AMSAT UK MONTHLY SATELLITE REPORT:NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005
As compiled by PAUL 2E1EUB.Inclusions to be included in this monthley report to reach me by the 25th of each month please, at: 2E1EUB@AMSAT.ORG. This report can also be found at www.amsatuk.org and on packet Radio
or may be heard live on 3.780mhz +/- QRM close to the last Sunday of each month around 10.00 local time. The NET takes place every Sunday.
VO52/HAMSAT
AMSAT India has applied for and has been granted an OSCAR number for HAMSAT. In the future HAMSAT will be referred to as VUSat-OSCAR 52 or VO-52 for short.
For additional information about HamSat please see:
<http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/satellites/sat_summary/hamsat.php>
This bird has heavy traffic! and plenty of new comers, lets hope it stands the pace, I’ve already noticed weaker signals than first noted. The foot print is not massive and it moves quick ,but its possible to work the USA just about. STATIONS WORKED INC:ph7pcf g7nfo oo4bk dd5jk NOW OPPERATING ON THE DUTCH TRANSPONDER! built by pe1rah
HAMSAT frequencies: ------------------- Indian transponder: Uplink : 435.225MHz to 435.275MHz LSB/CW Downlink: 145.875MHz to 145.925MHz USB/CW Beacom : 145.940MHz continue carier signal Dutch transponder: Uplink : 435.225MHz to 435.275MHz LSB/CW Downlink: 145.875MHz to 145.925MHz USB/CW Beacon : 145.860MHz 12WPM with CW message
AO-51 ECHO
Status: operational//
modes l/s and v/s working well, but takes some tracking! still problems with the qrm level on mode v uplink. The new modes this month went down well ,v/ssb u/fm was very different! A few stations all at once could have qso's just about. Reports welcome from stations using the digital side of ao51. Some improvements have been made after studying the latest data! PLEASE NOTE:The bbs call sign has now been changed to: PECHO-12 and the broadcast call is :PECHO-11 STATIONS WORKED ON MODE v/u:IW4DVZ ON5SA IZIIRR F6HCC.OZ1MY.FP/K8MM......Great fun was had with mode v/ssb last month, its possible to have multi qso's in this mode a little like a transponder, by tuning just up or down of the spot frq.......ao51 does not seem to suffer from qrm in this mode!!!!!!
Echo Operating Schedule for: DECEMBER
5 Dec
FM Repeater, L/U
Uplink: 1268.700 mhz FM
Downlink 435.300 mhz FM
8 Dec (Wed Night)
9k6 Digital, V/U, High Power, PBP BBS (Pacsat Broadcast Protocol BBS)
Uplink: 145.860 mhz FM, 9k6 PBP Digital
Downlink: 435.150 mhz FM, 9k6 PBP Digital
12 Dec
FM Repeater, V/S
Uplink: 145.920 mhz FM, No PL Tone
Downlink 2401.200 mhz FM
19 Dec
FM Repeater, V/U
Uplink: 145.920 mhz FM, 67 hz PL Tone
Downlink: 435.150 mhz FM, 9k6 PBP Digital
INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION (ISS) - ARISS
Status: Operational
Current Mode: Packet
Digipeater: Active
Russian callsigns RS0ISS, RZ3DZR
USA callsign NA1SS
Packet station mailbox callsign RS0ISS-11
Packet station keyboard callsign RS0ISS-3
For crews living aboard the International Space Station, holiday dining in space brings special challenges. Fresh produce, a staple taken for granted here on Earth even during the holidays, is unavailable to the crewmembers most of the time. Instead, the crews rely on rehydratable, thermostabilized and irradiated foods to ensure a balanced and varied diet. Through these special preservation techniques, Expedition 12 crewmates Bill McArthur and Valery Tokarev were able to enjoy traditional holiday fare such as smoked turkey, green beans, and cranberry-apple dessert on Thanksgiving Day. McArthur and Tokarev can look forward to some special dining treats this Christmas when the ISS Progress 20 cargo craft arrives on Dec. 23. Members of the media can learn more about space food in our virtual press kit, "A Taste of Space." Managers Evaluating Proposal to Delay Progress Undocking Three months into their six-month mission aboard the International Space Station, the Expedition 12 crewmembers worked this week on science experiments and station maintenance activities. Commander Bill McArthur set up a refrigerated centrifuge as part of the Human Research Facility 2. Tokarev attended to the docked Progress resupply craft, repressurizing the space station with oxygen from the Progress and transferring propellant to station tanks on the Zarya module. Station managers are evaluating a proposal from Russian engineers to delay the undocking of the ISS Progress 19 cargo craft scheduled for Dec. 20. Regardless of the outcome of that decision, the launch of the ISS Progress 20 cargo craft will still take place on Dec. 20 and dock with the station on Dec. 23. The new Progress will bring supplies of food, water, fuel and air to the station as well as holiday gifts for the crew.
