Chorus, the song of the Earth. Radio emissions generated in the magnetosphere by the interaction of charged solar particles with the [Van Hallen] belt.
These radio waves were recorded by the two [EMFISIS] satellites

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World EME (Earth-Moon-Earth) Day, April 18, 2010 - successful reception of KP4AO via the moon

This page is dedicated to the memory of two departed OM friends, Luciano Bertucci, I1JE / TR8BL to whom I owe my two Maspro satellite antennas in particular, and Jean Gruau F8ZS who invited me to participate in the [ARSENE] Satellite project.

The Arecibo Radio Club KP4AO (FK68oi) is located in ARECIBO, Puerto Rico (see the satellite image with [F6FVY's QTH Locator] by entering the coordinates FK68oi in the small rectangle at the bottom of the image and then clicking on "locate." When the map appears, click at the top right on the "mixed" menu and then click near the bottom right corner of the blue rectangle. Zoom in with the mouse wheel or the cursor on the scale at the top left).
The radiotelescope antenna has a diameter of 300 meters, which provides a gain of 57 dBi on 432 MHz!
Among the operators was Nobel Prize in Physics [J. Taylor, W1JT], author of numerous software programs used in EME.

I suggested to the OMs of the [Association des Radioamateurs de Paris (ARP75)] to attempt to receive the KP4AO signal echoed via the Moon.
The equipment was "elementary": MASPRO antenna, two times 21 crossed elements with right-left switchable circular polarization (gain +13dBi) mounted on a tripod,
432 MHz SSB Electronics preamplifier (noise figure 0.9 dB) and an ICOM 910H dual-band UHF-VHF transceiver (75 W in transmission).
Theoretical calculations with [F1EHN's] software for the link budget suggested a reception slightly above the noise.

We met two evenings in a row, three or four OMs, on a terrace in the Parc de Belleville overlooking Paris.
Laurent F6GOX, Mathieu F6CRF, Jean-Pierre, and Laurent F6FVY brought electrical extension cords and a dual-paddle key.
The first evening, April 17, we heard nothing, but KP4AO only had 25 W due to a power amplifier problem.
Furthermore, we couldn't see the Moon because the sun was in the same direction, and it was the new moon. We gave up due to the cold and the absence of signals.
The next day, Saturday, April 18, KP4AO had turned on a 350 W PA. The reception of KP4AO signals echoed via the Moon was possible.
Note that we were, however, greatly bothered by [the harmonic lines of Syletrack] which covered 300 KHz with a level of S6 to S8 (if your player cannot read this video try this [other video format]).
On our side, a narrow CW filter was clearly missing.

When night fell, we pointed the antenna at the crescent of the new moon. The spectacle was magnificent, and it was with great emotion that we heard the first signals coming from Puerto Rico reflecting off the Moon.

The KP4AO signals in SSB were only intelligible from time to time. CW was easier to copy in the middle of the infernal QRM from the Syletrack beacon!

The third day, we comfortably stayed in our stations listening to the EME traffic via the Internet.
The [video] of the KP4AO station was broadcast by "streaming TV" live while the radio astronomy antenna of [Dwingeloo] in the Netherlands was brought out of retirement and connected to an [web SDR] Internet server to broadcast the entire 431.985 to 432.075 band live. By moving a cursor on the "waterfall" display, each connected station could select the station to receive, the type of modulation, and the filter width. The recording of a part of the evening is accessible to everyone on the CAMRAS WebSDR site.
The pile-up was impressive, as was the level of KP4AO signals, which were around 59+10 dB.
KP4AO arrived on the 25 m dish like a local station in [SSB] and in [CW] you could hear the manipulation keying clicks.
In [JT65b] mode, the background noise completely disappeared at the moment of KP4AO's transmission.

The CAMRAS site rebroadcasts EME activity via [webSDR]. A must-listen! Here is the recording of the [QSO between KP4AO and F6HLC]. Congratulations Christian! F6HLC sent me a photo of his [antennas] and a [video] showing the reception of KP4AO.

