Calling occupants....

[darren r]

I heard on the radio yesterday about some British school kids who had spoken to Tim Peake on the ISS by radio, and there was a story a while back about a radio ham, in Wales, I think, who'd managed to make impromptu contact with the station as it passed overhead.

Which set me wondering - did any hams ever make contact with any of the Apollo missions? Would it have been possible to do so?

[smartcooky]

I heard on the radio yesterday about some British school kids who had spoken to Tim Peake on the ISS by radio, and there was a story a while back about a radio ham, in Wales, I think, who'd managed to make impromptu contact with the station as it passed overhead.

Which set me wondering - did any hams ever make contact with any of the Apollo missions? Would it have been possible to do so?

I don't think it ever happened, though I don't see any reason why it would not have been technically possible. There was ham radio operator who listened in on Apollo 11 surface operations on VHF. He was Larry Baysinger (W4EJA) of Louisville KY.... http://legacy.jefferson.kctcs.edu/observatory/apollo11/

There were others who did similar things on S-Band


AFAIK the first Ham operator to make a call from space was on one of the early Shuttle missions (STS-10?)


ETA: It was STS-09

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2000/ast21aug_1/

[ka9q]

Yes, the first "ham in space" was Dr. Owen Garriott, W5LFL, flying on STS-9. He also flew on Skylab 3 (the 2nd crew). I've met him a few times; a very nice guy with, as you might suspect, many great stories to tell.

Several hams passively received Apollo on S-band; they did not transmit. Their stories are written up in various places but I could gather them here if there's interest. They could receive the S-band FM voice subcarrier on the PM downlink but their antennas would have been far too small to receive S-band FM, used during video transmissions. Baysinger was therefore wise to listen on UHF instead for Neil Armstrong's backpack transmitter.

[Luckmeister]

If any hams had transmitted on any Apollo frequencies, they would have been in big trouble.

[smartcooky]

Yes, the first "ham in space" was Dr. Owen Garriott, W5LFL, flying on STS-9.

Only if you don't count this Ham!!

[bknight]

Yes, the first "ham in space" was Dr. Owen Garriott, W5LFL, flying on STS-9.

Only if you don't count this Ham!!

I had forgotten about him, and Enos into orbit.

[ka9q]

If any hams had transmitted on any Apollo frequencies, they would have been in big trouble.

Yes. Not only are the Apollo frequencies outside any amateur frequency allocation, the spacecraft transponders are designed to only lock on to one uplink signal at a time.

[Luckmeister]

If any hams had transmitted on any Apollo frequencies, they would have been in big trouble.

Yes. Not only are the Apollo frequencies outside any amateur frequency allocation, the spacecraft transponders are designed to only lock on to one uplink signal at a time.

Yes, contact with off-the-shelf equipment would not be accomplished and most hams (I was active for quite a while) would be responsible enough to not try but even without being successful, someone messing around with an attempt might be detected and draw the wrath of the FCC.

[ka9q]

It would also take a lot of power, by ham standards. At the time we were limited to 1 kilowatt DC input to the final amplifier, which meant no more than maybe 500-700 W of RF to the antenna. (It's now 2 kW RF to the antenna). The Apollo ground stations, IIRC, ran several tens of kilowatts to fairly large dishes, and the spacecraft transponders were not particularly sensitive because they didn't need to be.

[Obviousman]

I don't think it ever happened, though I don't see any reason why it would not have been technically possible. There was ham radio operator who listened in on Apollo 11 surface operations on VHF. He was Larry Baysinger (W4EJA) of Louisville KY.... http://legacy.jefferson.kctcs.edu/observatory/apollo11/

There were others who did similar things on S-Band

That is fantastic!

[bknight]

I don't think it ever happened, though I don't see any reason why it would not have been technically possible. There was ham radio operator who listened in on Apollo 11 surface operations on VHF. He was Larry Baysinger (W4EJA) of Louisville KY.... http://legacy.jefferson.kctcs.edu/observatory/apollo11/

There were others who did similar things on S-Band

That is fantastic!

Another non NASA third party that hoaxers continue to ignore.

[Ishkabibble]

I don't think it ever happened, though I don't see any reason why it would not have been technically possible. There was ham radio operator who listened in on Apollo 11 surface operations on VHF. He was Larry Baysinger (W4EJA) of Louisville KY.... http://legacy.jefferson.kctcs.edu/observatory/apollo11/

There were others who did similar things on S-Band

That is fantastic!

Another non NASA third party that hoaxers continue to ignore.