1. Hermann Middle School Contact Successful
On Wednesday, 16 November 2005, Hermann Middle School, in Hermann, Missouri, contacted the ISS via ham radio. The school library was standing room only, as seven students asked questions of Bill McArthur, KC5ACR. The audio was distributed over the PA system to the rest of the school. MSNBC carried the event live through the school's Hermann Bearcat Amateur Radio Club webcam. Two television stations, channel 5, St. Louis and channel 13, Jefferson City, covered the event and ran video clips in their news casts. The students, volunteers and teachers who participated will receive DVDs as a remembrance of the event. The Hermann Middle School radio contact coordinator reported, "This was a wonderful thing that happened to our rural school district. They are all smiles right now."
2. Takatsuki Education Center Contact Successful
On Thursday, 17 November 2005, Takatsuki Education Center in Takatsuki, Osaka, Japan, experienced a successful contact with the ISS. Ten sixth graders from Hiyoshidai Elementary School posed twenty questions to Bill McArthur, KC5ACR, as an audience of approximately 400 students, parents and others gathered to watch the event. Two television stations, including NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation), three newspapers, and other media covered the contact. The contact audio is available at: <http://jk1zrw.dyndns.org/takatsuki.html.en>
For the video, see:
<http://www.city.takatsuki.osaka.jp/multimedia/media/ariss-hiyosidai.asf>
3. ARRL Article on Negri and Furtherwick School Contacts
ARRL ran an article covering the Instituto Comprensivo Francesco Negri and Furtherwick Park School contacts. "Students in Italy, England Entertained, Educated via Ham Radio" may be found at:
<http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2005/11/16/1/?nc=1>
4.Italian School Contact Video
On Wednesday, November 9, students from Instituto Comprensivo Francesco Negri spoke with astronaut Bill McArthur via amateur radio. Radio operator Claudio Ariotti, IK1SLD, posted a video clip and photos of the
event on the following website: <http://scuola.spaceonline.tv/>
5. Furtherwick Park School Contact
On Wednesday, November 9, Furtherwick Park School successfully contacted the ISS. The BBC covered the event in an article, "Pupils link up with International Space Station." See:
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/essex/content/articles/2005/11/11/space_station_feature.shtml>
ARISS member, Howard Long has made available a video of the contact.
See: <http://www.howardlong.com/images/Furtherwick.wmv>
6. Russian EVA to Deploy SuitSat Postponed
SuitSat, a Russian spacesuit containing ham radio equipment and a CD of student artwork, was scheduled to be deployed during a Russian EVA on December 8. This EVA has been postponed and is not expected to take place until late January/early February 2006.
This unique satellite continues to receive news coverage, as Frank Bauer's SuitSat paper has been translated into French and posted on the AMSAT-France website. See: <http://www.amsat-france.org/ariss>
AO-7 AMSAT OSCAR 7
Status: Semi-operational in sunlight.
