Good afternoon! Day four of learning in the books.
Space Station Contact:
From my point of view, everyone with legal permission, technical know-how, and proper resources would contact the ISS as a milestone/achievement. Is there constant radio chatter, do the control operators at the ISS only communicate with amatures at certain times on certain days? How is it not overloaded with chatter because, from my point of view, it would be a very popular station?
Repeaters:
Repeater infrastructure seems expensive yet well-funded. If connecting to a repeater station is free for certified control operators, then who pays for the repeater towers and their maintenance? Are they considered public infrastructure and so paid for by tax?
Remote Control:
I come from a networking background, so I am interested in the idea of remote controlling my station. How popular is remote access to your station for operating? What are the common use cases/benefits and drawbacks? By which methods are you able to remote in (I’m assuming it’s mainly an IP over the internet thing)?
I understand that a lot of these questions seem like a quick Google search away, but I don’t think Google links can provide the lessons learned through failure and experience that this community has. I ask these questions to get an operator-level opinion and see why and how the current community operates. Thank you for your dedicated time. I highly value responses and greatly appreciate anyone willing to give feedback.
From my understanding of contacting the International Space Station, or ISS, there is a group called ARISS that schedules contacts between school groups and the ISS. Besides these scheduled contacts, some amateur operators aboard the ISS will get on the radio when they have free time, but this is not guaranteed nor scheduled. Like I said, this is from my limited knowledge of contacting the ISS. I have never done it personally, but I hope to someday.
Repeater infrastructure is not typically government (taxpayer) funded. Our repeater system was recently granted a large sum for new equipment by a grant organization. Repeaters are part of the free public service of ham radio, so I don’t think operators can be charged to use them. It is the responsibility of the individual or group building the repeater to fund it or source necessary funding from donors, like the grant organization. The repeater is usually privately owned.
I don’t have any experience with remote controlling, myself.
Thanks for the response. I figured contact was made with the ISS through a liaison, so thanks for the info on that. And the repeater system makes sense. I didn’t think it was government-funded, and it’s neat to know that people build their own and source their own support. That’s pretty cool.
@N0APX Sorry for the late response. I took a month or so off from studying, but I’ve been back at it daily now with the intent to test at the end of the month, hopefully.