[amsat-bb] Marex news ISS radio status

[MM]

ISS Amateur Radio Status: April 5, 2007

By Miles Mann WF1F,

MAREX-MG News	www.marexmg.org

Manned Amateur Radio Experiment

ISS Crew Change April 2007

There will be a crew change taking place on ISS this
month.
The existing Expedition #14 currently consists of:

Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria
Flight Engineer and Soyuz commander Mikhail Tyurin
Flight Engineer Sunita Williams.  
Ms. Williams arrived via the Shuttle STS-116 mission
last fall. She will also stay on ISS after the crew
change in April and become part of the Crew #15.
Launch dates, September 18, 2006 through April 20 2007

The new crew #15 will consist of:
Spaceflight Participant Charles Simonyi, an American
flying under contract with the Russian Federal Space
Agency. Charles will return to Earth with Expedition
14 on April 20th with Lopez-Algeria and Tyurin.
Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin 
Flight Engineer Oleg Kotov 

Amateur Radio Status:

Voice and Packet:
The Kenwood D700 celebrated its 3-year of service last
December.  However after three years of 24/7 usage has
taken its toll.  Last August the memory channels
became too corrupted to be reliable.  The procedures
given to the crew to configure a channel combination
did not always match the instructions and there were a
few times when I heard the ISS crew calling for a
school and ISS was on the wrong uplink frequency.  The
D700 was removed from Public access last August and is
only being used for pre-arranged school schedules,
etc.

The good news is that we may get an opportunity to
reload the OS on the D700 during the upcoming crew
change. The D700 on ISS is running a special OS and
channels setup, created just for the ISS.  If time
allows, the D700 will get a fresh OS reload to set it
back to the launch configuration.  The OS reload, also
includes a very complex channel configuration and
other unique settings.  The OS reload requires the
removal of the covers and the installation of a
special ribbon cable.  See the attached link (bottom
left Picture).  As a back up plan, if the reload
fails, a few basic channels may be hand keyed into the
radio.
 
http://www.marexmg.org/hardware/kenwood.html

Ericcsons Systems:
The Erriccson HT systems are not currently being used
because of an intermittent cable issue.  No date on
when replacement parts will be flown at this time. 
The PacCom modems attached to the Ericcsons have not
been activate in 3+ years and the memory batteries are
probably not functional.

http://www.marexmg.org/hardware/ericcson.html


Slow Scan TV:
The Marex Slow Scan TV project, SpaceCam1 was
activated for a few weeks last August using a Borrowed
Laptop.  The amateur radio projects still do not have
a dedicated laptop for the projects and there are no
laptops scheduled for flight to be used for Amateur
Radio usage on ISS in the foreseeable future. 

http://www.marexmg.org/imagessstv/SpaceCamImages1.htm


Future Projects:
Marex is working on keeping ISS accessible and
affordable by keeping it on the air.  We have
submitted proposals for a new packet system, which has
been initially approved.  We are also working on other
proposals, including proposals to replace most of the
aging hardware with new state-of-the-art hardware. 
The goal is to keep it simple and kept it on the air. 
Your support is always welcome.


School Schedules:
If you want to listen to ISS school schedules on the
145.800, then you should check the ARISS web page to
seen when the next time ISS will be on the air in your
part of the world.  Listeners are encouraged to tune
in and listing to the ARISS School down links.

Information about the next scheduled ARISS contact can
be found at
http://www.rac.ca/ariss/upcoming.htm#NextContact .


Marexmg Web page
http://www.marexmg.org

ARISS Web page and other great Space projects
http://www.rac.ca/ariss/

73 Miles WF1F MAREX-MG

Until we meet again

DOSVIDANIYA Miles WF1F




 
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