Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK

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Enjoying the amateur satellites & HF. All operating is portable, even at home - fun! Owner of an NFL team. Opinions are mine. Will occasionally post en español. Find me on the satellites!

http://www.wd9ewk.net

QRZhttps://www.qrz.com/db/WD9EWK
YouTubehttp://www.youtube.com/va7ewk
Dropboxhttp://dropbox.wd9ewk.net
Verificationhttps://www.qsl.net/wd9ewk/
Sailor decided not to jump up on me...
Don't watch the TV, look at me!
A quick #hamradio #satellite activation from the beach in Eastbourne, JO00. 3-4 QSOs (I'll know for sure when I listen the recording later today) on AO-125, and thereafter I had JO-97 all to myself, down to 0° elevation. OTOH this was the 1st time any of my kids has shown any interest in the hobby, so I'll take it as a win.

@HopelessDemigod I'd like an XE call, too. XE2/WD9EWK was a bit on the long side when I operated down there in the past, but that was the only option unless I gained Mexican citizenship to qualify for a proper XE license & call. It was fun being the DX - even if I was in sight of the US border fence.

Canadian licenses are easier, except that you have to be in Canada to take exams, have a Canadian mailing address, & call sign prefix must be in the province/territory of that address.

I used to get 6-month XE permits in the 2000s, but that stopped in 2013 with a new telecoms law & creation of regulator IFT.

A couple of years ago, there was a new limited permit only for amateur satellites. I never applied for that, and I know of only one foreign ham (a Cuban ham in Monterrey, XE2/CO6LAR) who has this permit.

Will have to see if the end result of this consultation looks like the original proposal published by the new regulator CRT. One can hope...

Big changes to XE amateur licensing may be coming... Proposal with new regulations, allowing for foreign hams to apply for licenses, plus new XE4 & XE5 call areas on the Mexican mainland. New rules & forms etc. (in Spanish) are in the Propuesta Regulatoria.pdf link at:

https://portal.crt.gob.mx/ConsultaPublica/Detalle/4

Comisión Reguladora de Telecomunicaciones

"Documentation" for being on the DM33/DM43 grid line tonight, from the GPS display on my Icom ID-5100 & my Garmin eTrex 20x GPS receiver. ID-5100 only displays to 2 decimal places for minutes, where eTrex 20x goes out to 3 decimal places.

Interesting... clocks on the ID-5100 & eTrex 20x are supposed to be set to the GPS signals, yet the clocks in the picture differ by almost 3 seconds. Weird...

On the way to the office tonight, I stopped in the Phoenix city park on the DM33/DM43 grid line (112 degrees West longitude) for an ISS pass around 0430 UTC. Park is open until 10pm (0500 UTC); not much for lighting at that hour in parking lot near dog park area. Nice overhead pass for central Arizona, using ID-5100/Elk combo. Thanks for the QSOs!

Back to the AT-D890UV CPS software...

I found an MSCOMCT2.OCX file online, registered it under Win11, & now I can download the recordings on the radio. They are WAV files, with sequential file names. Should be able to merge them into a single WAV file, like I do with my ID-4100.

I now have separate full-duplex satellite codeplugs for AT-D890UV firmware versions 1.03 & 1.04. The 1.03 version will work with radios that have 1.04 firmware, but you'll have to change a menu item to enable full-duplex ops (see the README PDF):

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/9sx6mx7g12ar1yf3tczw7/AIrJbPHP5UawHQtmcFZabPA/AT-D890UV?rlkey=r0ne4h34so6jz89kv7eryrhqx&dl=0

AT-D890UV

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