ISS Amateur Radio - working the FM repeater and APRS at the same time

[@scottchapman4025]

Heard you on the voice downlink clear as a bell, so it was very cool to see you pop up on APRS during the same pass! -Scott, K4KDR

[@KI4ASK]

Thanks Scott. It was a beautiful night here in Atlanta. Always great to see your packets. It's been a few months since I worked the FM repeater, so I figured it'd be less chaotic at night - it's almost unusable during the day - ha ha. Happy New Year and 73 my friend.

[@lancewillard]

Good deal, Joe!

[@skipkazmarek6334]

Thanks for sharing that. What fun. Definitely on my list of things to try. (And I'm especially glad to see I'm not the only one who knocks the radio off-frequency and then wonders why the stupid thing isn't working, at least until I realize it's the OTHER stupid thing that's the problem. 🤣😂) 73 Skip K4EAK

[@KI4ASK]

Yeah, I kept wondering why I wasn't making it into the ISS repeater when I had a clear line of sight. Ha ha, thanks for the comment and happy new year Skip. Working satellites is fun and easy. 73, Joe

[@ericwalker3368]

Do you have both radios hook up to the Arrow antenna?

[@KI4ASK]

Yes, there's a separate feedline for VHF (attached to my TH-D74) and UHF (attached to my ID-52). I put SMA->BNC adapters on each radio for quick antenna changes. The Arrow antenna comes in two styles - one with two feedlines (which is what I have) or one feedline and a duplexer.

[@timstaat]

great video Joe... one question, I have not messed with APRS since all my gear is Icom, so I am wondering if the d74 was transmitting FM and APRS at the same time on the VHF side of the yagi or was it in between you keying up fm voice?

[@KI4ASK]

Tim, I set the APRS to beacon every 30 seconds automatically on that pass. I normally don’t have it set that frequent on terrestrial APRS but I know from experience there’s a lot of packet collision getting into the ISS digipeater. For the FM repeater, I manually keyed up. The radio can only transmit one thing at a time, so when I was talking APRS wasn’t transmitting. There were plenty of gaps for the packets to get out. Hope that answers your question. Lots of fun

[@timstaat]

That’s what I needed to know, thanks