[sarex] MAREX-NA Public Mir Schedule Aug 8, 1999

["Miles Mann" <Miles_Mann@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Mir Amateur Radio Status: Aug 4, 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.

The second MAREX-NA Public Voice Schedules with Mir on August 8 has been
approved!

The MAREX-NA team has been running Official Voice Schedules with the Russian
Space
 Station Mir since September 1991.  Most of these schedules have been with
schools
 around the world (over 70 schools).  During the month of August we are making
an
Amateur Radio Schedule with the world.  I know there are many people who have
never
 talked to a Cosmonaut in space before and here is your chance.
The last MAREX-NA public Mir schedule was on August 1, the next official
approved
Schedule will be on 8 and 15th.
All Radio schedules are based on the Mir crews work load and are subject to
change
 with out notice.

The Mir crew will specifically set aside a specific time slot of 60 minutes of
their
 time on specific dates to talk to as many people around the world as possible
via
Amateur Radio. This special MAREX-NA Public Schedule will allow many people from
 around the opportunity to tell the Mir crew "Thank You" and for the crew to
remind
 the people that they will be back in the winter.

We are anticipating a very large number of Amateur Radio Stations to be calling
the
 crew of Mir on the public Mir Amateur Radio channel of 145.985 FM simplex.
Since
 Mir has a Receiver (hearing) range of over 1500 miles in all directions, the
primary channel will become too congested with people calling the Russian Space
 Station Mir.  To help reduce channel congestion, we have proposed that the Mir
 crew use a total of three different channels for this MAREX-NA Public Voice
Schedule. The multiple channel format has been used on the Shuttle projects
in the past, however the frequencies we will use for the Russian Space Station
 Mir will not be exactly same as the Shuttle.  The frequencies that MAREX-NA
is proposing have been recommended by AMSAT and the IARU.

The MAREX-NA Public Voice channels for the special event.

Primary   145.985 FM Simplex
Temporary 1    145.825 FM Simplex
Temporary 2    145.800 FM Simplex

Before the Special event the Mir crew will program in the three channels into
 the Kenwood TM-V7A Radio. The crew will set the frequencies into specific
channel memory channels. This will allow the Mir crew to easily switch between
 the three channels very quickly.  When one of the channels becomes too
congested with stations calling, the Mir crew can then switch to a different
 channel and call "CQ CQ This is the Russian Space Station Mir".
 During the special Mir voice event days, the Mir crew will talk to the
public during the posted times.  The crew may also send an occasional SSTV
 image down to Earth.  For this event, we are not going to recommend that
 people send images to Mir during the Official MAREX-NA Public Voice
Schedules because it may use up too much time for Voice contacts.  One
 of our goals is to allow as many New people to talk to the Mir crew for
 the first time.  The SSTV contacts are being reserved for the Hour before
 and the hour after the Public Voice Schedule time slot.

Then after the published event times have passed, the Mir crew will return
 to the station to the Primary channel of 145.985 FM Simplex.  I am sure
the event will be extremely popular and that the other satellite enthusiasts
 will not mind sharing the channels for a few days.

Next planed dates
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.

Dates for Sundays in August  Schedule Completed
Aug 1     16:15 to 16:35 UTC, 19:15 to 19:35 Mir time  Australia, New Zealand
     16:55 to 17:20 UTC, 19:55 to 20:20 Mir time  North America, Europe

Aug 8     15:10 - 15:35  UTC, UK, France, Greece
     16:30 - 17:10  UTC, North America and North Africa

Aug 15         TBD

 Details for each date:
Sunday August 8, 1999 using Keps for day 214
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
Part 1:  15:10 - 15:35 UTC    18:20 - 18:35 Mir Time

15:20     United Kingdom 18:20     United Kingdom
15:25     France              18:25      France
15:30     Greece              18:30      Greece
15:33     Israel              18:33      Israel
15:35     Saudi Arabia        18:35      Saudi Arabia


Part 2:  16:30 - 17:05 UTC    19:35 - 20:05 Mir Time

16:33     Mexico City         19:33      Mexico City
16:35     Pine Grove, Ca      19:35      Pine Grove, Ca
16:38     Bowling Green, KY   19:38      Bowling Green, KY
16:39     Indianapolis, IN         19:39      Indianapolis, IN
16:39     Cincinnati          19:39      Cincinnati
16:39     Winnipeg       19:39     Winnipeg
16:41     Boston, MA          19:41      Boston, MA
16:45     St Johns       19:45     St Johns
16:54     London              19:54      London
16:55     Casablanca          19:55      Casablanca
16:55     Marseille      19:55     Marseille
17:04     Central Africa      20:04      Central Africa


SSTV in Automatic Mode time:
>From 10:00 - 15:00 UTC   15:00 - 18:00 Mir Time
>From  17:10 - 19:00 UTC  20:10 - 22:00 Mir Time

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

Data pending:



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:
This is not a contest!
The Mir crew members are not contesters.  The duration of a two-way contact
will vary from 1 minute to 8 minutes in duration.  The Mir crews are very busy
and we should thank them for taking time from their busy schedules.
The crews chose QSO format is to have a general chat with the public and
talk about topics which are interesting to the Mir crew.
the are not into the contest mode 5/9 thank you qrz.

for those of you who are not able to have a two-way qso with the crew,
you can always send away for a Short-wave-listener QSL card.



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.

8. If you hear total silence on the Mir channel, Wait until you hear QRZ,
Do not call if the channel is clear, wait until you hear QRZ or CQ.
Otherwise you will transmit over the person the Mir crew is trying to listen to.


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.


Mir PMS Shutdown Date:
The PMS will be one of the last projects turned off.  tentative shutdown date
is between Aug 23 - 26.


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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