14 April, 2021

Learning the hard way that plastic TO-92 is affected by humidity

I've had my APRS temperature station running since 2012. It is based on a DS18S20 sensor that just sticks out of a window. However, after some time it started to give too high readings, and after having replaced it several times I found out that I needed to waterproof it better. It seems that the TO-92 plastic housing, shown here to the right, somehow was influenced by humidity.

I wasn't able to find waterproofed DS18S20 sensors, but I could find ones with DS18B20. I got one and connected it, but it only showed -1 C regardless of weather. The software in the Opentracker USB was not able to read it, although I have Arduino programs that can read both.

07 April, 2021

Now active via the International Space Station

I happened to set my 2m receiver to the APRS (Automatic Packet Reporting System) frequency of the International Space Station (ISS), 145.825 MHz, and lo and behold stations in Central and Southern Europe started to appear. This is not rocket science, but for me it's a first. (Well actually the ISS is a kind of rocket ...)

Here in Oslo, using the local APRS service, I can also receive Swedish and Danish stations when conditions are good, but never Spain, Italy, Greece, Romania, Ukraine, Russia or Turkey. When a message appeared from NA1SS itself, the station onboard the ISS, I felt that I had really nailed it (see image). But ISS had more in store for me.