Amateur Radio Station VE2TCP / G0KLA / AC2CZ
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I've been tinkering with electronics and computers since I was a kid. I built a satellite ground station to support AMSAT and the Fox-1 series of spacecraft. This came from an interest I had from many years ago when my Undergraduate Degree final project was to assemble and automate a ground station for the University of Southampton Department of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science.
I volunteered to help build and support the launch of the AMSAT Fox-1A satellite (now AO-85) and have written FoxTelem, the ground station software to capture and decode the telemetry. It is now also used for Fox-1B / AO-91, Fox-1D / AO-92, Fox-1C / AO-95, AO-107 / HuskySat, AO-109 / Fox-1E and MO-122 / MESAT-1. In the future it will decode telemetry from the GOLF-T series of spacecraft.
Based on everything I have learned decoding spacecraft I have written a tutorial about Software Defined Radio pitched at Radio Amateurs, but enjoyable by all aspiring amateur scientists and programmers. You can learn how SDR works using my experimental method. Learn by doing and measuring your results.
I built a 40m HF Single Sideband Amateur Radio Station from scratch, with a 600W amplifier. I have worked over 100 countries with this homebrew setup. I enjoy building things more than operating, but I do get on the air and use what I have built.
I also have modern radios such as the Icom 7300 and an Elecraft K2, which have been great. My homemade radio on 40m is still special to me, but it is really nice to be QRV on all the other bands.
I completed DXCC using the old fashioned paper method to go along with my homemade equipment. There are several posts about it in my blog, like this discussion of what it might take, lots of posts about the amplifier, a note on progress once the amp was working, this post about homebrew split VFOs or this, where I finally get to 100 countries.
In addition to Amateur Radio I have an interest in 3D printing with my homemade MendleMax, Astronomy and exploring underwater with my OpenRov.
I've learnt a lot from books and a lot from the internet. This site is my contribution back.
I was first licensed as a Radio Amateur in the mid 80s as Amateur Radio Station G1XCX in the UK, then a couple of years later as G0KLA after passing the 12 words per minute morse code test. In 2010 I passed the Amateur Extra Exam in the US and have the callsign AC2CZ. I now live near Montreal, QC and I passed the exam to obtain my Canadian Amateur Radio Advanced license as VE2TCP.
I'm very open to answering questions about any of my projects. Feel free to contact me on the air or via email: g0kla at arrl dot net
73, Chris
Copyright 2001-2021 Chris Thompson
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