Gabe: (Accidentally hits transmit button and fires ISS sub-orbital rockets Full-Send.) Also Gabe: (with fire streak in the background) "Like I said, these cheap radios can be a lil flaky, but hey I think it does what I need and it's only $20." 😳😵💫
I’m sure his neighbors are like my neighbors and are used this this sort of behavior. When I lived down south, the reaction was “bless his little heart”.
My neighbors have been surprisingly forgiving about the third dish going up on my roof. Still I wonder if they don't have the exact same thought about me. "I don't know what he's doing but something tells me it isn't on the up and up."
I think if he offered different tiers yeah. unfortunately for most (including me) cant afford £68 per month. but if he offered a tier for £5 a month heck yeah id subscribe.
The most exciting thing about amateur radio to me is showing people how accessible it is! Whether it's local scanner traffic on a P25 trunked system or something as simple as the ISS FM voice repeater - These are all things ANYONE can access! The fact that you can see the ISS in your opening shot punctuates this perfectly! Awesome video - 73 OM!
That was so cool to actually see the ISS in shot, as we were listening to its transmissions. I've never tried looking for it in daylight. I just presumed it wouldn't be bright enough to see. Well done! Time to dig out my UV-5R.
Right near dusk and dawn are the best times when it's a little darker on the ground but good reflections from the solar panels. N2yo.com does a color-coded chart of which passes have best visibility :-)
Thank you so much for this post. Being a ham for 24 years, I kind of forgot about NA1ISS. Last night I gave it a try, and I was thrilled how easy it was to hear some qso's on a Baofeng handheld. Got me hooked, I can tell you. Thank you!
Current EE student here and soon-to-be radio hobbyist; your channel is excellent! I am on a 15 hour flight it is absolutely saving me right now. Thanks for the content!
someone told me yesterday they saw it. i sent them your videos and told them they might appreciate what you do. then i come here today and you already had a video uploaded yesterday about the space station. great stuff. thanks for the videos
This is awesome! Never realized how easy it is to listen to the ISS. I have a pass coming over in 15 minutes so I just dug up my "trusty" Baofeng and going to have a listen.
@@paulsengupta971 I managed to pick up one or two snippets but it was mostly static. This was from my attic though, I didn't want to go outside at the time because it was 30 degrees out. Next time it passes in the evening I'll definitely be trying again but outside
A used telescope mount like a Celestron works with the awesome SkyTrack software; some models can do continuous tracking, others just do a leap frog motion to jump ahead of the satellite's path, and full sky pointing capability
You've got a real flair for this! Incredibly well spoken and the content is to the point and exactly what a viewer would expect. Bonus points for managing to exude intelligence without deliberately trying to flex it.
@@linearswitchguy9593 Yeah! At my stay at great wolf lodge, i got a notification that the iss was rising over it and i could actually see it from my hotel! So i just aimed the radio at it and heard some people talking. I plan on uploading the clips to my channel.
@@linearswitchguy9593 thanks alot! i really appreciate it! I think ill make it into a short since the pass was pretty short. Although i have a couple other clips i could merge into a video
This is an absolute gem of a video. After watching it yesterday I noticed that the ISS was due to pass directly overheard later that afternoon. So with T - 1 min to go I'm out in my garden, the UV5R skyward and low and behold up pops the repeater. Of course my neighbour and her kids spotted what I was doing and stopped to listen. The kid's eyes were like saucers as I told them we were getting signals from the ISS. Got an message from my neighbour this morning asking how to go about enrolling them on the UK Foundation Radio Licence course, which is cool. So there you go, you're helping to inspire the next generation of Hams! Also means, neighbours may look more favourably on my plans to put up a HF antenna.
I’m often spotted in public places (my street or a nearby field) pointing random metal looking objects towards the sky. People always ask what I’m doing. When they have kids I love engaging with them as I see what you saw. It’s awesome.
@@thehandleiwantedwasntavailableI don’t tend to be out that often with radios in public. Mostly in remote spots so this is a bit new to me. Mind you so is the hobby.
Was listening today at work thanks to watching your videos. Started getting into it a few years ago but have been busy with other stuff for a while. Now I want to start collecting all the old satellite dishes I find lol
I randomly clicked this video. Never seen this channel before but as soon as you introduced the name of the channel I knew it encompassed everything about me lol
Another great video! I always appreciate them. The worst part about about trying to hit the ISS is that I live in one of the most populated metropolitan areas on the planet so trying to get through without getting stepped on was quite difficult especially with only 5 watts. I just used VFO instead of programing the frequencies and manually adjusted the frequency to compensate for the Doppler effect. I actually used my Baofeng for RX and my Yaesu for TX. Just had to turn down the volume when i transmitted. Thanks again for the video.
