Monday 25 April 2016

latest club qsl cards


ISS to The Derby High School, Bury, UK

Here is my recording from my Baofeng handy




  • A direct contact via GB1DHS with students at The Derby High School, Bury, UK is scheduled for Mon 2016-04-2512:02:27 UTC 49 deg. The scheduled astronaut is Timothy Peake  KG5BVI. 

The Derby High School is a state comprehensive school (11-16 with 855 pupils 2015-16) situated in the town of Bury. The school is co-educational and is proud to be a community school supporting the diverse population of Bury and Radcliffe. 50% of students reside in an area within the top 20% of socio-economic deprivation nationally. The proportion of students who are disadvantaged and supported through the pupil premium is significantly high when compared with most schools. The proportion of students from minority ethnic backgrounds is well above average. The percentage of students who progress to post-16 studies is high.
 
The school opened in 1958 and in 2003 became the first Science and Arts Specialist College in the country.
 
The school motto: Excellence, Tradition and Imagination embodies all that we strive to achieve.
 
We are committed to offering a first class academic education with excellent vocational opportunities and preparation for the world of work. Sport is a strength and all our students learn how to ‘live well’; to cook, eat healthily and be physically active. Personal, moral, cultural and social education is crucial to the life of our school. Citizenship and ethical education take centre stage in our school.  We seek to equip our children and the wider community, not only to live in the future world, but to shape that future world and create a better tomorrow. We are proud to be the face of modern democratic Britain. Our values are enshrined in the 7 R’s: Respectful, Responsible, Reasonable, ready, Resourceful, Resilient and Right Impression
 
The enrichment and engagement opportunities on offer to pupils at The Derby would probably not be bettered anywhere. From humble beginnings in 2002, the program of events and activities has grown from a single educational visit to over 50 activities on offer year on year to all pupils regardless of ability.
 
The success of our program has in turn led to national recognition. In 2012 Mr Paul Kerr won an Institute of Physics Teacher Award for excellence in teaching and in recognition for the outstanding commitment to developing an extensive enrichment program. In 2013 the Science Department won the national TES Award for Educational Excellence in Science, and in 2014 was commended in the Science category at The Education Business Awards. In 2015 Mr Paul Kerr was also a finalist at The STEMNET Awards in the category of STEM Leadership. 

Saturday 23 April 2016

ISS contact with Tim Peake: Wellesley House School, Broadstairs, Kent, UK,

My audio

A direct contact via GB1WHS with students at Wellesley House School, Broadstairs, Kent, UK, is presently scheduled for Sat 2016-04-23  12:10:50 UTC 62 deg. The scheduled  astronaut is Timothy Peake KG5BVI. 

Wellesley House is a prep school with approx. 140 pupils. Our aim is to open up a world of opportunity for girls and boys aged from 7 to 13. We are primarily a boarding school with about one third day pupils. Our catchment is vast, with international pupils as well as pupils from across the South East.
 
Our ethos is that success follows success, whether in or outside the classroom, and occurs naturally in pupils who are happy and motivated. All pupils are encouraged to push themselves and made to feel secure enough to take risks.
 
The school provided Space outreach for local schools in October 2014 following Science teacher Kerry Sabin-Dawson’s attendance at the ESERO-UK Space conference - the Primary Frontier in July 2014 in York. Inspired by the initiatives and resources available she held a Space training session for local primary teachers to encourage them to bring space education into the classroom.
 
Fourteen local schools attended and it was a great success. There was a representative from the Royal Greenwich Observatory, an education liaison officer from the local company Pfizer Ltd, Canterbury STEM ambassador Becky Vincer and John Hislop of the Monkton Stargazers, a local astronomy group. The organiser of the theatre group Spacefund explained how she had written the Team Tim show with the cooperation of Tim Peake, which was promptly booked by some of the schools.

Russian voices on 145.800 at 11:44 UK time today

We have a scheduled school contact later today, there was a bit of confusion about the times, when listening to the 11:44 pass today I heard the Russians talking.

Here is my recording


Here the video of the QSO with the russian cosmonaut on ISS Yuri 



The cosmonaut speak at 23 april was Yuri Malenchenko, RK3DUP.
but important ... remember this was NOT a random qso, but a "PROGRAMMED" contact to iss !!!
best 73 de Rudy - iw2bsf

A direct contact between cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko RK3DUP with students in Saratov, Russia was successful Sat 2016-04-23 09:06 UTC.
A second contact at 10:41 UTC with students in St. Petersburg, Russia was also successful.

recorded from Ukraine also

Tuesday 5 April 2016

Fun cube and dashboard



We got given a FubCube Pro-Plus to play with so I set this up on a 2/70 co linear white stick antenna and installed funcube dashboard on windows 7 laptop 
You need to initially go into file--settings and in audio tab, change input device to *line Fun-cube Dongle V2.0*
each pass you will need to select the Frequency preset to the desired Fun-cube satellite you wish to monitor. In the Warehouse tab you will need to add your account details, you can register here


You can track fun-cube 1 satellite here
You can track fun-cube 2 satellite here 


Once set up you will want to put a check in the auto tune option on the bottom left of the screen.


Once the signal is heard you should start seeing Fitter messages come down the screen

















You will also see that the dashboard is populated and updated.

Monday 4 April 2016

Virtual Radar Server and Modes_RX *Funcube*

sudo apt-get install rtl-sdr

wget http://www.virtualradarserver.co.uk/Files/VirtualRadar.tar.gz
tar -zxvf VirtualRadar.tar.gz

To start listening to aircraft using the funcube pro-plus and to start a  SBS-1 compatible server on port 30003 type the following:

modes_rx -d -s osmocom -P

Hopefully you will see the following screen






You may see a few errors here but as long as you get some data all is good. Experiment with a better antenna, etc.






Now if you have already installed MONO skip to step X below

Installing Mono 4

sudo sh -c "echo 'deb http://plugwash.raspbian.org/mono4 jessie-mono4 main' >> /etc/apt/sources.list"
apt-get update

sudo apt-get install mono-complete

Now create a file using your favourite editor in the same directory where you just downloaded virtual radar to

create a file called: VirtualRadar.exe.config
copy and save the below text.
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration>
    <configSections>
    </configSections>
    <startup>
        <supportedRuntime version="v2.0.50727"/>
    </startup>
    <runtime>
        <assemblyBinding  xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">
            <dependentAssembly>
                <assemblyIdentity name="Mono.Data.Sqlite"
                                  publicKeyToken="0738eb9f132ed756"
                                  culture="neutral" />
                <bindingRedirect oldVersion="2.0.0.0"
                                 newVersion="4.0.0.0" />
            </dependentAssembly>
        </assemblyBinding>
    </runtime>
</configuration>



Open a second terminal window to start Virtual Radar type:
mono VirtaulRadar.exe





Here is my running Virtual radar, you will need to set yours up following the instruction below for the first time.










Under Feed Status, right click on Receiver and then select  configure feed












copy the settings here in the screenshot
127.0.0.1 is the local loop back address on the pi
30003 is the port our SBS-1 server is running on.



click on OK or escape to go back to virtual radar







You can now max out your poor raspberry pi and try opening a web page to see the planes, or better still open a web browser on your pc / laptop to your raspberry pi address on port 8080

for example http://192.168.0.22:8080/VirtualRadar (note capital V and R)
You should not be able to see and monitor planes in the local area.