30 January 2013

The past has no existence except as it is recorded in the present. John Wheeler

13 January 2013

I was out in Brooklyn today for a class and there was a noonish FITSAT-1 pass so I took my radio and antenna with me.

	Time UTC -5	Alt	Az
Beginning of Pass	1155:37	10°	WNW
Maximum Altitude	1158:43	60°	SW
End of pass	1201:47	10°	SE

I observed along Atlantic Avenue between Vanderbuilt Avenue and Claremont Avenue (Lat 40.682086, Long -73.968301) where there is a low southern horizon.

I didn't hear anything.

Today has been another cloudy and foggy day.

12 January 2013

I am just back from Pier 84 where I didn't hear FITSAT-1 again. It is cloudy and foggy and I am again wondering how much cloud cover attenuates the signals of satellites. I have read that it does affect GPS signals and I doubt that cubesats are putting as much power into their signals as a military navigation satellite does.

Again I heard that slight decrease in the aggressiveness of the static at several locations across the sky and don't know how significant it is. When I held it the longest I couldn't tell if I has tracking it of was holding my antenna in the same position in the sky. Might I be hearing radiation from a far distant radio source? I have no idea if a radio source would appear on the particular frequency I was listening to.

	Time local	Alt	Az
Beginning of Pass	0625:57	10°	WSW
Maximum Altitude	0629:00	42°	NNW
End of Pass	0632:04	10°	NE

11 January 2013

I went down to Pier 84 today for a lunchtime NIWAKA pass but didn't hear any code.  A couple of times there was a slight lessening of the static roar but is was just a minor decrease in volume and a reduction in the "granularity" of the static - its texture seemed to be more fine grained.

	Time local	Alt	Az
Beginning of Pass	1213:57	10°	NW
Maximum Altitude	1217:05	67	NE
End of Pass	1220:11	10°	ESE

There was another pass this morning at 0547 EST but the park doesn't open until 0600 and I have seen the NYC Park Police there on more than one occasion so decided to pass on that pass.

When I arrived a Robin alighted on the edge of the pier and flew off as I passed nearby.  It landed on the water between Piers 84 and 83 and was quickly attecked by a mob of around 25 Ring-billed Gulls.  They pecked at the back of its neck and one succeeded in lifting it partially out of the water.  When it started flapping its wings the gulls backed off and it flew under the pier where the gulls could not follow.

10 January 2013

I observed FITSAT-1 again this morning from Pier 84. I heard something that appears to have a pattern in it so I am calling it a success.

	Time local	Alt	Az
Beginning of Pass	0643:58 0643:24	10°	WSW SW	Online Observatory Heavens Above
Maximu Altitude	0647:09 0646:34	80° 81°	NW	Online Observatory Heavens Above
End of Pass	0650:20 0649:45	10°	NE	Online Observatory Heavens Above

Heavens Above graphic

By the time of the pass the stars were all but gone so of little help in pointing my antenna but at least I had observed them when I first arrived so knew more or less where the satellite should be at key times. And I forgot to bring my ClearSPOT with me so Satellite AR wouldn't work.

I was using my ICOM ID-31A D-STAR radio in the analog FM mode with my Elk Antennas 70cm/2m Log Periodic antenna. I had the radio set up to record received audio.

I heard a couple of gaps in the static when the satellite should have been coming toward me but they were brief and it was a long time before the next one occurred. About the time the satellite should have been nearly overhead I heard several bursts of code. Once the satellite was moving away from me I didn't hear it any more.

I downloaded the .WAV file of the "QSO" onto my computer and imported it into Audacity. I could see where the code bursts were in the waveform even when looking at the file in low resolution. I zoomed in so I was watching the seconds go past in near real time and the gaps in the static were real obvious as they went past. I slowed the audio down to 1/100th of its original speed but it is still too fast for me to copy. I can tell that there are dots, dashes, and differing amounts of static between them.

I expanded and zoomed my display to see what the waveform looked like and think I can make out code characters.

As a bonus I observed ISS on a visible pass before the FITSAT-1 pass. I don't have the ISS frequencies programmed in this radio so couldn't listen for any transmissions from its transponder.