I was coming here to share a similar story. You can hit the ISS with a Baofeng. I did it in the desert one night, had one set to broadcast on the uplink and one to listen on the downlink. I got a good hit and came through clear. I tried to do it from home one night, but I was overpowered by others in the city. (Edit: I actually did it with the default rubber duck antenna held horizontally)
I have dozens of ISS confirmed repeater contacts using an Icom ID-5100A in my car using a Tram/Browning dual band NMO antenna mounted on the trunk. Listening is easy. But hearing your own TX audio coming back down on he downlink as you transmit is a real thrill the first time. I quickly learned that the peak of the window for two way communications pretty much makes compensating for doppler shift more trouble than it's worth for two-way comms. The first few times, I wrongly assumed that I'd want my car facing the ISS track. My first success was with the car perpendicular to the ISS track. The ISS Detector app on my phone makes catching the window easy. Keep experimenting. Working satellites and the ISS is much easier that a moon bounce, and far less expensive. Have fun.
I got on the ISS' repeater about a month ago with some homebrew Eggbeater antennas and my Yaesu Ft-736r. It was about 3 AM and no one was on for about half the pass, then someone finally got back to me on the bird. Its really fun to have a ham radio license!
Keep up everything my man! I've only been following recently but I am loving everything and showing all my friends. I am studying for my HAM license and hope to take it in roughly a month :)
Cool! It's a fun hobby with tons of directions you can go. I don't make many contacts and don't have a basement full of gear, but I still enjoy dabbling in ham stuff :-)
Dude.. this is getting a bit weird. Are you reading my mind somehow? I literally just got one of those little radios to play with last month, and I was thinking about listening to the ISS for a while now.. Perfect advice right here, thanks man! :)
They're fun little radios, even if "real" hams hate them. If you want to transmit just make sure you have a license, be aware that they're "dirty" (lots of side harmonics), and don't transmit too close to any other electronics. I've seen one bluescreen a Windows PC from across the room 😅
@@saveitforparts wow lol @ the bluescreen.. really?? Thanks for the tips! yeah I used to do some local CB radio chatting in the 80s in London, and was involved in a bit of pirate .. *cough* I mean, independent radio in the 90s.. so I know about transmission issues.. I'll mess with that later! I do have some HAM call sign on some website but not sure if that counts yet. :p For now I just wanna get back into listening a bit.. I get pretty much nothing where I am (out in the woods and on very flat land in East Europe now), so will be fun to at least catch the ISS or something.. I presume I can hook up whatever aerial and amp i need to this baofeng thingy anyway, right? I'll slowly check back on your previous vids more properly for that.. Many thanks again dude. Have a great weekend. :)
To track is very easy: get the TLE data and put in a SGP4 algoritm that gives the position over time. Then just calculare the direction of that over your location. I can help you with that, specially in the calculations. Great video!
about a year ago I came across a DIY project using either an Arduino or raspberry PI that basicly pointed at the ISS as it passed by, that project wouldn't be strong enough to mount an antenna to but seems to me it would be a good starting point since the software and the stepper control is already worked out.
I actually have a little Baofeng radio and had been looking for something to do with it. I'm going to definitely have to give it try. Thanks for the inspiration and the resources.
I recently bought a Baofeng UV5R heard a NOAA weather satellite overhead while standing outside in the back yard using the antenna that comes with the radio. The next thing I'm going to try is listening to ISS when it flies over.
I always end up at your channel late at night when I should be sleeping. I love your channel, everything you do! You have the ability to make everything interesting!
Those rubber ducky antennae, are considered to be omni directional, but there is a null at each end, so pointing it straight up into the sky is optimal for horizontal reach, but worst for overhead... RC pilots will agree for best overhead reception/transmission have the antenna horizontal.
I believe that when using the rubber duck, you will get better results pointing the tip to the horizon. The lobe of the antenna extends outward from the sides and not out the tip. This may be why you get better reception when the ISS is at specific places in the sky. (I may be wrong, but that is my understanding.)
When working weaker birds, a "twist" using the arm strong EL/AZ rotator is often needed, in order to have to right polarization. It is rarely vertical or horizontal and some birds even "roll/spin" so the polarization changes during a pass..
I have fallen into this rabbit hole too. I have built two QFH antennas: 145 and 437 and they are working out quite well, also a Moxon yagi for handheld work. I was surprised how strong then signal is considering the ISS is 250 miles up in the sky. I would swap the pitchfork for a spade!
nice job as always. If I were going to throw something together I would try a couple of stepper motors running some g-code. Show it North and the local time, and let it find the proper horizon and start slewing. No feedback needed at all. This is probably how a telescope pointer works.
I'm super hyped about these projects youre working on. I just started a job making high performance antennas. I'm learning a ton and want to start picking up signals like this. Do you have a discord setup yet? It would be a great place for all of us to collaborate. I just finished integrating a star tracker to take long exposure photos of the night sky. I've been day dreaming about a telescope mount that can accurately track satellites. It would be awesome to catch video of the station as it orbits overhead.
I love these projects. I miss the spirit of old forums that were dedicated to stuff like this. If you happen to know of any modern alternatives please help haha.
