[amsat-bb] ARISS funding

[John Brier]

The Kenwood radios in the Russian service module are used for school
contacts almost every week. Just check the "Upcoming ARISS Contact
schedule" emails that go to this list.

You are right that, currently, ham equipment is not on and in use on
every orbit, but it used to be. In the Columbus module there is an
Erricson HT that was used for US and other non-Russian school contacts
and also, the 145.825 digipeater. That used to be on whenever there
wasn't a school contact, a docking/undocking, or some experiment that
necessitated it being off. The reason it is listed as "rarely used" is
because it's broken/on the fritz and that is the reason for the money
request! The data you point to is not an indication of lack of usage,
it's a symptom of the problem that keeps it from being used.

The money is needed for a new radio that would allow a similar
situation, a (probably) usually on UHF/VHF crossband voice repeater in
the form of a modified Kenwod TM-D710GA that the astronauts could jump
onto. It will also do digipeating and SSTV.

The "rarely used" at least for the voice frequencies is to keep people
from getting their hopes up to make a random unscheduled contact.
Those are indeed rare, but even with the equipment we have now, it
gets used and it affects thousands of students every year, not to
mention hams. I'm sure someone from ARISS can speak to this, more
accurately and better, than me.

73, John Brier KG4AKV

On Thu, Aug 22, 2019 at 3:03 PM Zach Metzinger via AMSAT-BB
<amsat-bb at amsat.org> wrote:
>
> On 2019-08-22 10:58, Frank Karnauskas via AMSAT-BB wrote:
> > Before anyone writes a check for a rented transponder, please
> > consider sending your check to help keep the ARISS Outreach for
> > Students program funded.
> >
> > A total of $150,000 is needed to replace and upgrade the aging
> > equipment on the ISS.  After eight months, the amateur radio
> > community has contributed only $33,000 of which $6,500 came from
> > AMSAT-UK and another $6,000 came from AMSAT officers.
>
> Frank-
>
> I suspect that this will generate a plethora of responses, so I've
> changed the thread title.
>
> Respectfully, I've considered the use case for ARISS, both now and in
> the past, and I don't see a huge value proposition. The equipment seems
> to be rarely used, as evidenced by the crowd-sourced data:
>
> https://www.amsat.org/status/
>
> Even the AMSAT web page lists most of the services as "rarely used":
>
> https://www.amsat.org/amateur-radio-on-the-iss/
>
> It is important to have school outreach and get youngsters introduced to
> the hobby, but it seems that $150k isn't going to work for us 24/7/365
> like a repeater or linear transponder. Imagine how cool it would be to
> say to students "Yes, we are going to bounce our signals off the ISS. An
> astronaut might also be around to say hello too!" at any time of the day
> or night?
>
> If you told me that ARISS is going to put up a 5G/10G package on the ISS
> and open it up for near-continuous access (subject to power budget), I'd
> be the first to donate. However, if you are asking for a sizeable chunk
> of change that is used sporadically at the whim of whatever astronaut
> happens to be there, I can't see myself donating.
>
> How can we get a more usable (and automatic) station on the ISS?
>
> 73,
>
> --- Zach
> N0ZGO
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