I've been playing around with using the amateur radio capabilities of the International Space Station for about as long as I've held my ham radio license. The ISS is one of the easiest satellites to work and while I've had success with a simple antenna on my handheld radio, having a directional antenna makes the task much easier. In this article I'll show you how to make a lightweight, portable antenna that is well suited for working the ISS.
Each year our radio club participates in providing communication services for the Iron Mountain Jubilee, an endurance horse ride through the mountains of Southwest Virginia. This year the course changed and a 100 mile, 24 hour event was added.
The Appalachian Trail Golden Packet is an event where stations from Georgia to Maine setup ARPS on mountain tops in order to pass data packets up and down the length of the Appalachian Trail. My club helps activate the station on top of Comer's Rock. Here's how it went this year!
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| David Todd (N4SH) Operating |
The AT5888-UV has become my take-along radio for operating portable at events. It's always good to also have access to packet radio in the field, so I decided to investigate integrating a Mobilinkd TNC with the AT5888.
I finally got my hands on a Mobilinkd TNC 4 and needed a way to keep it together with my UV-5R that wasn't a rubber band wrapped around the whole thing. With access to a 3D printer I gave a try at designing something that would do the job.
With the Mobilinkd TNC always running out of stock lately, I was tempted to look elsewhere to fill the portable TNC need. I had been eyeing the Chinese made X1C3 and read several reviews, but can it really replace the Mobilinkd? A friend of mine bought a couple of the X1C3 devices and sent one my way to try. Here's my take on the inexpensive device.
