Are there no more LightSail-2 observations scheduled? I have been monitoring its telemetry for progress since it was deployed and greatly appreciate the availability of the observations. I expect the satellite will be active for at least another month as it hasn’t reached its maximum orbit yet (and is not expected to completely drop out of orbit for another year).
I am new to this and looked into scheduling the observations myself but it seems you need a ground station (maybe someday).
Indeed, you need your own ground station to be able to schedule observations on other stations. With the holiday season it is likely the users which regularly schedule observations may not be around.
I scheduled a few observations over the following 24 hours.
I scheduled a few over the coming days, as well. My station (187) is very poor for decoding UHF sats, however. I do plan on installing an LNA soon, however.
I have been looking into a ground station. Looks like an omnidirectional (QFH looks like the best but potentially tricky) with an LNA is the way to go. We’ll see.
Works for me. I’ve made 6 QFH antennas for VHF and UHF. They are not that hard to build. The confusion is how to do Right Hand Circular polarization because if you feed it at the top it becomes a backfire antenna and reverses the polarization.
What did you use for the qfh at uhf? I’m trying 15mm copper pipe (without a pipe spring and after cutting the lengths…) Also my wf-100 coax is too stiff to bend at the top and bottom of the loops.
I have made an eggbeater 2 out of aluminum pipe which seems ok and wondering if there qfh is worth the extra effort.
On UHF I used 3mm enameled copper wire recovered from an old transformer. I use this one for receiving. You can see it on my station 568 page. It’s the top one. I also made one from thin copper air-conditioner pipe but I soldered the corners. I use this one to Transmit.