[amsat-bb] ANS-209 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins
JoAnne Maenpaa
k9jkm at comcast.net
Sat Jul 26 18:09:13 PDT 2008
AMSAT NEWS SERVICE
ANS-209
ANS is a free, weekly, news and information service of AMSAT North
America, The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation. ANS reports on the
activities of a worldwide group of Amateur Radio operators who share an
active interest in designing, building, launching and communicating
through analog and digital Amateur Radio satellites.
Please send any amateur satellite news or reports to:
ans-editor at amsat.org
***************************************************************
*** 2008 AMSAT Space Symposium and Annual General Meeting ***
*** October 24-26 in Atlanta, Georgia ***
*** http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/symposium/2008/index.php ***
***************************************************************
In this edition:
* AMSAT-UK Hosts Successful Space Colloquium
* Delfi-C3 Amateur Radio Transponder Activated
* AMSAT 2008 Field Day Summary
* Cal Poly Requesting Beacon Capture Help
* AMSAT Journal Update
* Satellite Shorts From All Over
* ARISS Status Report for the Week of July 21, 2008
SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-209.01
AMSAT-UK Hosts Successful Space Colloquium
AMSAT News Service Bulletin 209.01
>From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
July 27, 2008
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-209.01
A successful 23rd AMSAT-UK International Space Colloquium was held
at the University of Surrey, Guildford, England this weekend.
Prof Sir Martin Sweeting, G3YJO Chairman AMSAT-UK, opened the
Colloquium on Friday. This was followed by the keynote speech given
by Dr Rob Gowen, Department of Space & Climate Physics (Mullard
Space Science Laboratory, University College London and Coordinator
of the UK Lunar Penetrator Consortium) on "Science Penetrators
for the UK MoonLITE mission".
On Saturday the Delfi-C3 team gave a presentation on their exciting
new satellite. Its SSB/CW 435/145 linear transponder will activated
soon and is sure to prove popular with satellite enthusiasts world-
wide.
Saturday's Colloquium schedule also included presentations from
AMSAT-DL on both the eagerly awaited P3E High Earth Orbiting satel-
lite and the pioneering Mars Orbiter P5A. This will be the first
private venture spacecraft to travel to the Red Planet providing
Radio Amateurs with some true DX signals.
A complete listing of the Colloquium Technical program can be found
at: http://www.uk.amsat.org/content/view/640/213/
The IARU Satellite Forum chaired by the IARU Satellite Adviser Hans
van de Groenendaal ZS6AKV also met during the Colloquium weekend.
The main topic included Band planning for satellite operations on
frequencies in the Amateur Service.
The Colloquium included a live webcast of the proceedings via
http://www.batc.tv/. There was a Live Chat page available to enable
web viewers to post messages.
[ANS thanks Trevor, M5AKA and AMSAT-UK for the above information]
/EX
SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-209.02
Delfi-C3 Amateur Radio Transponder Activated
AMSAT News Service Bulletin 209.02
>From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
July 27, 2008
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-209.02
The Delfi team activated the Amateur Radio 435 to 145 MHz linear
transponder onboard the satellite activated just before they left
the Netherlands to attend the AMSAT-UK Colloquium which was held
July 25-27 at the University of Surrey in Guildford, England.
The Amateur Radio satellite Delfi-C3 (DO-64), built at the Delft
University of Technology in the Netherlands, was launched in April.
Since then it has been collecting educational research data for use
by the university students with the assistance of Radio Amateurs
around the world.
Members of the Delfi-C3 team gave presentations during the Colloquium
about their exciting new Amateur Radio satellite.
The transponder can be accessed with these frequencies:
Transponder mode beacon: 145.870 MHz CW
Linear transponder downlink: 145.880 - 145.920 MHz
Linear transponder uplink: 435.570 - 435.530 MHz
All frequencies are +/- Doppler shift that can be up to 3 kHz at
145 MHz. As it's an inverting transponder a LSB signal on the uplink
would be translated to a USB signal on the downlink.
The transponder mode was switched on during this weekend whenever it
was within range of Europe and automatically switched back to science
(telemetry) mode when it entered eclipse about 1 hour later.
Rob, PE1ITR reported from the Netherland on Saturday, July 26, "Today
I made my first QSO around 10:53UTC and worked HA2RD with 5x7 signals.
I also heard F5ETM."
Alan, ZL2BX said, "The transponder was on over ZL this morning 2036UT
pass with weak signals from transponder downlink and beacon. It was
active again on the 2212UT pass with very good signals from both trans-
ponder downlink and beacon."
More information on this satellite can be found at:
Delfi-C3: http://www.delfic3.nl/
Delfi-C3 Videos on YouTube can be found at:
http://www.youtube.com/user/DelfiC3
[ANS thanks the Delfi-C3 Team and AMSAT-UK for the above information]
/EX
SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-209.03
AMSAT 2008 Field Day Summary
AMSAT News Service Bulletin 209.03
>From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
July 27, 2008
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-209.03
AMSAT Director Contests and Awards Bruce Paige, KK5DO, provided an
executive summary of participation in the 2008 AMSAT Field Day.
The results will be published in the July/August AMSAT Journal. This
includes some really nice photos that were sent in. Detailed results
will also be posted in an ANS bulletin.
This year, we had 8 satellites used. There was even one QSO on AO-16.