Neat! I don't have a Discord or anything set up. I hang out on Reddit r/amateursatellites/ and similar but I'm sure there are some other discussion spots.
with your yagi you can try twisting it to change the polarity, that can make a massive difference to signal to noise. ISS uses linear polarity for both uhf and vhf, but the axis will be constantly changing as it passes overhead.
I made a homemade Yagi antenna years ago for listening and possibly talking with the ISS and ham satellite repeaters with my UV-5R. It worked well for listening but was never able to break in to make a contact. Been out of it for a while but looking to get back into it.
As a kid, I remember standing in my front yard with a scanner with the squelch open, a phone running a compass/clinometer app, and a homemade 70cm yagi. One of my neighbors asked what I was doing, and I told him I was waiting for a satellite, and they certainly thought I was crazy...lol. He stood there and watched for a min, and started walking away right when the sat starting coming in to range, and the static started fading. When he heard someone in NY (I was in NC) start talking, his mind was blown. 🤯🤓
Talking back is far more difficult, since FM favors the strongest signal, and if one guy is using a remote Yagi with a 100+ watt base station, they’re going to tie it up 100% of the time.
I use an antenna tracker on my RC plane, I got the best range using a yagi uda combined with a parabolic reflector, maybe adding a parabolic reflector to your antenna will improve the range.
A very nice video, I have an amateur radio license and the necessary equipment, I should do something again, the video has inspired me a lot. I also have the antenna analyzer, which serves me very well. I can recommend the antenna analyzer, especially when building antennas, it's something you must have, and I think the price-performance ratio of the antenna analyzer in the video is good. The idea of putting the antenna on a rotor for satellite dishes is brilliant, as it allows you to track the antenna.
Cool vid. I have been interested in ham sats for a long time. I was active in the 80's, then work and other things got in the way. Retired now, and getting back into it. Thanks for the vid and giving me a few ideas. 73
I have a UV-5R III and the menus are clunky but fine... also can easily do the doppler shift by just using VFO mode and clicking up with it set to the 2.5 steps...
A QSL Card is, like you said, is a postcard with information about the contact as a way hams can confirm contacts with each other, but sadly isn't as popular it once was.
3:06, you can clearly see the satellite above, its a dot moving very slowly in the sky, but in reality its moving faster than the speed of sound (7660 meters per second or 7.66 Km/s), dont go for numbers! the whole space station is travelling 13 times the speed of a bullet fired from the strongest hand held gun on earth.
Invest in the SAT interface and an Icom 9700 radio with the arrow 2M/440 antenna and the Yaesu rotor and it’s easy to hit all the Sats. Expensive for this set up but tons of fun!
That was most interesting and a great post, cheers. Just programmed my IC-705 with your suggested frequencies and have a 6h 48m wait for a pass here in Brisbane, Australia. It will be interesting to see how the discone works.
Thank you so much, I myself want to listen to sounds from jupiter, saturn and many more deep sky items. I am learning from the bottom. Your video gave me more inspiriation because you have the right idea. I think with listening to sounds from deep space I would need a different setup.
Great video! I just purchased a Baofeng UV5R and a TWAYRDIO high gain antenna for listening to NOAA satellites and the space station when the time comes. I've already received two NOAA satellites on my SDR RSPdx receiver hooked up to a MFJ 1868 dicsone so I know I can receive sats from my location, ISS is my next challenge as well as receiving and decoding WX faxes.
I just heard NOAA19 this morning at 1615UTC with the dipole antenna on the PRO26 scanner just like the set up you showed in a previous video (the antenna made with scraps.) Chasing satellites is good practice for when the ISS flies overhead and when I record the event, I'm giving all the credit for my success to you. I'm waiting for the Baofeng to be delivered this week. Thanks for your inspirational videos!
Very nice, I used sellarium to find the next pass of the ISS in my area, went out to my car and tuned my radio, and held the squelch open. about a minute or so after the pass start time, I started hearing call signs... after a while it degraded.. wow. I think I'll give it a try making a call.
Next thing, try building a circularly polarised dual band antenna and see if that stops the fading, and see if you can transmit to it - one Baofeng for transmit, one for receive. What I've wanted to do is have a handheld Raspberry PI with an SDR for receive, with the doppler shifted receive frequency being set by a tracking program, and then having a separate transmitter. However I think the transmitter power may kill the receive on the SDR even though it's on another band. I have a full duplex Kenwood TM-V71 which I have tried for FM satellite work so maybe I should get the Raspberry PI just to have the tracking program to control that with CAT control.
4:37 i've always heard it pronounced "YAW-gee" like you said first. i learned my RF stuff on the fly from other engineers, so that's how they all said it lol. we rarely used Yagi antennas though. there are many other highly directional (and less highly directional) antennas with fancy antenna patterns that are desirable for different purposes.
