[amsat-bb] RAFT packet satellite assistance needed

[Robert Bruninga]

RAFT's packet-to-voice circuit only works in the dark, and in a
few days, RAFT will begin entering the late evening time frame
when Northern Hemisphere stations can again use it.  

RAFT is nearing its mission life time half-way point.  It has
decayed down to 180 nm and will re-enter before the middle of
August.

Due to its low orbit and small footprint, we need command
stations in the Southern USA between Arizona to Georgia to help
us conduct our primary mission of detecting the 218.98 MHz radar
fence when it flies through it.  We need command stations in
those states because they are near the radar fence and will be
in the footprint of the radar.  The ideal command station has
these atributes:

1) A reasonable 2m beam for ops on 145.825
2) A packet TNC
3) A familiarity with dumb-terminal TNC operations such as
   A. Connections, Converse, UNPROTO, etc
   B. Remote sysop logon of Kantronics TNC's
4) Desireable, is some experience with UI packets and APRS

The objective of these southern command stations is to logon,
send the command to activate the RAFT Radar receiver for 1
minute in anticipation of passing through the fence.  Then
hopefully recording any audio heard on the downlink (145.825).
Of course, once the radar receiver is on, everyone in the
footprint should be able to hear it.

For info, see the ANDE-RAFT operations page:
http://eng.usna.navy.mil/~bruninga/ande-raft-ops.html

And for more info on the 216.98 MHz radar receiver, follow the
links to the RAFT design pages.

If you meet the criterial above, lemme know.

Bob, WB4APR.
US Naval Academy Satellite Lab