Return to active status: June 21,2002
Emily, W0EEC has created a website to allow the users of AO-7 to record
contacts, observations and use of the satellite more effectively at:
http://www.emilyshouse.com/experthams/ao7/main.php
This includes the ability to log contacts.
Mostly in mode B, ! with dx stations heard regularly, with some qrm on the 2m down link. But still plenty of traffic, showing that the old mode b transponder is much liked and rated. Tending to disappear or change modes part way through passes, perhaps due to poor solar lock.?
and now sometimes does not switch on till part way through some passes...why not try CW or phone ....100w eirp l/h circular uplink.......2/6db linear antenna on the down link are the requirements ! its poss to work mode A with less....stations worked this month inc: K3SZH N8BBQ HB9DSU WB0VGI 007EQ AJ9K PH7PCF K7MT SP1WSR OE50JTB
AO-27 AMRAD *******
Status:semi Operational( On!)
Evening time uk/europe,FM repeater on first part off each pass.
The latest information on AO-27 can be found at:
http://www.ao27.org
An AO-27 question-and-answer page is available on the AMSAT-NA web
site, with a good down link signal, lets hope its ok ,a big thank you to the control team for bringing ao27 back to life!
FO-29 JAS-2
Status: Operational working well, with strong downlink signals at times.
Voice/CW Mode JA
Please send the reception reports to lab2@jarl.or.jp . Please use the
subject line: 'FO-29reception report'.
stations heard this week, STATIONS WORKED:LX2LA K3SZH VA3PK CU2JX N1MIW FP/K8MM.......i can also report that there has been break through by fm stations in qso on the uplink part of the band in zone 33.
SO-50 SAUDISAT-1C
Status: Operational.
Uplink: 145.850 MHz
There have been unconfirmed reports on the amsat-bb emailer that So-50 has shifted downlink frequency as much as 5khz up.
To switch the transmitter on, you need to send a CTCSS tone of 74.4 Hz.and then ctcss of 67hz to keep the bird open: its nice to see a bit more traffic on this bird this month, INC: FP/K8MM ON5NY...Check out the amsat NA bbs for a full report on Ians (fp/k8mm) qso's ....he’s also left the sat aerials there at the hotel for any one else planning a visit....the hotel is ham friendly !
UO-11 OSCAR-11…semi operational
21 November 2005 During the period 20 October to 21 November 2005 the VHF beacon on 145.826 MHz. resumed transmissions on 21 October, and continued until 30 October. Transmissions then resumed, as expected, on 10 November. However, the beacon stopped transmitting prematurely, some time between 14 and 16 November. If the watchdog resets as expected, then the beacon should restart around 06 December. Signals have been very variable during this period. Sometimes received at good strength, at other times they were inaudible , even with the BFO switched ON (ie. in CW mode). The on-board clock continues to show a very large error. Currently it is 19.9 days slow. All the analogue telemetry channels, 0 to 59 are zero, ie they have failed. The status channels 60 to 67 are still working. The eclipses have now ended, and the satellite should be in continuous sunlight for the remainder of this year, and next year until early May. This should help the satellite to continue transmitting, although continuous sunlight can cause problems due to excessive temperatures. Power supply problems can be caused by poor earth pointing attitude, ie the sunlight illuminating the ends of the satellite, instead of the solar arrays. The watchdog timer appears to be operating on the 20 day cycle, ie. approximately ten days ON followed by 10 days OFF. It appears to be unaffected by problems of the on-board clock. However, poor solar attitude, and battery problems, may be combining to produce a low 14 volt line supply. This appears to be causing the beacon to switch OFF prematurely, and resets the watchdog timer cycle. It seems very likely that the battery is now unable to retain its charge, due to having endured around 100,000 partial charge/discharge cycles, always a problem with NiCad cells. When analogue telemetry was transmitted, it showed an unexplained current drain from the 14 volt line. This just adds to the present problems. The Beacon frequencies are - VHF 145.826 MHz. AFSK FM ASCII Telemetry UHF 435.025 MHz. OFF S-band 2401.5 MHz. OFF
AO-16 PACSat
Status: Semi-operational, the digipeater command is on and open for
APRS user
Broadcast Callsign: PACSAT-11
BBS: PACSAT-12
GO-32 TECHSAT-1B
Status: Operational
Roni, 4Z7DFC, reports:
Techsat1b BBS's is back ..but still having problems...its been off and on but seems to be on at the moment!
