on the Station Master Deluxe The next step in our project is to configure our microHam station management system to support the new antennas and other components in our 6m antenna project. Each radio in our station (we have five that are 6m capable) has a microHam Station Master Deluxe antenna controller that is used to select and control all of our antennas. These units use the band selection and frequency data from their associated Transceivers to present a set of antenna choices and associated rotator, LNA, amplifier, and other controls to the user. We are adding the fo ..read more

Matinecock District Scout ISS Contact I once again had the pleasure to help a group of young people make contact with an Astronaut on the International Space Station this past week. NASA Astronaut Kjell Lindgren Scouts from the Matinecock District made a contact with Astronaut Kjell Lindgren, KO5MOS on the International Space Station on Saturday, June 4th, 2022.  You can watch and listen to the contact on YouTube by clicking below.  The actual contact begins at about 40:35 into the video. The Scouts’ contact lasted for approximately 10 minutes. The Scouts asked and Kjell answere ..read more