Your first amateur radio satellite contact
With a dual-band handheld and a small directional antenna you can talk through a satellite overhead. What you need, how a pass works, and how to keep the contact short and clean.
What an amateur satellite does
Many amateur radio satellites carry a repeater: they listen on one frequency and retransmit on another. While one is above your horizon, anyone under its footprint can hear you, sometimes more than a thousand kilometers away.
The easiest ones to start with are FM satellites. They work like a terrestrial FM repeater, so a handheld radio is enough. You need an amateur radio license to transmit, but anyone can listen.
What you need
- A dual-band handheld (2 m and 70 cm), ideally one that can receive while it transmits, or a second receiver.
- A small handheld directional antenna (a Yagi). The stock rubber-duck antenna can work on high passes, but a Yagi makes a big difference.
- A pass forecast for your location with start time, direction and maximum height.
- The satellite's uplink and downlink frequencies and any access tone, from its page.
During the pass
Point the antenna where the satellite rises and follow it across the sky, rotating the antenna to keep the signal strong. Because the satellite moves fast, its downlink frequency shifts (Doppler): on 70 cm, tune from a few kHz above the nominal frequency at the start to a few kHz below at the end.
Listen first. Many stations share a pass of ten minutes or less, so wait for a gap before calling.
Keep it short
A typical satellite contact is just call signs and grid locators, for example: "HL1ABC, this is K1XYZ, FN31". Exchange, confirm, and leave the channel for others. Logging the time and grid squares is enough to confirm the contact later.