About

Alpha November is the phonetic spelling of my initials, and also what I answer to on the air. This is where I keep notes so I do not have to rediscover the same things every winter.

Most of what is here involves cheap software-defined radios, satellites in low earth orbit and antennas that live on a small, windy rooftop. Nothing here is authoritative; where I got something wrong, it is usually documented in a later note.

Equipment, roughly

• RTL-SDR v4 and an Airspy Mini
• Home-made QFH for 137 MHz, a V-dipole for backup
• Raspberry Pi 5 running the receiving station headless

If you want to compare notes, the best way is to build the thing and write about it somewhere.