Is there anything as easy to re-tune as a Yagi like this, or something that offers similar gain and directionality (and size) as a three element Yagi but with a wider bandwidth?
I've seen yagi antennas on Amazon with telescoping elements. I'm not sure if they also let you adjust the spacing between elements. AFAIK those are the factors that affect tuning over a wider bandwidth. I bet it would be possible to homebrew something like that.
Adjusting the feed match on the yagi can be used to minimize the VSWR but it doesn't change the resonant frequency of the dipoles or their radiative efficiency at a non-design frequency. Luckily those elements were pretty fat so even though they're made for 450 MHz with ~10% bandwidth dipole they can cover down to your freq with less efficiency.
I can hear it with the stock rubber duck antenna, and also my transmissions are heard. Thats hen the station is passing more or less within 60 degrees angle overhead.
I've done voice and packet with MIR and ISS with nothing more than a 1 to 5 watt handie and a mag mount whip antenna stuck to my roof mounted swamp cooler.
Im keenly following this is its something im really getting into myself, im a Ham based in New Zealand, and bit of a mad scientist building things like Tesla coils. really keen to set up an auto tracking yagi and already build my own antennas. have had a few contacts via ISS with a similar hand held set up, dual band yagi and app based tracking with a UV 16 pro radio set up with the Doppler shift on the two channels. but only get very short contacts due to being near the 45th parallel. bit of a space nerd so loving this stuff. keep it up.
Great video. I am a newly licensed Ham. I have a QRZ Explorer-1 hand held radio. I am hoping to accomplish the same as you. The thought of talking to the ISS is really cool. Look into a motorized telescope base unit. The design should work with a small Yagi antenna. Thanks for a great video. I look forward to more content.
This is one of the few channels left with an 'og RUclips' feel - no flashy graphics and clickbait. Just modest and to the point. Love it!
Watch in 240p for added effect.
agreed, this guy is amazing!
Find out WHY this channel doesn’t use CLICKBAIT titles! The reason will SHOCK YOU!! Then THIS happened!!
I’m so damn sick of all that
@@pirate0bloodyskull 10/10 advice
Gabe: (Accidentally hits transmit button and fires ISS sub-orbital rockets Full-Send.)
Also Gabe: (with fire streak in the background) "Like I said, these cheap radios can be a lil flaky, but hey I think it does what I need and it's only $20." 😳😵💫
hello, police? yeah, that strange blokes outside with the metal sticks again. says hes talking to nasa.
Exactly my thoughts. I’d be afraid of getting arrested for doing something.
@Drone Labs
If you put on a hardhat and saftey vest people assume youre with starlink/directv and wont bother.
Lmao best comment
I’m sure his neighbors are like my neighbors and are used this this sort of behavior. When I lived down south, the reaction was “bless his little heart”.
My neighbors have been surprisingly forgiving about the third dish going up on my roof. Still I wonder if they don't have the exact same thought about me. "I don't know what he's doing but something tells me it isn't on the up and up."
What I like about this guy is that he’s honest about what he know and what doesn’t know. Great and informative video.
Thanks, I try!
@@saveitforparts I loved the "Now with more pitchfork" line.
This guy deserves a little bit more support on patreon. This type of quality raw content approach is priceless❤❤❤
What's wrong with his facial hair?
@@YZFoFittie Why are you being rude and why do you care about his facial hair? work on bettering yourself and stop focusing on others.
@Ethan (EthanFromEngland) first day on the internet eh?
I think if he offered different tiers yeah. unfortunately for most (including me) cant afford £68 per month. but if he offered a tier for £5 a month heck yeah id subscribe.
@@horashio1593 68! Gold digger!
I haven’t even realised that it’s so easy to hear the ISS. Now I’m curious if there are any transmissions when the ISS is above my country.
Same here, and I have a cheap baofeng. Only ever listened to local police and random stuff.
Actually here we are hearing other amateur radio operators on earth that are using the ISS to extend their range.
@@NetzKanal maybe in this case but the astronauts are active these days as NA1SS - I recorded them talking to people in my city on Sunday!
@@012345678944107 did you mean encrypted?
@@012345678944107 I don’t think there is encrypted signals from anything on the Space Station. NASA generally keeps things & data open.
The most exciting thing about amateur radio to me is showing people how accessible it is! Whether it's local scanner traffic on a P25 trunked system or something as simple as the ISS FM voice repeater - These are all things ANYONE can access! The fact that you can see the ISS in your opening shot punctuates this perfectly! Awesome video - 73 OM!
That was so cool to actually see the ISS in shot, as we were listening to its transmissions. I've never tried looking for it in daylight. I just presumed it wouldn't be bright enough to see.
Well done!
Time to dig out my UV-5R.
Right near dusk and dawn are the best times when it's a little darker on the ground but good reflections from the solar panels. N2yo.com does a color-coded chart of which passes have best visibility :-)
Thank you so much for this post. Being a ham for 24 years, I kind of forgot about NA1ISS. Last night I gave it a try, and I was thrilled how easy it was to hear some qso's on a Baofeng handheld. Got me hooked, I can tell you. Thank you!