	Time local	Alt	Az
Beginning of Pass	0628:29	10°	SW
Mazimum Altitude	0631:43	54°	SE
End of Pass	0634:57	10°	ENE
Magnitude	-2.5

Heavens Above graphic

7 January 2013

Another daylight attempt at receiving FITSAT-1's CW beacon.

Pass details:

	Time local	Alt	Az
Pass Begins	0758:48	10°	WSW
Highest Altitude	0801:59	73°	NW
Pass Ends	0805:08	10°	NE

Today I used Satellite AR, another Augmented Reality program, to locate NIWAKA. I knew in advance that this program needs an internet connection so brought my ClearSPOT along with me. The program showed where FITSAT-1 would be and agreed with the information above so I am pretty certain I was sweeping the skt in the right location.

But nothing was heard. A couple of times there was a brief dip in the volume of the static but nothing like I heard on Saturday. It was cloudy out this morning. I don't know it that is enough to attenuate a QRP signal coming from space.

5 January 2012

I went out this morning to have another go at trying to observe FITSAT-1 (NIWAKA), this time by listening for its beacon.

The details of the pass are as follows:

	Time	Alt	Az
Start of pass	0816:24	10°	SW
Maximum altitude	0819:54	54°	SE
End of pass	0822:36	10°	ENE

I went down to Pier 84 and arrived at 0745 to allow time to assemble the Elk Log Periodic antenna and get it hooked up to the radio. I was using my ICOM ID-31A D-STAR radio in analog FM mode. To locate the satellite I had planned to use DroidSat on my Google Nexus smartphone but found that the program was frozen when I launched it. I suspect that it was looking for an internet connection.

As a fallback I began sweeping the SW horizon about a minute before the satellite was scheduled to pass through 10° and kept moving my sweep up and east as time progressed. I had squelch open so heard a constant static roar. But there was one place over NJ where there was no static when the antenna was pointed there. I backtracked to it but couldn't find it again so figured it was just an unmodulated radio source. The same thing happened when the antenna was pointed S. When I got over to E the gaps in the static became more frequent and then a pattern became evident. I was expecting to hear a tone but it became evident that the gaps in the static were the Morse code. They came in bursts that were separated from each other by 15-20 seconds of static. I listened to four or five bursts and on the last one thought the initial character was an H. This is consistent with what the FITSAT-1 web site says NIWAKA will transmit ('The signal starts with "HI DE NIWAKA ..." and telemetry data follows.') They are transmitting so fast that I can't even tell the difference between their dots and dashes.

I am reasonably certain that what I heard was Morse code from NIWAKA but I want to repeat the experiment to be certain. The next time I will hook a recorder up to the radio and bring the audio file into Audacity when I get home so that I can visualize the wavefore and slow the file down to the point that I can decode it.

An observing report has been sent to Takushi.

When I arrived at Pier 84 I noticed that the protective "tennis tent" was missing from Space Shuttle Enterprise up on Intrepid and a portion of its tail fin is missing.
Walking farther out onto the pier I found that the paving slabs were lifted up as though an earthquake fault had run through them.
I decided to walk north along the river to where Peter and I had observed the river at high tide at the peak of the hurricane to see what damage still remained.

There was no other damage along the waterfront until I got up to the transfer station at 59 street where the waves had undermined the sidewalk.
Nothing has been done to repair that damage and there was no additional damage up as far along the river as I walked (probably ~65 St).

From there I went across 57 St to see if anything had been done about the crane on the top of the highrise under construction there. It appears that they have removed the dangly (technical term) part of the crane (the boom) but nothing else has been done. There is no sign of a new crane being erected on that side of the building to be used to remove the remainder of the damaged crane.

There were three trailers full of sheet rock parked in front of the building so they are continuing internal construction.

This is the first time I have gotten a good look at the exterior of the building, I normally see it in the middle of the night from the TotL. It is, in my opinion, a very ugly building.

2012 Statistics

I lost a lot of data in an iPad crash and am still in the process of backing it all back out.

2012 Observing Hours

2012 Solar Observing

International Sunspot Numbers

January-June are definitive numbers, July-December are provisional

These are my observed numbers

Exoplanet Discoveries