Not exactly. The hoax nuts contend that because Baysinger and others didn't *continuously track the missions to and from the moon* means that they didn't go anywhere other than to LEO.

Here's a bit from one of the hoax nuts that I read somewhere recently. I copied and saved it, because it offended me so.

There are some known Ham radio operators who attest to having picked up signals from Apollo (Paul Wilson, Richard Knadle, Larry Baysinger, Sven Grahn), but none of them can attest to having tracked these probes all the way to the moon and back. Grahn for example only testifies to having picked up signals from Apollo 17 when it was in earth orbit, when it was allegedly on the moon and alledgedly in lunar orbit. He never confirms that he ever tracked it when it was allegedly on the moon. He openly admits to not tracking it the whole way there and back. Baysinger only received communications from Apollo 11 during the alleged moonwalk, again not all the way to the moon and back. Wilson & Knadle received signals from a diversity of Apollo missions, but again only when the crafts were allegedly in lunar orbit – an exception being Apollo 15 in which they received a handful of signals on the alleged flight home.

This sort of thing absolutely infuriates me. How they can twist things to suit their own limited knowledge, when a little bit less effort in a different direction would educate them well enough for them to understand the wonder of the entire thing.

[smartcooky]

I don't think it ever happened, though I don't see any reason why it would not have been technically possible. There was ham radio operator who listened in on Apollo 11 surface operations on VHF. He was Larry Baysinger (W4EJA) of Louisville KY.... http://legacy.jefferson.kctcs.edu/observatory/apollo11/

There were others who did similar things on S-Band

That is fantastic!

Very much so, especially when you consider that those EVA suit transmitters would have only been designed to operate over a short distance of a few hundred metres. Maybe ka9q will have a better idea, but with suit power consumption at a premium, I think the transmitter output power is likely to have been just a few watts at the most, perhaps even in the order of milliwats!

[smartcooky]

Not exactly. The hoax nuts contend that because Baysinger and others didn't *continuously track the missions to and from the moon* means that they didn't go anywhere other than to LEO.

Now you see, the very fact that they would state that shows that they are completely ignorant of Larry's account and of the dynamics of tracking an object in LEO.

Larry used a corner reflector, which is a directional antenna. He had to keep pointing it AT THE MOON to get reception as the moon drifted across the sky (and out of the main lobe of his antenna). Tracking an object in LEO is a far different prospect. The moon tracks across the sky at about 15°/hr while an object in LEO tracks at a few degrees per second.

VHF is "line-of-sight" at the frequencies being used (250 - 300 MHz), and an object in LEO only remains "line-of-sight" (above the "local radio horizon") for a minute or two, but Larry was listening to the Apollo 11 lunar surface transmissions for at least five minutes.... that would be impossible for a ground based receiver if the transmissions were originating in LEO!
 

[Zakalwe]

Not exactly. The hoax nuts contend that because Baysinger and others didn't *continuously track the missions to and from the moon* means that they didn't go anywhere other than to LEO.

Now you see, the very fact that they would state that shows that they are completely ignorant of Larry's account and of the dynamics of tracking an object in LEO.

Larry used a corner reflector, which is a directional antenna. He had to keep pointing it AT THE MOON to get reception as the moon drifted across the sky (and out of the main lobe of his antenna). Tracking an object in LEO is a far different prospect. The moon tracks across the sky at about 15°/hr while an object in LEO tracks at a few degrees per second.

VHF is "line-of-sight" at the frequencies being used (250 - 300 MHz), and an object in LEO only remains "line-of-sight" (above the "local radio horizon") for a minute or two, but Larry was listening to the Apollo 11 lunar surface transmissions for at least five minutes.... that would be impossible for a ground based receiver if the transmissions were originating in LEO!

^^All of which is a perfectley sensible explanation.
However, yer average HB will know nothing about radio transmission (if they did then they would be using such a ridiculous argument), which means that they will handwave away the explanation.
Another approach would be to tackle the loaded question that is in their central assumption- that is, that there must have been a continuous tracking of the craft from the Earth to the Moon. That is a ridiculous proposition. If my friend brings me back a picture of him standing on top of the Empire State Building from his recent trip to New York, then why on Earth would I claim that the trip was hoaxed unless he provided evidence that his plane was tracked the whole way from our local airport to the States, every foostep through the airport, every taxi ride, every subway journey- all were tracked. He would certainly be right to think that I was off my rocker, especially if he gave me souvenirs, videos of him eating bagels in Times Square, a ticket from a Broadway show that he had seen etc etc.