A total of 120 QSO's were reported and we had 17 stations submit
scores. The most contacts were done on VO-52 this year. Behind that
was AO-7.
Here are some statistics from this year and previous years:
2005 2006 2007 2008
Satellites 8 7 5 8
QSO's 120 258 207 220
Stations 11 21 13 17
Watch your mailbox for your copy of the AMSAT Journal and standby for
more Field Day news via ANS.
[ANS thanks Bruce, KK5DO for the above information]
/EX
SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-209.04
Cal Poly Requesting Beacon Capture Help
AMSAT News Service Bulletin 209.04
>From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
July 27, 2008
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-209.04
Jason Anderson, KI6GIV, at California Polytechnic State University is
requesting amateur radio operators worldwide to assist with capturing
the telemetry of the Cal Poly CP4 satellite.
Jason wrote, "We have seen some unpredictable behavior on our satellite,
CP4. Since we only have contact with the satellite once every 12 hours,
it would be extremely helpful if we could get some global support with
collecting beacons to get a more complete picture of the the satellite's
health."
Please send any collected data (audio or decoded binary) via email to:,
jander06 at calpoly.edu
Satellite Link Information
------------------------------
Frequency: 437.325Mz
Modulation: FSK (but uses LSB cheat to make AFSK)
Radio Mode: LSB (neccesary for LSB cheat)
Baud Rate: 1200
Beacon rate: 1 beacon/minute (maybe change to 5 minutes if satellite changes
mode)
[ANS thanks Jason, KI6GIV for the above information]
/EX
SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-209.05
AMSAT Journal Update
AMSAT News Service Bulletin 209.05
>From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
July 27, 2008
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-209.05
AMSAT Journal Editor, Ed Long, WA4SWJ reported that the next issue of
the Journal has been delivered to the printer and will be on its way
to your mailbox soon.
Ed reminds members to get busy, "I am PAST DUE for articles for the
next issue. If you have an article you would like to submit to the
Journal please send it as soon as you can to:
journal at amsat dot org."
[ANS thanks Ed, WA4SWJ for the above information]
/EX
SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-209.06
Satellite Shorts From All Over
AMSAT News Service Bulletin 209.06
>From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
July 27, 2008
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-209.06
+ The European Space Agency has announced the commencement of payload
selection for VERTA-1, the Vega second flight. The primary objective
of the VERTA-1 mission is to demonstrate the multiple-payload capa-
bility of the Vega launch system into a low-Earth, Sun-synchronous
orbit in the 500-800 km altitude range. Payload opportunities are
open to any private or public entity, without restriction as to
nationality. For more information see:
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Launchers_Home/SEM3MKXIPIF_0.html
+ FO-29 has been only turned on over Japan for several months as the
ground controllers worked on battery power managment to conserve
this satellite for as long as possible. This past week several
reports have been received that FO-29 has been heard over most of
its orbit in other parts of the world. Frank, VK5MFW reported
contacts with ZL2BX and ZL1BVA. Mak, SV1BSX reported a contact
with SW1JGW and DL6HP. Users are encouraged to continue to be
careful with this satellite's power budget and cease operation
if the downlink signal weakens or experiences FM shifting.
[ANS thanks everyone for the above information]
/EX
SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-209.07
ARISS Status Report for the Week of July 21, 2008
AMSAT News Service Bulletin 209.07
>From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
July 27, 2008
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-209.07
1. School Contacts
European Space Camp 2008 held at the Zanka Children and Youth Centre
in Zanka, Hungary for the children of ESA employees. had an ARISS
contact on Thursday, July 24. The Hungarian Astronautical Society
(HAS) organized the event. The Radio Club of the Puskas Polytechnic
(HA5KHC) provided equipment and support the contact.
United Space School in Seabrook, Texas is slated for an ARISS contact
on Wednesday, July 30 via the telebridge station ON4ISS in Belgium.
These students come from around the world for a two week session,
during which they stay with local host families while being mentored
by astronauts, engineers, and scientists to design a mission to Mars
as their team project. Class sessions are held at the University of
Houston at Clear Lake.
2. Kuwait Science Club Contact Successful
On Monday, July 14, youth attending the Kuwait Science Club participated
in an ARISS contact via the telebridge station WH6PN in Hawaii. Greg
Chamitoff, KD5PKZ, answered 16 questions posed to him by 12 children
and was answering the 17th question when the signal faded out. The
audio from this event was fed into the EchoLink AMSAT (101 377) con-
ference room server which received 11 connections from 3 countries.
It was also fed into the EchoLink JK1ZRW (277 208) server and into
the IRLP Discovery Reflector 9010. More information and the audio file
may be found on the ARISS-Europe Web site.
See: http://www.ariss-eu.org/2008_07_15.htm
3. ARISS TIM
The ARISS team is meeting in Moscow this week for a Technical Interchange
Meeting (TIM). The conference will be held July 21-23.
[ANS thanks Carol, KB3LKI for the above information]
/EX
In addition to regular membership, AMSAT offers membership in the
President's Club. Members of the President's Club, as sustaining donors
to AMSAT Project Funds, will be eligible to receive additional benefits.
Application forms are available from the AMSAT Office.
73,
This week's ANS Editor,
JoAnne Maenpaa, K9JKM
K9JKM at amsat dot org
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