One might regret that the operators of the Arecibo Radio Club station were not better trained in DX traffic.
They mostly sent 599 reports!
Ultimately, the small stations that should have arrived S34-S4 didn't have much of a chance. Not to mention the QRP stations near the noise level.
The slide presentation of this "EME setup" [is downloadable here].

We will try to do better next time, if we have the opportunity to operate with [the dish] of the Cit� des Sciences de la Villette
which has been made available to [the Association des Radioamateurs de Paris (ARP75)] by agreement with [the Public Establishment of the Parc and the Grande Halle de La Villette]. Recently, the ARP installed two [bungalows under the dish] to house the premises intended for the station for experimental radio link experimentation and demonstration.

Radio Amateur Biographical Summary

I think I was destined to become a radio amateur.
As a child, I was already fascinated by the family radio set, wondering where the voice and music could possibly enter the set?

I actually discovered amateur radio transmission by chance while listening to shortwave at the age of 14. My second chance was that at that time amateur transmission could be easily copied because the transmissions were in amplitude modulation on 40m and 20m. SSB was fortunately not yet widespread. My third chance was therefore to listen to a radio amateur who gave a list of addresses in Belgium. I wrote to ON4KJ, and my fourth chance was that this OM was kind enough to answer me with a long letter in which he explained amateur radio transmission to me and gave me the address of the [R�seau des Emetteurs Fran�ais] in Paris. The same year, I spent studious holidays in England, and I had the pleasure of discovering that the house next to my hosts' was that of a very kind radio amateur, G3OML in Morden, Surrey. The world of radio amateurs is truly small!

In high school, I was more interested in physics than in other subjects, and one of my best friends was also passionate about electronics. The other friends nicknamed me "Ondes Courtes" (Shortwaves) because we spent a lot of time discussing radio. We both became Doctors and researchers!

I built several radio kits. The first was a single-band 20 m SSB transceiver Heathkit HW-32, and I started assembling a TV receiver and an oscilloscope, which were practical work for a correspondence course, Eurelec. My first amateur radio call sign was F1BJI in 1972. I then studied telegraphy, completing my license, and obtained the call sign F6BVP.

In 1979, Jean F8ZS asked me to participate with a group of OMs from the CNES in a radio amateur satellite project. We founded the RACE, Radio Amateur Club de l'Espace, and thus began the ARSENE adventure.

The same year I assembled a Heathkit H9 console (it took a good two weeks) and an **H8** microcomputer based on the 8080 Intel microprocessor with **4 Kilobytes** and then 8 KB of static RAM which **still works**. My summer vacation reading was a book on the 8080 microprocessor.

I started my satellite QSOs in mode A with a 2m VHF station, a 13-element F9FT antenna, and an inverted V dipole on 28 MHz.

I was able to decode the telemetry of the UoSat-1 and UoSat-2 satellites via the K7 interface of the H8 to the Kansas City standard (only at the cost of an additional inverter to rectify the data).

Still with the same H8 programmed in assembler with a program adapted from a QST article, I was able to automatically copy telegraphy on screen and transmit in CW what I typed on the keyboard. I remember the remark of an American radio amateur correspondent who told me that my CW signal on 14080 KHz sounded like music!

In 1981, I set up a second **H88** microcomputer with 32KB of RAM and a single 180 KB floppy disk drive, which allowed me to make RTTY QSOs at 45.5 bauds in 5-unit Murray-Baudot code. I had the opportunity to copy the first experimental RTTY transmissions from W1AW of the ARRL in 7-bit ASCII at 110 bauds on the 20m band.

I listened to and made my first satellite contacts with AMSAT OSCAR 6, 7, and 8. The latter had a very favorable low orbit with passes of more than 20 minutes in mode A (uplink on 2m - downlink on 10m)..

Then came the era of the Heath-Zenith **Z100**, bought fully assembled, a microcomputer based on 8086 and 8088. The operating systems were CP/M and DOS. It had two 180 KB floppy disks, 128 KB of dynamic RAM, and a 6 MHz clock. At the same time, I improved my antenna system with an elevation motor.

In November 1983, I heard the return of my own telegraphic signal reflected by the AO-10 transponder in mode B (uplink 435 and downlink on 145 MHz).

