[sarex] MAREX-NA First Public Mir link sucesful, Aug 1, 1999

["Miles Mann" <Miles_Mann@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Mir Amateur Radio Status: Aug 1, 1999

By Miles Mann WF1F,
MAREX-NA (Manned Amateur Radio Experiment, North American Division)

First MAREX-NA Public Voice with Space Station Mir was Successful.
Reports  are  still  coming  in,  but  is  seems  the firs MAREX-NA Public Voice
Schedule
with the Space Station Mir was very successful.
The  plan  was  to  have the Mir crew on the air during  a specific publish time
frame to talk
to  beginners  all  around  the  world.   The orbit we chose passed over several
countries  from Australia, to France.  So far, I have seen reports of successful
two-way contacts from:
Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, USA, Canada, England and France.

Of  course there were a few bumps in the Scheduling which we will try to improve
for the next MAREX-NA Public Mir Schedule.
The  crew  of  the Space Station Mir were very busy with their normal work load,
plus  some  major  adjustments  to  the  stations  navigational attitude control
computer.   This  kept most of the crew busy on this particular Sunday.  We also
has  some  problems  with  the  official  Start-Time  of the MAREX-NA Public Mir
Schedule.  The original schedule was developed over 45 days ago.  The times from
the  original  proposals  had  to  be  updated  each week.  Four days before the
schedule, the Mir crew received their official time-line for the MAREX-NA Public
Mir  Schedule.  Unfortunately the time the crew had was off by 30 minutes.  This
problem  was  found  early, however we were not able to activate the SSTV during
the Hour previous to the planned MAREX-NA Public Mir Schedule.

Feed back from the Mir Crew:
It  seems  that most of the time the Amateur Radio public was very courteous and
waited
patiently for their turn to call Mir.  However some people still are not aware
of all of the procedures.
Here is a comment heard by Andy Thomas G0SFJ
Jean-Piere is speaking
"if you're in a conversation in the street people don't interrupt you so why do
they on the radio?

Please try to follow the suggested calling procedures.

Tentative dates for next schedule
In  preparation  for  a possible MAREX-NA Public Voice / SSTV day  between Earth
and the Mir Space Station, the following advanced  times are listed.  The starts
times  will  be  updated  closer to the actual schedule anticipated for August 8
and  Aug  15,  1999.  These dates fall on Sunday, all times are UTC and are AOS.
Only times within the active crew participation  periods are listed.


Aug 8          15:18 - 15:40  UTC, UK, France, Greece
          16:30 - 17:10  UTC, North America and North Africa

Aug 15         16:00 - 17:00, UTC Australia and North America


Details for each date:
For  Sunday  August  1,  the approximate time pass will begin around 16:15 until
17:30

The August 1 Sunday date will include the following cities
AOS
(UTC)     City           Lat/Lon
16:15      Perth         -32/116
16:19     Adelaide  -34/139
16:22     Sydney         -34/151
16:27     Wellington     -41/174
16:57     Mexico City    20/99
17:01     Houston   30/95
17:03     Cincinnati     39/84
17:04     Boston         42/71
17:06     St Johns  47/52
17:15     London         51/00
17:18     Marseille 43/05
17:21     Moscow    56/38


Sunday August 8, 1999 using Keps for day 173 (June 22):
The first part of the pass will cover Most of Europe and North Africa
The second half will cover North America.

The August 8 Sunday date will include the following cities
16:55     Los Angeles
16:56     San Francisco  38/122
17:01     Cincinnati
17:04     Boston
17:10     St Johns, Canada
17:16     London, UK
17:17     Marseilles, France
17:18     Casablanca



Sunday August 15, 1999 using Keps for day 173 (June 22):
The first part of the pass will cover Australia and North America

AOS(UTC)  City
16:00     Sydney
16:03     Wellington
16:19     Honolulu
16:29     W Oregon/N Ca
16:30     Seattle
16:34     Winnipeg
16:37     Cincinnati
16:39     Boston
16:41     St Johns
16:52     Casablanca

If  the Mir crew has additional time, they may optionally talk during additional
passes.  During the time slots before and After the MAREX-NA Voice days, the Mir
crew  may  be  active  on SSTV for Sending and Receiving SSTV images from Earth.
Make sure  your SSTV systems are Ready.



Stay tuned for further details.

Voice Contact Tips:
1 Listen first before Transmitting.
2 Wait until the crew says CQ or QRZ
We have been teaching the crew more Amateur Radio protocol and they are catching
on, slowly.

3  When  you hear CQ/QRZ, just say the last two letters of you calls sign, twice
and that?s all
     example:   WF  WF    (don?t say anything else, until you hear the crew say,
something similar too.  Station WF please continue?.

4  Keep  your  conversation  short  and speak very slowly.  If you are fluent in
French or Russian that?s better, use the appropriate languages or English too.

5  When  you are done, the crew will usually remember to say CQ/QRZ for the next
station  waiting.  When  the band is too crowded, Jean-Pierre usually says Break
Break, which is his way of asking all stations to please stop transmitting.

