Here little space station...

Saturday, 19th March 2016

I've been collecting up appropriate junk to attempt an contact with the packet radio installation on the ISS.

I haven't pulled it off yet, but as far as I can tell you need:

• A directional antenna for the 2m band
• An amateur radio license to transmit on said band
• A radio that can receive and transmit on 2m (144.825MHz)
• An AX.25 TNC
• A Laptop or PC to drive the TNC
• Appropriate paraphernalia to connect all of those things together

A compass also might help for figuring out which direction to expect the satellite to be coming from.

I'll go over the gear I've collected in a later post, some of these items are a heap more difficult to come across in NZ than it seems to be in the USA.