2014-03-14
Audio setup for radio amateur satellite contacts
Yesterday evening was spent repairing some other stuff and soldering a cable from 2.5mm jack to 3.5mm jack so I can use normal headphones on my Wouxun KG-UVD1P. Using full headphones with audio in both ears helps me listen to amateur satellites. The usual approach to amateur satellite listening is to disable the squelch so one can hear the first bits of signal coming out of the noise. But this noise is somewhat annoying to any people nearby. So, headphones to the rescue. This evening I tested this setup. I looked at upcoming passes with gpredict and found out satellites HO-68 and FO-29 were going to make a pass shortly after another. So I was outside (in the cold..) waving with the antenna of the radio, but heard nothing. I knew the HO-68 FM transponder was probably not working and the FO-29 only has SSB so the radio wasn't going to make much of it. I checked with gpredict what passes of 'easier' amateur satellites like SO-50 are going to happen later this week. Having the 'radio window' in gpredict open with the doppler shift correction makes tuning a lot easier.