Great rundown, no fluff, all useful info. Thank you so much. An unfortunate rarity, but only makes it shine brighter amongst the rubble of youtube.
Classic youtube channel and straight to the point content. I wish more channels be like that.
I'm so glad I'm not the only one. Now I can show my neighbors this channel and be like "See! It's normal!"
Current EE student here and soon-to-be radio hobbyist; your channel is excellent! I am on a 15 hour flight it is absolutely saving me right now.
Thanks for the content!
Great to hear! Glad your flight has good internet!
someone told me yesterday they saw it. i sent them your videos and told them they might appreciate what you do. then i come here today and you already had a video uploaded yesterday about the space station. great stuff. thanks for the videos
Been studying for my ham license. vids like this just help.
This is awesome! Never realized how easy it is to listen to the ISS. I have a pass coming over in 15 minutes so I just dug up my "trusty" Baofeng and going to have a listen.
Did you get it?
@@paulsengupta971 I managed to pick up one or two snippets but it was mostly static. This was from my attic though, I didn't want to go outside at the time because it was 30 degrees out. Next time it passes in the evening I'll definitely be trying again but outside
A used telescope mount like a Celestron works with the awesome SkyTrack software; some models can do continuous tracking, others just do a leap frog motion to jump ahead of the satellite's path, and full sky pointing capability
You've got a real flair for this! Incredibly well spoken and the content is to the point and exactly what a viewer would expect.
Bonus points for managing to exude intelligence without deliberately trying to flex it.
I sprinted hear as fast as humanly possible! I recently did this at my stay at great wolf lodge
@@linearswitchguy9593 Yeah! At my stay at great wolf lodge, i got a notification that the iss was rising over it and i could actually see it from my hotel! So i just aimed the radio at it and heard some people talking. I plan on uploading the clips to my channel.
@@linearswitchguy9593 thanks alot! i really appreciate it! I think ill make it into a short since the pass was pretty short. Although i have a couple other clips i could merge into a video
This is an absolute gem of a video. After watching it yesterday I noticed that the ISS was due to pass directly overheard later that afternoon. So with T - 1 min to go I'm out in my garden, the UV5R skyward and low and behold up pops the repeater. Of course my neighbour and her kids spotted what I was doing and stopped to listen. The kid's eyes were like saucers as I told them we were getting signals from the ISS. Got an message from my neighbour this morning asking how to go about enrolling them on the UK Foundation Radio Licence course, which is cool. So there you go, you're helping to inspire the next generation of Hams! Also means, neighbours may look more favourably on my plans to put up a HF antenna.
I’m often spotted in public places (my street or a nearby field) pointing random metal looking objects towards the sky. People always ask what I’m doing. When they have kids I love engaging with them as I see what you saw. It’s awesome.
@@thehandleiwantedwasntavailableI don’t tend to be out that often with radios in public. Mostly in remote spots so this is a bit new to me. Mind you so is the hobby.
Keep on learning, your enthusiasm is surely contagious.
Back in my day we had large tv antennas mounted on poles on our roofs. Then huge satellite dishes that moved. Fun times in the 80s. Cool video bro
Was listening today at work thanks to watching your videos. Started getting into it a few years ago but have been busy with other stuff for a while. Now I want to start collecting all the old satellite dishes I find lol
I randomly clicked this video.
Never seen this channel before but as soon as you introduced the name of the channel I knew it encompassed everything about me lol
I just got the briefest of blips when it went overhead, boy that was exciting! I used the first option, the scanner. Thanks for making this video.
I really like what you do. Been learning right with you. Keep it up. Love the satellite stuff and radio fun. Amazing.
Another great video! I always appreciate them. The worst part about about trying to hit the ISS is that I live in one of the most populated metropolitan areas on the planet so trying to get through without getting stepped on was quite difficult especially with only 5 watts. I just used VFO instead of programing the frequencies and manually adjusted the frequency to compensate for the Doppler effect. I actually used my Baofeng for RX and my Yaesu for TX. Just had to turn down the volume when i transmitted. Thanks again for the video.
I was coming here to share a similar story. You can hit the ISS with a Baofeng. I did it in the desert one night, had one set to broadcast on the uplink and one to listen on the downlink. I got a good hit and came through clear. I tried to do it from home one night, but I was overpowered by others in the city. (Edit: I actually did it with the default rubber duck antenna held horizontally)
@@Bcjc3 how about SATCOM? Have you tried it?
Your knowledge and mastery of electronics and technology is inspiring. I wish to be that knowledgeable and comfortable one day. Awesome vid man!
