Customer Reviews

The Arrl Satellite Handbook

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I love this book. Mr. Ford does an excellent job of describing what you need to know to work the sats. Read it three times and am still picking things up. This is VERY much worth the money. Been a ham since 1976 and I would highly recommend anyone new or old to the birds read his book. Excellent!!

I was wanting to explore in this area of ham radio, and needed something to help get me started. This book got me started. It's a very readable book, with an excellent brief history from Sputnik in 1957 to today's International Space Station. It has an extensive chapter on antennas and satellite ground station projects. Until I read this book, I didn't know I already had the equipment needed to make contacts up above with my own dual band 2 meter/440 mhz handy operating mobile out of my car with a little mag mount antenna. It lists all the current satellites for ham operation with operating frequencies. Together with my Droid Ham Sat satellite pass calculator app on my smartphone, I have what I need to get started. Paul S. N0KDI Brighton CO

While I want to thank Steve Ford for the attempt to keep knowledge about this topic available, I am not sure if this book is as good as it could be. I realize that is it difficult to keep up-to-date in a field that is changing as quickly as amateur satellites. However, avoiding to give technical detail (e.g. what software and hardware is currently available and used by active HAMs) with the excuse that this information is changing too quickly is not a solution.
In my opinion don't waste money on this book. Rather make a donation to AMSAT, get their "Getting Started With Amateur Satellites" which is published yearly and available on their website, and buy a used copy of the old Martin R. Davidoff's "The Radio Amateur's Satellite Handbook (Radio Amateur's Library;, Publication No. 232)". While the latter is outdated in many respects, it still contains a lot of useful, detailed information (so useful that the book reviewed here copies and reprints whole sections).

My main purpose for buying this book was to aid me in writing a satellite tracking piece of software. The appendix on satellite orbits is great at first glance, full of useful equations to be used to calculate various parameters required to program a device track a satellite across the sky. After an in depth look at that section, many of the equations contain typographical errors, which caused me to do quite a bit of research to correct the errors. This was difficult because many of the equations are presented in a non conventional format directed towards someone who is interested in putting the methods into software for calculation.

As a guide to working satellites, it seems like a great book. It contains very in depth information about the ins and outs of working satellites. As a newly licensed HAM it was very informative, although I haven't yet used the information to work satellites. It's a great book for anyone who is interested in satellite or radio technology.

-Aaron