6  If  the  crew  is  on  voice, do not send any packet messages.  The crew will
sometimes leave the Kantronics KPC-9612 ON, while they are on voice.  This is so
they can read OLD mail while
they are talking on voice.

7.  Do  not  ask  the crew about the QSL card procedures.  The Mir crew does not
Keep a log
of radio contacts.  Just send a card to one of the two address below.


I  would  like  to  ask  everyone  to  please be patient regarding Amateur Radio
operations  on  Mir.   The  Amateur  Radio  portion  of  the Mir experiments are
primarily OFF-Hours experiments.  The Mir crews do have a very busy schedule and
only  have  a  very  limited  amount of FREE-Time to use the educational Amateur
Radio experiments.

Welcome First Time Space contact:
I  would  like  to  ask  all  of  the station who have previously made a two-way
contact  with  any  Astronaut  or  Cosmonaut to please refrain  from calling the
Russian  Space  Station  Mir  crew  during  the  Official  MAREX-NA Public Voice
Schedule.  The reason I am Asking you to refrain from calling the Mir station is
because there are thousands of people who have never made a contact with a voice
from  Space.  This special opportunity will give many people around he world the
same  thrill  you  received  when  you  made your first contact.  I know I still
remember my first QSL with Sergej Krikleav.


This is not good by.
This is,  Until we meet again.
DOSVIDANIYA


World Coverage during the  MAREX-NA Public Voice event:
We  tried to cover as much of the world a possible for the MAREX-NA Public Voice
Event.
It  requires over 15 orbits just to cover 90% of the world from Mir.  Because of
the  very heavy Mir crew work load it was just not possible to find orbits which
covered  the  whole  world.  During this test were not able to formally schedule
any  passes over South America or most of the Asia Pacific rim.  We hope that we
can  run  additional  schedules  to cover the parts of the world we missed, next
year.

We  only  have  a  very  limited crew access window and we can not run any radio
schedule while the crew is sleeping (01:00 - 11:00 UTC). The Mir crew is usually
very busy during many parts of the day.  Sunday is usually the best day for crew
schedules.
During  some  of the passes over Russia, it is possible the Mir crew may have to
shorten their planned public access times, because of pre-scheduled  radio links
with  family members living on Earth.  I hope that everyone understands that all
of  the published times are based on crew work load, and it is all ways possible
the  Mir  crew  may  have  to  cancel.   For more accurate pass times you should
consult your own tracking program with updated Keps.

MAREX-NA Public Voice QSL Update:
For  the  special  MAREX-NA Public Voice days, please only use the address below
for two-way and SWL cards.

QSL Information:
Pleas provide the following information with your QSL  or SWL card.

Return Name and Address, country, ZIP
Date and time of your contact, In UTC format
Signal report (Best guess)
Radio Station and Antenna (optional)

All Mir contacts, including SWL, Two-way voice or Packet connections (R0MIR),
and including the Sputnik Satellites

Envelopes should be well sealed and do not include cash.
Send a SAE (Self Addressed Envelope ) and one or two IRC coupons
(which can be purchased at major US post offices).
Do not make any notes on the out side of the envelope with Amateur Radio Call
signs visible.

Sergej Samburov
PO Box 73
Korolev-10 City
Moscow Area, 141070, Russia

************************************************

Current Mir Crew Members:
SOYUZ TM-29 arrived at Mir on February 20, 1999.  Mir Soyuz TM-29 crew consisted
of  French  cosmonaut  Jean-Pierre  Heignere,  Viktor  Afanasyev  and  Slovakian
Cosmonaut Ivan Bella
On February 28, some of the crew returned to earth, they were:
Slovak Ivan Bella and Gennadiy Paldalko.
Gennadiys  mission  lasted  approximately 6 months (August 16 1998 ? February 28
1999)

The remaining crew consists of:

The French cosmonaut Jean-Pierre Heignere (aprox 6 months)
Cosmonaut Viktor Afanasyev (aprox 6 months)
Cosmonaut  Sergei  Avdeyev.   Sergei mission began August 16, 1998 and will end
on August 23, 1999.  On this Mission Sergei spent just over 1 full year on board
the Mir Space Station.
On June 20, 1999, Sergej broke the worlds record for Total-Time-In-Space.
Sergei has spent over two full years in space when you combine all the time from
all of his missions together.

Tracking Mir:
For current tracking data, try the CelesTrak web page at http://celestrak.com/

Copyright  1999  Miles  Mann,  All Rights Reserved.  This document may be freely
distributed via the following means - Email (including listservers), Usenet, and
World-Wide-Web.   It may not be reproduced for profit including, but not limited
to,  CD  ROMs,  books,  and/or  other  commercial  outlets without prior written
consent from the author.
Images  received  from the MAREX-NA SSTV system on the Russian Space Station Mir
are  considered  public  domain  and  may  be  freely distributed, without prior
permission.

DOSVIDANIYA Miles WF1F


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