What is that device? (Flying Wild Alaska)

I always wanted to grid hop in an airplane during one of the VHF/UHF contests. Sounds like fun.
 
denverpilot said:
We gave an award to one Colorado ham who worked ALL grids in Colorado from a single location on 10 GHz. He utilized airliners and bounced his CW signal off of them at cruise altitude to reach the other side of the Rockies where his assistant sat waiting with a big dish aimed at the same airliner and an oscilloscope. Absolutely amazing. Took him years.
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Wow!!! Not quite the same as pointing a laser at a cockpit, but still... how do you AIM it accurately enough? Visual manual tracking??
 
TangoWhiskey said:
Wow!!! Not quite the same as pointing a laser at a cockpit, but still... how do you AIM it accurately enough? Visual manual tracking??
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I got the impression the beam width wasn't THAT narrow... you just had to hit the aircraft.

He do remember him telling us all that the harder part was getting accurate enough flight schedules to do the math and figure out which flights would work for the geometry for each "shot".

He also had some cool recordings of sending a continuous CW tone into an aircraft headed at you... you could see the turbine blades on the oscilloscope output... he had an audio recording of it too...

Of course, the military RADAR folks know all this fun stuff, but the average layman doesn't think of it, points a 10 GHz transmitter at an aircraft and hears "whirrrrrr" bouncing back and wonders what causes it... then realizes it's the spinning turbine blades...
 
dell30rb said:
I recognized the radio instantly in the show, having 10,000 hours in boats :)

I've heard about tropospheric ducting in vhf frequencies in Ham radio books but only actually experienced it on the water, where I once clearly heard transmissions from 150nm away on a regular marine radio on an antenna mounted at 50' asl
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I've seen FM radio ducting- I picked up WBLI on Long Island up in the Finger Lakes on a car radio. I listened to them for a long way going east on Rt. 17. I was running ahead of a cold front, I wonder if that had anything to do with it.

denverpilot said:
I got the impression the beam width wasn't THAT narrow... you just had to hit the aircraft.

He do remember him telling us all that the harder part was getting accurate enough flight schedules to do the math and figure out which flights would work for the geometry for each "shot".

He also had some cool recordings of sending a continuous CW tone into an aircraft headed at you... you could see the turbine blades on the oscilloscope output... he had an audio recording of it too...

Of course, the military RADAR folks know all this fun stuff, but the average layman doesn't think of it, points a 10 GHz transmitter at an aircraft and hears "whirrrrrr" bouncing back and wonders what causes it... then realizes it's the spinning turbine blades...
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That last is probably one reason why the stealth planes bury their engines.

You guys do any meteor trail bounce? Is it more transient than bouncing off aircraft?
 
Meteor scatter is fascinating. The ionized trails seem to only last for a minute or so between you and the other station. I don't have any confirmed meteor scatter contacts yet. Have just heard a few.

Aurora scatter is more fun. Lasts longer and sounds really strange on SSB. Like you're hearing the other person's voice at a loud whisper. Eerie even. "Whispy" just like photos of the visible Aurora.
 
denverpilot said:
Meteor scatter is fascinating. The ionized trails seem to only last for a minute or so between you and the other station. I don't have any confirmed meteor scatter contacts yet. Have just heard a few.

Aurora scatter is more fun. Lasts longer and sounds really strange on SSB. Like you're hearing the other person's voice at a loud whisper. Eerie even. "Whispy" just like photos of the visible Aurora.
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Aurora scatter is a new one to me- the physics are probably similar to the others so it makes sense though.
 
Anymouse said:
Just about every airplane up there has a marine radio. The locals use it like a telephone. As far as legalities go, the FCC would have a field day if it weren't and they decided to crack down.

During fishing season in the King Salmon area I've relayed many messages from fishing vessels while buzzing from point A to point B. When I was doing whale survey in Florida, we had a marine radio on board as well so we could call in whale sightings to the Coast Guard. They never seemed to mind.
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The use of marine frequencies (radios) airborne is perfectly legal as per this FCC document http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/tex...view=text;node=47:5.0.1.1.2.5;idno=47;cc=ecfr It is very useful in the fishing industry for the catch of the day pick up.

José
 
flyingron said:
I always wanted to grid hop in an airplane during one of the VHF/UHF contests. Sounds like fun.
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I am hoping to work the PA QSO party this summer doing just that. I have a setup all ready to go , tested it a few times.

Motorola jt-1000 handheld with a bluetooth interface dongle. Paired the Blutooth dongle with my Pilot blucomm , It passes the audio right to the headset using AD2P . The recieved audio and transmitted audio passes right to the HT. No having to use an external mic and yelling to get over the cabin noise. I just have DTMF encoding turned on so I can tell when I press the PTT , I get a talk permit tone on my side knowing the radio is keyed.
 
cavmedic said:
Motorola jt-1000 handheld with a bluetooth interface dongle. Paired the Blutooth dongle with my Pilot blucomm , It passes the audio right to the headset using AD2P . The recieved audio and transmitted audio passes right to the HT. No having to use an external mic and yelling to get over the cabin noise. I just have DTMF encoding turned on so I can tell when I press the PTT , I get a talk permit tone on my side knowing the radio is keyed.
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Oh, that's NIFTY. Hmmm... now thinking about how to set up similar with my Lightspeed Sierra's...
 
denverpilot said:
Meteor scatter is fascinating. The ionized trails seem to only last for a minute or so between you and the other station. I don't have any confirmed meteor scatter contacts yet. Have just heard a few.
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I've used meteor scatter not for radio, but for astronomy before. It's really easy, you find an open FM frequency with a station off well over the horizon in the direction of the radiant. The station will pop up every once in a while due to the ionized trail from the meteor bouncing the FM station, and you count meteors in broad daylight.
 
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