I have dozens of ISS confirmed repeater contacts using an Icom ID-5100A in my car using a Tram/Browning dual band NMO antenna mounted on the trunk. Listening is easy. But hearing your own TX audio coming back down on he downlink as you transmit is a real thrill the first time. I quickly learned that the peak of the window for two way communications pretty much makes compensating for doppler shift more trouble than it's worth for two-way comms. The first few times, I wrongly assumed that I'd want my car facing the ISS track. My first success was with the car perpendicular to the ISS track. The ISS Detector app on my phone makes catching the window easy.
Keep experimenting. Working satellites and the ISS is much easier that a moon bounce, and far less expensive. Have fun.
I got on the ISS' repeater about a month ago with some homebrew Eggbeater antennas and my Yaesu Ft-736r.
It was about 3 AM and no one was on for about half the pass, then someone finally got back to me on the bird.
Its really fun to have a ham radio license!
Keep up everything my man! I've only been following recently but I am loving everything and showing all my friends. I am studying for my HAM license and hope to take it in roughly a month :)
Cool! It's a fun hobby with tons of directions you can go. I don't make many contacts and don't have a basement full of gear, but I still enjoy dabbling in ham stuff :-)
Dude.. this is getting a bit weird. Are you reading my mind somehow? I literally just got one of those little radios to play with last month, and I was thinking about listening to the ISS for a while now.. Perfect advice right here, thanks man! :)
They're fun little radios, even if "real" hams hate them. If you want to transmit just make sure you have a license, be aware that they're "dirty" (lots of side harmonics), and don't transmit too close to any other electronics. I've seen one bluescreen a Windows PC from across the room 😅
@@saveitforparts wow lol @ the bluescreen.. really?? Thanks for the tips! yeah I used to do some local CB radio chatting in the 80s in London, and was involved in a bit of pirate .. *cough* I mean, independent radio in the 90s.. so I know about transmission issues.. I'll mess with that later! I do have some HAM call sign on some website but not sure if that counts yet. :p For now I just wanna get back into listening a bit.. I get pretty much nothing where I am (out in the woods and on very flat land in East Europe now), so will be fun to at least catch the ISS or something.. I presume I can hook up whatever aerial and amp i need to this baofeng thingy anyway, right? I'll slowly check back on your previous vids more properly for that.. Many thanks again dude. Have a great weekend. :)
To track is very easy: get the TLE data and put in a SGP4 algoritm that gives the position over time. Then just calculare the direction of that over your location.
I can help you with that, specially in the calculations.
Great video!
Best channel on RUclips,with the most affable bloke ever 👍👍👍
your videos remind me of old school youtube, i love channels like this, you make youtube interesting again
Who what a gem of a channel to have stumbled upon. Subscribed please keep pushing out the great content
about a year ago I came across a DIY project using either an Arduino or raspberry PI that basicly pointed at the ISS as it passed by, that project wouldn't be strong enough to mount an antenna to but seems to me it would be a good starting point since the software and the stepper control is already worked out.
I actually have a little Baofeng radio and had been looking for something to do with it.
I'm going to definitely have to give it try. Thanks for the inspiration and the resources.
I recently bought a Baofeng UV5R heard a NOAA weather satellite overhead while standing outside in the back yard using the antenna that comes with the radio. The next thing I'm going to try is listening to ISS when it flies over.
I'll never get enough of your channel!
You always have something cool going on, that inspires me to try all that stuff too ! :D
this channel deserves more subscribers, it's the only person i've seen doing these kind of stuff
@@PlasmaStorm73-N5EVV but this one is more interesting
Quick correction, QSL roughly translates to "Did you hear me ok?" or "Did you get the information I sent you?"
I always end up at your channel late at night when I should be sleeping. I love your channel, everything you do! You have the ability to make everything interesting!
Thanks! I'm glad I can keep it entertaining :-)
first video ive seen on your channel (popped up in my recommended); and i love this all. a fun & interesting video with tons of info
Those rubber ducky antennae, are considered to be omni directional, but there is a null at each end, so pointing it straight up into the sky is optimal for horizontal reach, but worst for overhead... RC pilots will agree for best overhead reception/transmission have the antenna horizontal.
Love this radio info. I’m learning a lot from this channel.
Thanks!
Thank you! Glad you liked it.
The only reason I can commend you tube's algorithm is for recommending your channel. I'm glad. 😁😁😁😎🤗
Awesome! This is stuff that I have always been curious about but never had time to study. I love these videos!!
I believe that when using the rubber duck, you will get better results pointing the tip to the horizon. The lobe of the antenna extends outward from the sides and not out the tip. This may be why you get better reception when the ISS is at specific places in the sky. (I may be wrong, but that is my understanding.)
idk who this man is but i trust him with my life
Woow!!! It's so cool. It's hard to find some kind of channel like this. Keep going!!
When working weaker birds, a "twist" using the arm strong EL/AZ rotator is often needed, in order to have to right polarization. It is rarely vertical or horizontal and some birds even "roll/spin" so the polarization changes during a pass..