I discovered packet radio, the successor to radioteletype, through AMRAD publications and I must be one of the first French stations in 1984 to have experimented with AX25 with my extremely competent accomplice F6ABJ who had assembled two PK1 packet controller kits. In 1983 I had indeed built, according to an AMRAD description, an AX25 packet repeater, wrapping on a development board of the H8 with an HDLC 8073 controller. But it was only a year later that I was able to validate this realization using the PK1, because before that there was no way to transmit AX25. In 1986, we were already using the CPK software under CP/M to transfer files by packet radio. With R�my F6ABJ and a few OMs we founded the Technical Association for Amateur Packet Radio Experimentation.

In November 1987, I replaced my antennas with two 2 X 9 elements F9FT 145 MHz in circular polarization and a KLM 22c UHF, plus preamplifiers and low-loss coaxial cables. This resulted in the beginning of contacts via OSCAR-12 in SSB mode with DL0XK, I8CVS, DC9UP, HB9RHV, DC6PX, I0LYL. AMSAT OSCAR 13 was launched on June 15, 1988 at 13:19. I copied the AO-13 telegraphic telemetry during orbit 7 on June 18. It said that after the apogee motor ignition, the new perigee of the satellite was at 1500 Km and the apogee at 36000 Km.

On July 25, 1988, I made my first QSOs via AO-13 in mode B during orbit 87 in CW with N4MW and VU1BR in SSB.

In October 1989, I heard the MIR space station on 143.625 MHz and again in July 1991, but this time Anatoly U5MIR-1 was using an AX25 packet transmission.

It was also in July 1991 that I made my first QSO via OSCAR-21 with G8ATE in SSB.

At that time, NASA was sending, free upon request, a letter approximately every 10 days with the list of 2-Line Keplerian elements which I recopied by hand to distribute them on the packet network and to publish them in a small journal, the BIRSAT, founded by F3HK, to which OMs who wanted to be quickly informed subscribed.

Since 1990, I have operated a packet radio BBS station specialized in Space and Satellites. The BBS program is written by Jean Paul, F6FBB.

In December 1991, I was the first French metropolitan station to operate packet by satellite at 9600 bauds with the PACSAT protocol. The microsats were UOSAT-3 and UOSAT-5. I used the PB and PG programs by Harold Price NK6K and Jeff Ward G0/K8KA, a 9600 G3RUH modem on a TNC-2 (TAPR 1.1.7b EPROM) and modified ICOM IC-490 (UHF) / IC-290 (VHF) devices for 9600 bauds (direct connections to the varicap diode and wider IF filter).

The computer I was using was an 80386 SX 16 MHz PC clone with 4 MB RAM. The azimuth and elevation were calculated by the resident program ITRACK which displayed them in the corner of the screen. Antenna pointing and frequency offset to compensate for the Doppler effect were manual while I monitored the eye diagram on the oscilloscope and typed messages on the keyboard. It was quite a sport. I operated the first French satellite gateway station (SATGATE) for a year and wrote HEADOUT.EXE in C, a program intended for SATGATE stations.

The other stages are contemporary history...

Main Interests

Digital transmissions.; Satellite transmissions.; Computer software writing.; Space, Astronomy, photography.

Active or former member of Associations: REF-Union, R�seau des Emetteurs Fran�ais, member n� 12238 since 1961;; AMSAT-NA, member 1097 since 1975; life member n� 1486;; RACE, Radio Amateur Club de l'Espace, 1979; Vice President international relations. RACE is an honorary member of the REF;; AMRAD, Amateur Radio Research and Development Corporation (1983); ATEPRA, Association Technique pour l'Exp�rimentation du Packet-RadioAmateur, 1984;; AMSAT-UK (United Kingdom) member 4813 since 1990;; CAC, Club A�rospatial de la Celle Saint Cloud;; AMSAT-France, founded in 1996 (Founding President);; TAPR, Tucson Amateur Packet Radio.; ARP75, Association des Radioamateurs de Paris.

