The VE3RCK Shuttle Earth Station Link
by Paul Cassel VE3SY, Webmaster
updated January 12, 2007

The shuttle missions are now broadcast locally on 147.510
Click Here for local Sighting Opportunities

Here's some background on this KWARC initiative.

THE EARLY YEARS
Ever since April 1989, KW and area Hams and SWLs have been able to listen LIVE to every STS shuttle mission. The very first shuttle launch was rebroadcast by Gerry O’Robko VE3DYY, On April 30, 1989. This first effort demonstrated the true experimental and innovative nature of hams. Gerry and Andy VE3SML (now VE3HJ) talked about it be great if we could listen to the Space Shuttle at any time on you HT.

A call was made to D.O.C. and they stated that if we were to retransmit NASA that approval would be required. Gerry asked and received approval from NASA followed by approval from I.C.

Andy took two Commercial ICOM ICU16 portable s quoted by ICOM as being a tough radio and connected one of the units to a commercial vox control. Gerry mean while was wiring his house and that wasn't impressing Linda so the radio was interfaced to the vox and connected to the satellite receiver by using duct tape to hold the microphone up-to earphones connected to the satellite receiver.

One half done, Ralph VE3EUK at the time was taking care of VE3RCK and detailed how to connect one of the UHF portable s to the repeater controller so it could be turned on or off without going to VE3RCK site. Well now came the big test what was it going to sound like? Not bad a little flat. Everything worked great at first but then the TX radio went into the overheat. Gerry called Andy all excited and said the TX radio's not working anymore and the display is all black...oops junk radio. Well the radio cooled down and it still actually worked.

After a few modifications to stabilize the VOX circuit, the "binder twine" lash up provided the rebroadcast of about ten shuttle missions when there was talk that the club needed a permanent site.

THE NEW and CURRENT DOWN-LINK
Terry Taylor VE3NEJ took over the down-link facility in about 1990 and for the past eight years, has provided live rebroadcast of every shuttle mission. Terry started out his rebroadcast facility with a severely bent and warped 10 foot dish that he scrounged from Rich Clausi VE3DCC. The link to VE3RCK at the time was quite crude but rapidly improved as a new dish and mount where planted in Terry’s back yard. Credit to the 1990 construction project go to Ian McLellanVE3MTO and his son who helped dig a 4’ by 4’ by 7.5’ hole for the base. The in-concrete portion of the base had every spare piece of scrap steel that Terry could find welded into a reinforcement structure and then filled with 4.5 yards of concrete.

With a new dish, (many have been added since as the photo shows) Terry was able to improve the audio by employing a commercial quality audio mixer and an improved VOX circuit designed and built by Doug Campbell VE3CHQ (now VA3DC). Rather than transmitting direct to RCK on 146.265, Terry installed a redundant point-to-point UHF radio link between his down-link facility and VE3RCK on Queen Street. With the VE3RCK receiver having priority over the UHF NASA link, it allows KWARC members to still use the repeater for urgent Phone Patch calls while the NASA link is in service. As well as redundant link equipment, a hot standby spare satellite received on a separate dish and mount is ready to kick in to assure uninterrupted service

NOTE:  The shuttle missions are now broadcast locally on 147.510 mHz

As I stated earlier, Terry’s design criteria leaves nothing to chance. Should his facility be wiped out with that thermonuclear device, (just kidding Terry) a hot standby facility is in place at the QTH of Frank Parsons VE3OFH in Waterloo.

Here is the technical info for the equipment Terry uses for the NASA service:

Terry has stayed in touch with Steven Schindler of the NASA Voice Systems/Spectrum management group keeping him up-to-date on the KWARC shuttle link rebroadcast. Steve supplied the following links for those seeking more detailed information.

Those interested in reading more detail about the Shuttle Communications system in detail can CLICK HERE to access the NASA web site and read the full details. For full detail about the actual space flight tracking and data network CLICK HERE

Terry is employed by Bell Mobility as a Field Maintenance Technician where he is responsible for the care and feeding of those Cellular sites owned by Bell Mobility. Terry is not very active in the TX mode but does do a lot of SWLing especially in the Satellite microwave bands. If you hear Terry on the air, be sure to thank him for all of his efforts in maintaining this public service heard by many non-hams around Waterloo region.

Source Information
Terry Taylor VE3NEJ

Gerry O'Robko VE3DYY

Andy Jancik VE3HJ

Ralph Korchensky VE3EUK

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