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Presentations ð SEA Presentation Introduction to Satellites (pdf) New and Future Satellites (pdf)

Welcome to N1DID's Groundstation

This is the website of N1DID (formerly W0EEC). I am an amateur satellite enthusiast living in California, and a life member of AMSAT - The Amateur Radio Satellite Corporation. I sit on the AMSAT Board of Directors, the Project OSCAR Board of Directors and am VP of Communications for Project OSCAR.

I am most proud of being an AMSAT Area Coordinator, which provides me the opportunity to give presentations to radio clubs in Northern and Central California, and to elmer new hams and hams new to amateur satellites.

Becoming an Amateur Radio Operator

In December of 2002 I was in a store and noticed a book -"Technician Class Element 2 FCC License Preparation" by Gordon West. I'd always wanted to get my ham license, so I bought the book. It sat on my bookshelf unopened until one afternoon in February 2003 when I ran across the book once again and decided "OK - lets give it a go."

Surprisingly much of the material was familar to me. I had been an electronics engineer early in my career, and much of what was in the test were things I hadn't managed to forget. I then had to figure out how to take the test. Much of that was easy too - I found that there was a test session on Saturday - two days away. I crammed, took the test, and passed with a perfect score. Within a week I was on eBay where I bought a handheld radio. Within a few weeks I bought a "base station" and ground plane antenna so I could listen to a few more nets.

Discovering Amateur Satellites

In early March 2003 I learned about the existence of amateur satellites when I heard Carl W2WRX talk about a thing called UO-14 on a local repeater. I started to listen for UO-14 on my handheld transceiver and I heard it! This was exciting, and a few days later I made my first contact with Bill Greene, VE7WFG in British Columbia, who has since become one of my closest friends. With that first contact in the logbook I was hooked! With a small handheld dual band radio and a small antenna the world of amateur radio opened up beyond the bay area, and soon would open up to include the entire planet.

In no time at all I bought an all-mode radio and started expanding my horizons. I became hooked on working single-sideband satellites including AO-7 and FO-29, and continued to work the FM satellites like SO-41, SO-50, and AO-27. In August of 2003 I bought a 2.4G downconverter and began to work AO-40, a high earth orbit satellite that was in the footprint for many, many hours. AO-40 allowed me to talk to people all over the world.

Although AO-40 suffered a failure I still enjoy working the LEOs (Low Earth Orbit) satellites that transit US airspace in about 15 minutes and AO-7. remains my favorite satellite.

Becoming a DID

There are many people who are confused about why I changed my callsign to N1DID at a time when my W0EEC callsign was becoming ubiquitous. It wasn't a difficult decision as one of the finest people I met in Amateur Radio was Ben K9DID. Ben was an excellent mentor and a great practical joker, and while at the Dayton Hamvention we quietly hatched a plot that I would play a joke on the rest of Ben's family, all of whome I knew, and all had the callsign suffix "DID". The plot called for me to change my callsign to a "DID" suffix when they least expected it.

Unfortunately our joke didn't happen quite as planned - Ben unexpectedly became a silent key. However the decision was made, and in January 2006 I became N1DID.

Join AMSAT!

Working satellites is great fun - a great way to make friends and test your skills. I hope you will enjoy the information on this site, the AMSAT website, Project OSCAR website, my AO-7 Resources site and the DID Page. Most of all, join AMSAT and help support this exciting and challenging part of this wonderful hobby we call Amateur Radio.