not everything is an opportunity to teach- this is your chance to be a hero… punch the clock!!! you are “our” radio guys
Comment on New Objective: Convince an astronaut to use the Fediverse from space
deranger@sh.itjust.works 16 hours agoYou’d be better served learning how to do it yourself. It’s not hard and it’s a pretty cool skill to have (amateur radio).
sauerkrautsaul@lemmus.org 9 hours ago
ageedizzle@piefed.ca 16 hours ago
It does sound interesting. Where do I start?
deranger@sh.itjust.works 15 hours ago
You can buy a cheap Chinese HT like a Quansheng UV-K6 for like $40. These have open firmware and there’s a bunch of custom options radio nerds have whipped up. Get the USB programming cable even if you’re not doing custom FW, makes programming frequencies and tweaking options much easier. You’ll also need a license and in the US, HamStudy.org has the exact questions from the test. There’s a ton of YouTube channels you can watch and books you can read for general purpose radio knowledge. Then it’s just a matter of getting a good antenna and pointing it in the right place at the right time; there’s free resources online, paid apps, all that is out there and it’s just a matter of wanting to learn it. The actual hardware you need to get started is really cheap these days.
ageedizzle@piefed.ca 15 hours ago
Thank you!
some_kind_of_guy@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
Everything they mentioned checks out, but keep in mind that every ham within line of sight to the station will be trying to get into the repeater as the ISS passes overhead. The number of people trying to talk could realistically be in the thousands when it passes over a large populated country. A full pass at a good angle takes ~5 mins.
People take turns, but it’s usually just a rapid-fire of IDing and maybe some very short pleasantries, then you get out. Anything more is could be considered bad etiquette, and calling the ISS is kind of a big deal! It’s not possible to have a full conversation unless you’re extremely lucky with timing and/or geography, or there’s an astronaut working the radio who wants to chat. I have heard astronauts operating. Sometimes directing and acknowledging contacts sometimes they will have longer form chats, but they’re not at the radio all the time.
It is really fucking cool, though, to be in say, New England and hear someone in Texas or Puerto Rico or Canadian Maritimes coming through on your dinky Chinese handheld! That is a big part of the appeal.