QIKCOM-1, a APRS digirepeater was deployed from the ISS during Friday 27th October at 0915 UTC attached to the SIMPL spacecraft.

At 4 Watts, it will be 10 dB stronger than PSAT(84) and about the same power level as ISS and should be easy to receive on the 145.825 downlink.

Users are asked to check your ground stations and make sure they are ready to receive IGate packets during those initial orbits from all over the globe.

Being released from ISS, QIKCOM-1 will, of course, have the same Elements and tracking info as ISS until they begin to separate. This means passes over the USA every 90 minutes beginning at 0630 EDT in the Southeast and ending after 1440 PDT in Southern California.

QIKCOM-1 is not intended for UNATTENDED BEACONS. It is designed for Live Operations and experiments only.

For the initial passes, do not attempt 2-way contacts. Just set your STATUS text to indicate your TX power and antenna type and transmit at 1m intervals ATTENDED as described on the web page during these first few orbits. So we can get statistics on uplink quality.

More Infomration - http://aprs.org/qikcom-1.html