Interest Groups
Satellites & International Space Station
The amateur radio hobby is full of people who enjoy doing new things with radio. In the 1950's and 1960's, the whole world was looking up - into space - and the "new thing" was satellite communications.
First Amateur Satellite : 1961
In 1961, barely four years after the Russian Sputnik and American Explorer I became the first orbiting satellites, the first amateur-built satellite, called OSCAR I (pictured at right) was placed in orbit.
A few decades later, radio pioneers (including many amateurs) have created worldwide communications systems for radio, telephone, paging, television, data, and other purposes. All depend very heavily on radios in hundreds of satellites orbiting above the earth.
About Thirty Now In Orbit
About thirty of those satellites have been entirely built by amateurs specifically for communications by hobbyists on earth. A collection of cooperating amateur groups around the world coordinates the launching of amateur satellites through an organization called AMSAT (Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation). Nearly every year, at least one new amateur satellite goes into orbit.
Satellites Increasingly Sophisticated
Through AMSAT's highly-skilled members, amateur satellites have become ever more sophisticated and have contributed technology - such as an innovative low-cost launching framework - back to the world of commercial satellites.
Using Amateur Satellites is Free, and Easy
After the tricky parts of building the OSCAR satellites and putting them in orbit, communication with them is surprisingly easy. In some circumstances they can be used with an inexpensive handheld radio with only five watts of power. Hams who are most serious about this facet of the hobby have specialized antennas on motorized mounts which can be used, with software, to track the progress of satellites across the sky. However even these stations are not terribly expensive or complicated.
International Space Station
One of the most popular "satellites" used by amateurs is the International Space Station (ISS), which has amateur radio equipment installed and very frequently has licensed amateurs among its astronauts or those in visiting supply missions. These men and women spend some of their off-time talking with hams down below. Conversations are necessarily brief, as the ISS is travelling at 18,000 miles per hour and soon drops out of radio "sight" over the horizon, but more amateurs are usually found in another part of the world waiting to talk to the astronauts.
AMSAT Website Resources
The AMSAT website offers detailed information about amateur radio satellites. Two especially-useful pages on the site list the operating frequencies and the operational status of the satellites, while a third provides information about future satellites in development.
There are many facets to the amateur radio hobby, and this is but one of them. For more information, come out to one of our meetings (no invitation required) or contact us via our Contact Us page.
