Four satellite passes during Saturday’s operating window (9 AM–3 PM ET). The highlight is JO-97 at 10:46 AM — an excellent 66° pass. AO-7 in Mode B opens the morning for linear work, and AO-73 rounds out the afternoon.

Pass Schedule

JO-97 (FO-118) at 66° is the standout of the day — nearly overhead, FM uplink 145.850 MHz (88.5 Hz CTCSS), downlink 435.910 MHz. AO-7 [Mode B] opens the morning as a linear transponder (uplink 432.125–432.175 MHz USB, downlink 145.975–145.925 MHz USB, inverting). AO-123 (ASRTU-1) is a newer FM bird — uplink 435.570 MHz (67 Hz CTCSS), downlink 145.860 MHz. AO-73 closes the afternoon as a fair linear shot on the IC-9700.

There are no ISS FM passes falling within the operating window this week.

High-Elevation Passes This Week (>70°)

These are the best APRS reception opportunities — assuming the transmitter is on:

RS-44 is a Russian linear transponder satellite that offers a rare opportunity to work European stations from our backyard — but geometry matters. A common misconception is that the highest elevation passes are best for DX. In fact, the opposite is true: when RS-44 is high overhead in New Jersey, the satellite is too close for European stations to also see it. The sweet spot is a moderate-elevation pass in which the bird is somewhere over the mid-Atlantic, visible from both sides at once.

We cross-referenced RS-44 passes against Paris (48.9°N) to find windows where the satellite is above the horizon from both locations simultaneously.

Saturday Windows (March 7 & 14)

This Saturday and next offer marginal geometry only — either New Jersey or Paris is below 5° during the overlap window, which makes for a difficult contact even with good equipment. The best Saturday candidates are:

Best Windows This Period (Any Day)

The strongest mutual-visibility windows this fortnight fall on weekday evenings. For a first transatlantic attempt, the highlighted passes below offer the most comfortable margins on both ends:

To set up a cross-Atlantic QSO, coordinate via the AMSAT Discord or reach out to European operators through the DX cluster to arrange a sked. RS-44 uses an inverting transponder — transmit LSB on 145.950–145.990 MHz, receive USB on 435.600–435.640 MHz. Full duplex is required.

AMSAT has launched a new program called Students On The Air (StOTA) Days, held on the first and third Tuesday of each month. The initiative was created by AMSAT President Drew Glasbrenner (KO4MA) and his son Carsten (KQ4SJM) to get licensed student operators active on the amateur satellites. Student-to-student contacts are the goal, but all satellite operators are encouraged to get on the air and make students feel welcome. Coordination happens on the AMSAT Discord #students-on-the-air channel.

This is a natural fit for our STEM Club students who have earned their licenses. We checked ISS passes over the school (Upper Deerfield, NJ) during the 2:00–3:30 PM session window for each upcoming StOTA Tuesday:

ISS Passes at School During StOTA Days

April 7 is our best bet for a StOTA session through the ISS this month — 13° is low but workable with a yagi and a bit of patience. The ISS FM downlink is on 145.800 MHz and APRS packets can be received even at low elevations with good line of sight. We’ll plan ahead as April gets closer and confirm whether the APRS transmitter is back in normal service by then.

The club’s ground station at the Mullica Hill clubhouse is a contributing node on SatNOGS — the global network of amateur radio satellite ground stations operated by the Libre Space Foundation. Our station is listed as Station #223 (W2MMD), and it’s one of the most capable receiving sites in the Northeast.

What makes W2MMD stand out on the network is the antenna setup: high-gain directional antennas that track satellites automatically as they pass overhead. That combination of gain and precision tracking means we regularly pull in clean signals that many other stations in the region miss entirely, particularly on low-elevation passes where signal paths are long and marginal.

The SatNOGS network records every scheduled observation and makes the results publicly available. For each pass, you can:

• View the waterfall — a spectrogram showing exactly what the antenna heard during the pass, including signal strength and Doppler shift
• Listen to or download the audio — the raw demodulated signal, useful for decoding and experimentation
• Experiment with telemetry decoding — many satellites transmit beacon data that can be decoded with open-source tools like gr-satellites

It’s a great way to see satellite radio in action without needing your own equipment — and if you’re learning the hobby, the waterfalls are a surprisingly effective teaching tool for understanding propagation, Doppler, and satellite geometry.

👉 Check out our observations: network.satnogs.org/stations/223

NUTSAT-3 Launch on the Horizon

A launch is planned for NUTSAT-3, a CubeSat that will carry both an FM voice repeater and an APRS digipeater — making it one of the more versatile birds to hit LEO in a while. Frequencies haven’t been officially announced yet. Keep an eye on amsat.org for TLE data and frequency confirmation after the launch. Given our growing satellite program at the club, this will be worth tracking closely.

ARISS Plans for the Post-ISS Era

With the ISS targeted for decommissioning in the early 2030s, ARISS is already in active conversations with the next generation of commercial space station developers — Vast, Axiom Space, Starlab, and Sierra Space’s Orbital Reef. Vast’s Haven-1 station could be operational as early as 2027, and ARISS has cited their track record on all four Axiom Space ISS flights as proof of concept for what ham radio brings to crewed missions. The program looks well-positioned to continue well beyond the ISS.

Meanwhile, ARISS continues its busy schedule of educational contacts — 60 to 100 per year worldwide. The most recent contact connected students at the Brazilian Naval Academy in Rio de Janeiro with a crew member aboard the station.