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[Rocketman]

Here is Water Tornado Rita.




After some tedious filtering.



This image is courtesy of Weather Underground. www.wunderground.com


^{Tracking map}

I'll get some nice cool wind, and rain out of this one.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Grady,

It's nice to see the formation of the hurricane on tv, but it's more of an intimate experience seeing it from your capture.

You will certainly get your face wet on this one...and an obstacle to your sathingych activities.

[Rocketman]

The wind is starting to pick up here. As you may already know, Rita has changed course a bit, and the current is coming straight at me. I'm not worried about it though. I'm far enough inland. I'm pretty sure there will be some Tornados in the area. I'm definately not going to be outside because I'm not in the mood to be impaled, decapitated or hit by a flying cow

Here is an animation of Rita. The pictures had to be resized. (Obviously because of Photobucket's lame 250KB limit...)



Well, I think it's getting about time to unplug, and hunker down...

[marscreeper]

I also enjoy very much listening to satellites with Grady.
We are both enjoying the new telescope we purchased also..............keep up the good work Rocket

[marscreeper]

Yes the wind is gusting here to about 45 to 60 mph and the rain is coming down sideways....lol

[Rocketman]

It's raining like a cow taking a leak on a flat rock

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Grady, Marscreeper...

How did you two fair?

[Rocketman]

Very good. All I have to do is put my mother's plants out, and pick up a few limbs.

[Rocketman]

Well now that I am employed my time online has dwindled considerably. I am still active in my satellite activities, and as of late that is listening to various downlinks with my homemade antennas.

On November 1st I ran across an odd transmission on 137.140. I have now, along with help from Ivan Artner in Budapest, Hungary determined that the satellite had an orbital period of 94 minutes. The mystery satellite is named MIMOSA (CAT# 27841).

I have been running a website lately using my old, and never thriving metalphoria domain.

Site: metalphoria.org

It is plain, but I don't care, it'll do for now.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Grady,

An interesting site you put together there, really sharing your life with those who are interested in learning more about yourself.

I think your skills are well above the rest, and am always impressed with the accomplishments of your endeavors.

It's the ones who are different and sometimes "odd", that are the geniuses. I don't consider myself a genius by any means, but I have always blazed my own path and never was a follower. So I can relate a bit.

One thing tho...where's the link to "The Chicago Astronomer"?...

Keep up the interesting pursuit in astronomy, rocketry and satellite monitoring...all cool stuff!... ;D

[shawnm]

Hello i am a new member here. I have a question about building a apt antenna. I have built a turnstile antenna for the 137mhz band it seems to work all right. My question is what should the distance be between the reflectors and the dipoles. I used a measurement i found online but i have allot of interference. I would like to optimize it for a good all around signal horizon to horizon. Thank You for any help you can provide.

[patrickm]

Hiya Shawn,
I can't help you with your antenna. I don't roll that way, but I can say Welcome and I hope somebody can and will help. Looks like we haven't heard from the antenna genius for a while, but maybe he will resurface or somebody can help out. I think Joe has a contact with local HAM guys, so maybe they can be of use.

Anyway, welcome aboard and I look forward to reading about your solution and any observations you are able to share with us.
Best,
Patrick

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Shawn,

Welcome to the Chicago Astronomer.

I remember having great discussions with Rocketman and he was my go-to guy for all things in orbit. But he had some things to deal with and gone he is.

Patrick...your neighbor is heavy in SW/Ham...as is Terry who has joined us on several Chicago Astronomer sessions.

We should inquire with these people who grab voices and beeps from the air.

[RobbW]

Wow, I always think it is pretty cool when dead threads get revived. It's always fun to read back through what people were doing and thinking several years ago!

[shawnm]

Hello all here is a pic of what i get now. As you can see alot of interferance and my coverage is not what it should be. I should be gpicking the sat up south of Fla. to all the way into Canada. Its not bad but i know it could be better.Not sure if the pic will show up, if not i will work on getting it up tonight as i am off to work on this chilly day in northern Wisc. High of 40 today BRRRRR.

[shawnm]

Here goes try #2 with up;oading my APT picture

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[RobbW]

What's this a pic of, shawn?

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Shawn,

This is cool.

What he has done is to intercept a weather sat signal of the upper midwest/Canada.

I'm impressed...

Some details please.

[patrickm]

Woah!

[Paulie pchris00]

Shawn, I'm impressed. Clearly see the Great Lakes region. I would have liked to have seen some of Rocketman's images as well. You know you will be our go to guy now for weather updates, right? Seems half the time we can't get a reliable forecast.

Joe, I remember overhearing part of the conversation with the radio guy at Sunken Garden, and thought it would be really cool to join forces for a night of satellite tracking. Any chances they could grab a Hubble downlink, and we could see the newest images before they go public?

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Paulie,

We were discussing about the possibility of doing a joint meteor/astronomical session together - with us visual and the Ham crew doing audio - listening for the ionization of the meteors in the upper atmosphere....

science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/1998/ast22dec98_1/

I do not think they are into imaging, but anything is possible.

[shawnm]

Thank You! Not too bad for just getting back into it after taking a 5yr break from decoding APT. This was my first try at building a turnstile antenna. With the proper tuning i should get coverage from about Cuba to Northern Canada. As i do not have the proper tools for tuning the antenna its kind of hard to get it right. So with that said if anyone knows somebody with knowledge of tuning antennas please hook me up with them. Give them my email please. It would be greatly appreciated. I will keep posting pics as i work it all out.
[e-mail]

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[shawnm]

Here is another.

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[patrickm]

Joe,
Don't remember the neighbor's name or I would give him a call.

Time for another Sunken Gardens star party!

[shawnm]

Just a update on the antenna problem. I changed a few things last night, i added a few more reflectors and changed some coax around. As of this time(9:25am Sunday) I am waiting another sat pass to see if it made a difference. I will post the new results later today.

[neilo]

Very cool pics!!