Episode VII: Meetings and other fun stuff

After a short hiatus, I'm back! I apologize for my lack of updates. Between school and some of my personal family matters, the last month has been pretty crazy. In spite of all this, though, we've managed to stay fairly busy.

First up: I'd like to send my congratulations out to Gino, who completed a fairly extensive training program out in Mississauga and obtained his amateur radio license. You'll know Gino when you see him, because he's going to get all the clothing associated with being a ham. He'll be the guy wearing a really big baseball cap with VA3JUV printed on it. He'll be carrying around a handheld radio, speaking in the mumbo-jumbo language only true radio aficionados can understand. If you ask him to spell something, he'll use words instead of letters. He's just that cool!

Just as I wrote that, I got a text message from Gino saying that he just passed his advanced amateur radio exam, and that he's now qualified to build a transmitter. That guy, I tell you.

We've made some progress with First Contact in the last few weeks. After doing some more research, we've decided on using a Hygain Two-Metre Oscar antenna. It has a circular polarization, which will help to cut through the atmospheric conditions. The antenna itself shouldn't be more than $250, and Skyward Towers Inc. has given us a quote to mount the antenna once we purchase it. We're hoping to get the antenna soon, stick it on a temporary tripod so that we can play with it and learn about it. Then come May, we'll go up there and mount it on the tower.

A bit of an obstacle we're facing right now is finding a rotor which can manipulate both elevation and azimuth. More specifically, we're trying to find one that's decent yet cost effective. Personally, I like the idea of taking one of our team members and wrapping them in tin foil and pointing them at the space station.

Last Friday, we had a meeting with Professor Ramdas, Professor Oliver, and Professor Rector. We presented them with a pretty awesome Powerpoint presentation, and told them everything we've researched and planned. Then today, we had a meeting with Professor Rector about some soon-to-be-officially-announced news. While I can't really talk about it until it's officially announced, suffice it to say that things with this project are about to get really exciting very soon. I recommend checking back here soon to find out more details!

On that note, I shall bid all of you farewell for now. Have a great week.

Episode VI: The Struggle of the Antenna, Part Three

As promised, here are some pictures of the antenna tower we're hoping to work with.

Mr. Rector, if you're reading this, thank you very much for sending them!

This is the antenna tower on the top of Humber's N building, as seen from the J building. It doesn't look all that big from over here.

Here, though, you can see just how high the tower really is. I estimate it's about twenty feet high.

Here's the tower from another perspective. And yes, I'm giving the thumbs up!

Here's the base of the tower, with my foot being used as a reference as to the size of the base.

This is a really neat photo of how the Yagi, whip, and dipole antennas are connected to the tower.

Another shot of the top of the tower.