I have fallen into this rabbit hole too. I have built two QFH antennas: 145 and 437 and they are working out quite well, also a Moxon yagi for handheld work. I was surprised how strong then signal is considering the ISS is 250 miles up in the sky. I would swap the pitchfork for a spade!
nice job as always.
If I were going to throw something together I would try a couple of stepper motors running some g-code. Show it North and the local time, and let it find the proper horizon and start slewing. No feedback needed at all. This is probably how a telescope pointer works.
yknow ive had a handheld radio kicking around in my room for a while, i could actually follow the simple part of the tutorial myself, it looks fun
I'm super hyped about these projects youre working on. I just started a job making high performance antennas. I'm learning a ton and want to start picking up signals like this. Do you have a discord setup yet? It would be a great place for all of us to collaborate. I just finished integrating a star tracker to take long exposure photos of the night sky. I've been day dreaming about a telescope mount that can accurately track satellites. It would be awesome to catch video of the station as it orbits overhead.
I love these projects. I miss the spirit of old forums that were dedicated to stuff like this. If you happen to know of any modern alternatives please help haha.
Same dude, just started in RF component sales
same here lol
Neat! I don't have a Discord or anything set up. I hang out on Reddit r/amateursatellites/ and similar but I'm sure there are some other discussion spots.
with your yagi you can try twisting it to change the polarity, that can make a massive difference to signal to noise. ISS uses linear polarity for both uhf and vhf, but the axis will be constantly changing as it passes overhead.
I made a homemade Yagi antenna years ago for listening and possibly talking with the ISS and ham satellite repeaters with my UV-5R. It worked well for listening but was never able to break in to make a contact. Been out of it for a while but looking to get back into it.
Great video as usual!
Congratulations on the 100K milestone.
Waiting for more and more.
As a kid, I remember standing in my front yard with a scanner with the squelch open, a phone running a compass/clinometer app, and a homemade 70cm yagi. One of my neighbors asked what I was doing, and I told him I was waiting for a satellite, and they certainly thought I was crazy...lol. He stood there and watched for a min, and started walking away right when the sat starting coming in to range, and the static started fading. When he heard someone in NY (I was in NC) start talking, his mind was blown. 🤯🤓
I use CHIRP software on my radios with my computer. I keep reload files for frequencies and settings..Glad I found your video.
Talking back is far more difficult, since FM favors the strongest signal, and if one guy is using a remote Yagi with a 100+ watt base station, they’re going to tie it up 100% of the time.
Great video!...Gives me a reason to expand beyond basic occasional shortwave listening!!
I use an antenna tracker on my RC plane, I got the best range using a yagi uda combined with a parabolic reflector, maybe adding a parabolic reflector to your antenna will improve the range.
A very nice video, I have an amateur radio license and the necessary equipment, I should do something again, the video has inspired me a lot. I also have the antenna analyzer, which serves me very well. I can recommend the antenna analyzer, especially when building antennas, it's something you must have, and I think the price-performance ratio of the antenna analyzer in the video is good. The idea of putting the antenna on a rotor for satellite dishes is brilliant, as it allows you to track the antenna.
Cool vid. I have been interested in ham sats for a long time. I was active in the 80's, then work and other things got in the way. Retired now, and getting back into it. Thanks for the vid and giving me a few ideas. 73
I have a UV-5R III and the menus are clunky but fine... also can easily do the doppler shift by just using VFO mode and clicking up with it set to the 2.5 steps...
A QSL Card is, like you said, is a postcard with information about the contact as a way hams can confirm contacts with each other, but sadly isn't as popular it once was.
This is excellent. You really inspire me to pull my finger out and make content. Many thanks, mate!
3:06, you can clearly see the satellite above, its a dot moving very slowly in the sky, but in reality its moving faster than the speed of sound (7660 meters per second or 7.66 Km/s),
dont go for numbers! the whole space station is travelling 13 times the speed of a bullet fired from the strongest hand held gun on earth.
What a really great intro to this subject. ARRL sign him up as a trainer he is a natural
Invest in the SAT interface and an Icom 9700 radio with the arrow 2M/440 antenna and the Yaesu rotor and it’s easy to hit all the Sats. Expensive for this set up but tons of fun!
That was most interesting and a great post, cheers. Just programmed my IC-705 with your suggested frequencies and have a 6h 48m wait for a pass here in Brisbane, Australia. It will be interesting to see how the discone works.
Did ya get anything?
@@pickles9414 No. A yagi is the next step.
@@akwawka Unlucky. Good luck with that 👍
Any update?
You got my sub, this is awesome! Thanks for making interesting content over tech, and teaching people new things!
Moar pitchfork! I like your honest approach, I will be following your ventures.
Thank you so much, I myself want to listen to sounds from jupiter, saturn and many more deep sky items. I am learning from the bottom. Your video gave me more inspiriation because you have the right idea. I think with listening to sounds from deep space I would need a different setup.