Member of the Satellite Commission of the REF-Union

Participation and communications at Radio Amateur congresses

1992 - AMSAT-UK colloquium

Publications in Radio Amateur magazines

Radio REF

1. Publications on Satellites
2. Publications on Packet Radio
3. Other Publications
4. Participation in Amateur Radio Projects
5. Utility Software for BBS
6. Other Radio Amateur Software
7. Other documents accessible on my site

1. Publications on Satellites in Radio REF

Satellite Pass Prediction
The Electronic Modules of the ARSENE Satellite
Digital Communications by Amateur Satellites, Radio-REF, June 1992, p54
The ARSENE Satellite Odyssey.
The Phase 3D Satellite
Digital Communications with the Phase 3D Satellite

2. Publications on Packet Radio in Radio REF

I have published a few articles relating to amateur packet radio transmissions.

Here is the list of some WinWord files that will soon be available for download:

Introduction to the AX25 protocol (Part 1), Radio-REF, November 1987, p26;
Introduction to the AX25 protocol (Part 2), Radio-REF, December 1987, p24.

Description of the PACSAT protocol, Radio-REF :

The PACSAT protocol

3. Other Topics

The Minitel Terminal. (Radio-REF).
Test Bench of the ICOM IC-821H transceiver, Radio-REF, December 1996. (8Ko) and Journal de l'AMSAT France number 1, November 1996.

4. Participation in Amateur Radio Projects

[RACE] Project of the remarkable 165 Kg French mini-satellite, [ARSENE] (OSCAR 23), launched on May 12, 1993.

Read this reference in English ARSENE Satellite

I participated in the [Ma�lle] microsatellite project developed by the [CAC] and [AMSAT-France], but which was unsuccessful.
Under the presidency of F6BVP, AMSAT-France successfully led several microsatellite projects, four of which were launched into space:

Sputnik 40 RS-17. The first satellite ever deployed from MIR in October 1997. Its radio beacon transmitted a signal identical to that of the original launched 40 years earlier.

5. Utility Software for BBS

Keplerian Element Request Server for F6FBB BBS: Server program for F6FBB BBS. It responds to a message addressed to; REQKEP @ BBS_CALLSIGN < Sender_Callsign; with help, a list of available satellites, a documentation file for the specified satellite, or the Keplerian elements of one or more specified satellites.
Automatic Update of the Satellite Database for F6FBB BBS, Version 1.83: This software reads the AMSAT's KEPS messages received by packet radio and updates the satellite database of the F6FBB BBS.
Automatic Update of Documentary Files and Beacon Frequencies for F6FBB BBS: This software automatically updates the documentary files and satellite beacon frequencies of the F6FBB BBS. The documentary file can then be requested by BBS users via the REQKEP server.
Automatic Update of the InstantTrack IT.ORB File for F6FBB BBS: This software updates the satellite database of the InstantTrack program, IT.ORB, from the SATEL.DAT satellite database of an F6FBB BBS.

6. Other Radio Amateur Software

SATCRCS.EXE

When using the Keplerian elements from AMSAT bulletins to calculate satellite passes on their PCs, Radio Amateurs must be able to ensure that these parameters are reliable. This can be verified by means of the checksum calculation which is included in the messages. After trying numerous tracking programs, I found that almost all had problems reading the files received by packet radio. That's why I decided to write software that could be useful to users of Keplerian elements. The SATCRCS software verifies the data in AMSAT or NASA format before you enter them into your programs manually or automatically. It also filters out headers from messages that do not correspond to Keplerian elements. The output file only contains verified and reliable parameters. The content of one or more input files can be written to the same output file, which allows you to merge data from multiple satellites (e.g., OSCAR, MISC, WEATHER etc.) into a single file. It is unlikely that an error would occur in the data of a satellite simultaneously in the NASA 2-line format file and the AMSAT file which are always sent simultaneously. This is why the SATCRCS.EXE program can help you recover complete Keplerian elements on your station computer. The software can also translate the NASA 2-line format into an AMSAT format file. SATCRCS is distributed by the various AMSAT organizations for a contribution to the Phase 3D project and other satellite projects, such as the French Ma�lle microsat.

HEADOUT.EXE version 2.1
ANTENNA ROTATOR DRIVERS

MOTEUR version 2.0

KENPR version 2.2

7. Other documents accessible on my site

Sound, video, software, documentation, etc...
- files to browse.

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