Sputnik transmitters on-air October 4

Like some, I had an HQ-100 and borrowed a tape recorder to record several passes for school. Played them back in the Government class as a sophomore in Idaho. As I remember, only 4 of us in the school had receivers that would tune there, but we all managed to get recordings and play them back. One guy built a converter to work with his 40M ARC-5 receiver... Many were totally scared of the "new stuff flying around us". Many were also able to watch the Sat in orbit. Brownie cameras do not do well with this small stuff...!

 

I did the same thing with a borrowed Grundig reel-to-reel recorder and the local kilowatt AM station nearly wore out the reel playing it all day long. Pretty thrilling stuff for a kid ham in those days!

 

James Obergs book "Red Star In Orbit" covers it pretty well, as it does all of the early years of the Soviet space programme. Of course he wrote it during the years when the USSR was still going; now we know even more. I think IIRC that Sputnik 3 was THE satellite that the scientists were building, and looking forward to launching and finding out stuff (in a general way!) was not going to be ready in time so they threw together Sputnik 1....and the rest is history!

 

Ron, did the AF supply you and all other airmen with a sidearm like those on Johnston Island? Ya know, just in case of Soviet para-space troopers! (that's what the guy who was on Johnston Island told me).

 

Remember it well - at the time I was in the Army Signal Corp working in an ACAN receiver station on Okinawa - we tracked it like forever - had a big Ampex tape deck with 16 inch reels - filled a bunch of them with the signals from the tin basketball - was exciting at the time.
Dale
WA8KQQ

 

If you "saw it blinking" then you were looking at the discarded booster. As it flipped slowly head over heals, it had the look of something "blinking" as it came broadside and caught the sun and from the end view could not be seen.

K5CO

 

My father took me over to a young ham's (of whom I knew through Boy Scouts) qth and listened to Sputnik on 15 meters that evening. I still remember vividly standing there as a ten year old in awe not saying a word listening to its beeping signal from a BC-348's speaker from AOS to LOS. The rest is history with me in ham radio.

Good luck with the event.

73

Robert W4RL Pensacola Florida

PS I have for some years now a fully working BC-348, just for the fond memories.

 

Sputnik QSO Party

A short YouTube video shows some of the 21.060 MHz activity on Tuesday to celebrate the 54th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik.

The YouTube description says:
On 4 Oct 2011 amateur radio operators fired up transmitters built with Sputnik valves, like those used aboard the Sputnik satellite that circled the earth 54 years ago. Low power transmitters were heard on 21.060 MHz sending CW and beacons were active to celebrate the 54th anniversary of Sputnik.

Watch Sputnik 54 years later amateur radio celebration 21.060 MHz

<iframe width="800" height="437" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/WvJsxVnVkHc?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

G3XBM Sputnik Transmitter
http://g3xbm-qrp.blogspot.com/2011/09/sputnik-across-atlantic-today.html

G-QRP Yahoo Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GQRP/





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Oops, I said 20 meters but I should have said 15 meters. As of today, no one has ever come up with a schematic of the Sputnik I transmitter-electronics. Some exist for Sputnik II but none for Sputnik I.

 

I was active using a (too) quickly built 2 valve xtal controlled transmitter with a pair of DL98's with 110 Volt anode supply, producing 500 mW to a groundplane. I managed to work Andy UA1OKO after a first CQ and two hours later Jim, W1PID at 5520km distance. Again two hours later I worked Konstantin, RK1NA. RX used: Elecraft K2. I used a /A location nearby Amsterdam, the Edam fortress and I recorded 100 kHz of cw spectrum with a Perseus SDR at my QTH but could not hear myself later when I got home again... Mike, AA1TJ was heard several times peaking 559 but not worked.
72,
Peter PA0PJE

 

Hi Sam,
Try this blog by AA1TJ:
http://aa1tj.blogspot.com/2011/07/sputnik-qso-party-transmitter-prototype.html#comments
It links to much more information about the Sputnik transmitters used.
A 6L6 is way to big and way to fragile for this sort of job...
73/72
Peter

 

I feel that some of us old farts have hijacked this discussion with our memories. I am truly sorry.

As far as "seeing it blinking" it opens a can of worms for me.
Since I never heard it and seen it at the same time is it possible that majority of observes did see the booster and not the satellite?
Can someone confirm if it is even possible to observe sphere of few feet in diameter at distance of hundreds of kilometers? I think Echo was pretty big “balloon” but I have never heard anybody observing it in flight.
Even if visible without an aid , the sphere would than reflect steady light, and as pointed out could not be “blinking”.
Just a side note – the booster would not probably tumble head over heals – don't they put spin on satellite and the booster before releasing it? Would it than rotate on its axis presenting pretty even surface to reflect the sun rays?
And did anybody ever heard it on 40 MHz?
Is it possible that the satellite actually did not separated from the booster? ( Conspiracy theory !)

 

Well, look at this NASA article:
http://history.nasa.gov/sputnik/gallerysput.html
and at this picture:
http://history.nasa.gov/sputnik/trackcamera.jpg
If not the satellite itself was visible, the trailing stage would have.
Maybe not with the naked eye but it was claimed to be visible with a pair of binoculairs in the NASA and original Soviet press articles
I see no point in NASA lying about this after all these years.

 

WHY? Sputnik I belongs to you guys. I was also in high school in 1957 but was not aware that you could listen to the satellite or even go outside and see it. All I remember was the near hysteria in the newsmedia, and hearing my physics teacher lamenting the downfall of Western science. (He lived to age 94, so he must have regained his faith.)

 

I never heard it on 20MHz--Our dualwave Philips mantel radio topped out at about 12MHz from memory.
Big deal on local Broadcast stations about it,somebody recorded it,so we heard the "beeps" secondhand.
Saw it (or the booster),OK,didn't seem to be "flashing"--just a dot moving steadily across the sky.

Next time I saw a satellite was when I was watching for "Halley's Comet" in the '80s.
I saw this dot of light moving across the sky,& realised what it was.

There are quite a lot of satellite watchers around,but it never really appealed to me!

73,VK6ZGO