I like this dudes dedication
Great video! I just purchased a Baofeng UV5R and a TWAYRDIO high gain antenna for listening to NOAA satellites and the space station when the time comes. I've already received two NOAA satellites on my SDR RSPdx receiver hooked up to a MFJ 1868 dicsone so I know I can receive sats from my location, ISS is my next challenge as well as receiving and decoding WX faxes.
I just heard NOAA19 this morning at 1615UTC with the dipole antenna on the PRO26 scanner just like the set up you showed in a previous video (the antenna made with scraps.) Chasing satellites is good practice for when the ISS flies overhead and when I record the event, I'm giving all the credit for my success to you. I'm waiting for the Baofeng to be delivered this week. Thanks for your inspirational videos!
Very nice, I used sellarium to find the next pass of the ISS in my area, went out to my car and tuned my radio, and held the squelch open. about a minute or so after the pass start time, I started hearing call signs... after a while it degraded.. wow. I think I'll give it a try making a call.
as the iss moves across, dopler shift can make reception a bit funny sounding
like the sound a siren makes as it passes you
Got this to work for a few seconds in the UK, indoors with rtl-sdr and the supplied aerial
Love it! Can’t wait to see how you progress! This intrigued me as well. Just starting out with the “cheap” handheld! 🤣
Next thing, try building a circularly polarised dual band antenna and see if that stops the fading, and see if you can transmit to it - one Baofeng for transmit, one for receive. What I've wanted to do is have a handheld Raspberry PI with an SDR for receive, with the doppler shifted receive frequency being set by a tracking program, and then having a separate transmitter. However I think the transmitter power may kill the receive on the SDR even though it's on another band. I have a full duplex Kenwood TM-V71 which I have tried for FM satellite work so maybe I should get the Raspberry PI just to have the tracking program to control that with CAT control.
The pan tilt spotlights on boats flip up 180 degrees and only require mechanical input which you could control with an Arduino and relay board.
Interesting idea! I don't think I have one of those around but shouldn't be too hard to find.
kudos to this guy. great going.
Just tried the basic setup myself, worked great at frist overhead pass. Nice.
If I saw this guy out in public, I swear I'd catch him and demand my pot of gold.
4:37 i've always heard it pronounced "YAW-gee" like you said first. i learned my RF stuff on the fly from other engineers, so that's how they all said it lol. we rarely used Yagi antennas though. there are many other highly directional (and less highly directional) antennas with fancy antenna patterns that are desirable for different purposes.
YAW-gee oooo-daaaa. Same here my friend.
Is there anything as easy to re-tune as a Yagi like this, or something that offers similar gain and directionality (and size) as a three element Yagi but with a wider bandwidth?
I've seen yagi antennas on Amazon with telescoping elements. I'm not sure if they also let you adjust the spacing between elements. AFAIK those are the factors that affect tuning over a wider bandwidth. I bet it would be possible to homebrew something like that.
I’m literally right at 19.36. This was cool. Thank you.
Nice!
Thanks bro great video..! July 10th 11:14pm just got em for the first time here in jersey using my icom mobile as a base and ed fong antenna..!
Thats really cool, man! Im learning about radio & sdr stuff too. Dig your channel btw, keep it up!
Adjusting the feed match on the yagi can be used to minimize the VSWR but it doesn't change the resonant frequency of the dipoles or their radiative efficiency at a non-design frequency. Luckily those elements were pretty fat so even though they're made for 450 MHz with ~10% bandwidth dipole they can cover down to your freq with less efficiency.
When making contacts IMHO it is a great asset to me to have a way to record the audio...with my hands already full it's hard to write as well.
Just tried this tonight with and beofang radio. Works really good.
I can hear it with the stock rubber duck antenna, and also my transmissions are heard. Thats hen the station is passing more or less within 60 degrees angle overhead.
I've done voice and packet with MIR and ISS with nothing more than a 1 to 5 watt handie and a mag mount whip antenna stuck to my roof mounted swamp cooler.
I do all mine with a similar radio to his with a Nagoya 771 whip... I get good reports on it as well.
Excellent presentation skills! Good material.
Your videos are awesome man, also congrats on 100k!
Im keenly following this is its something im really getting into myself, im a Ham based in New Zealand, and bit of a mad scientist building things like Tesla coils. really keen to set up an auto tracking yagi and already build my own antennas. have had a few contacts via ISS with a similar hand held set up, dual band yagi and app based tracking with a UV 16 pro radio set up with the Doppler shift on the two channels. but only get very short contacts due to being near the 45th parallel. bit of a space nerd so loving this stuff. keep it up.
Great video. I am a newly licensed Ham. I have a QRZ Explorer-1 hand held radio. I am hoping to accomplish the same as you. The thought of talking to the ISS is really cool. Look into a motorized telescope base unit. The design should work with a small Yagi antenna. Thanks for a great video. I look forward to more content.
Thanks! I ordered some new parts, and hopefully I will be the strange guy in the neighborhood pointing radios at the sky😂