Perturbation

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The Hard Stuff

Posted: 31 May 2016 04:54 PM PDT
https://ke9v.net/2016/05/31/the-hard-stuff/


I brought home a Kenwood THD-72A, spare battery, and rapid charger from
Dayton. The plan was to employ this handheld transceiver along with an
Arrow Antenna to jump back into the world of amateur satellites. The 72A
being practically the only choice for a full-duplex package in a modern
design, excluding some of the latest gear from China.

This radio has a plethora of features and options, and just reading about
all of them would take time. It wasn’t too difficult to figure out how to
configure it for what I wanted to do – without even cracking open the
manual. Success was measured by a handful of contacts on AO-85 and SO-50.

That was the fun part. Now comes the hard stuff.

Years ago, when the FCC told us we no longer needed to maintain a station
log, I took them serious and quit logging. I hate logging. I have to count
beans during my day job, why on earth would I want to extend that metaphor
into my avocation? But at some point you realize that “the man� won’t give
you any awards without logging, so I resumed the chore several years ago.

But my current logging application doesn’t make recording satellite
contacts easy or intuitive. I’m told it can handle the task, but I’ve yet
to figure that out and that’s something I need to solve quickly.Â*Which
brings me to more hard stuff…

When I was a young satellite enthusiast, LoTW didn’t yet exist. Now we
can’t live without it. So in addition to working out basic logging, I need
to figure out how to get those contacts properly uploaded. Solving the
logging problem will likely resolve the LoTW issue, but it’s one more task.

Full-duplex is a wonderful feature that permits me to hear my down-link
while I’m transmitting. But with a handheld, the speaker and microphone are
separated by a couple of inches at best so while listening to the
satellite, I was talking into my own ear.

Annoying.

I need a separate microphone so I can put some distance between the
audio-in and audio-out.

Recording every pass is a big help with logging, plus, it’s nice to have an
audio recording of every pass I operate. I managed to collect decent audio
by using the voice recorder option in my iPhone, but that was purely
acoustical. I’d like to find a way to get a line-in for better results.

I want a tripod to support the antenna and a pre-amp might be useful for
AO-85.

I’d like to assemble a carrying case for all these things so I can easily
take my portable satellite station with me wherever I roam.

And I really need to open the manual and learn about using the transceiver.
That could take weeks but the radio has so many interesting features and
creature comforts that would streamline satellite operation.

Making contacts is the easy part. Perfection of the craft, thats the hard
stuff.