Uplink freq. ; 145.859, 145.890, 1269.800
More information of GO-32 can be found at:
http://www.iarc.org/techsat/techsat.html
NO-44 PCSAT 1
Status: Operational-in sunlight
PCSat is a 1200-baud APRS digipeater
http://pcsat.aprs.org
The APRS-equipped PCSat was built by midshipmen from the U.S. Naval Academ
PCsat (NO-44) Will be OPS NORMAL for 2 weeks starting 25 November 2005. PCsat was last operating OPS-NORMAL back in Jan/Feb 2005 for about a month until it returned to negative-power-budget mode on 16 Feb 2005. PCsat enters full sun every 2 months or so, but the energy budget is only high enough during the winter months for full receovery due to the better sun angles then on its +Z solar panel.
PCsat is using the same path as ARISS for convenience:
UNPROTO APRS VIA ARISS.
APRS mobiles in the USA will also see occasional packets from the Side B downlink on the USA APRS frequency of 144.39.
Please remember the rules for PCsat as published in the User Service Agreement, and that is "no unattended beacons via PCsat" to conserve power for those people trying live contacts
PCSAT2
UI Digipeater 145.825 MHz FM 1200 Baud AFSK TLM and PSK Downlink 435.275 MHz FM 1200 AFSK or PSK-31 PSK-31 Uplink 29.4 MHz PSK-31 Aux Downlink 437.975 MHz FM 1200 and 9600 Baud AFSK Voice Repeater Downlink 437.975MHz FM Deployed 3 August 2005
PCSAT2 shut down due to low voltage sometime after 1855z on 23 Nov due to high beta angle. Nothing was heard on the 2032z pass.
PCSAT2 is attached to the outside of ISS and only gets sun when ISS is maintaining an attitude with good sun angle on our location. The worst angle is on Saturday, 26 November 2005. Recovery is not expected until later next week when sun angles begin to improve.At that time it is hoped that joint ops with PCsat (NO-44) will be possible.
Last telemetry was showing the 16 volt Lithimu-Ion Battery down to 11.6 volts. Load current was the usual 313 mA and Solar current was 377 mA near local noon. Even with load sheding, and re-charge, the PCSat2 receivers will be on and the only power savings due to the shut-down will be the 60 mA of the TNC's. This is only 20% of the nominal load current and is insufficient to gain much ground until the entire system returns to better sun angles sometime after 1 Dec.
SSETI EXPRESS will be referred to as X053
The SSETI Express satellite launched at 06:52 UTC on Thursday, 27 October 2005 on board a Kosmos 3M launcher. One hundred and three minutes later, exactly on schedule, the first signals were heard form the groundstation in Aalborg, and two-way communication was established. In addition to several successful communication sessions with SSETI Express, two of the Cubesat passengers, UWE-1 and Xi-V, have been heard by amateur radio operators around the world as well as by their ground control stations.
The European Space Agency reported that on Thursday evening, 27 October SSETI Express went into a safe mode due to an undervoltage caused by battery charging problems.
Ncube-2
The Norwegian student satellite, Ncube-2 is an experimental spacecraft that was developed and built by students from four Norwegian universities. Data transmissions and digipeater use 1200 and 9600 bps.
Downlink 437.305 @ 1.5 watts. The first transmissions will be 20 minutes after separation from SSETI Express. The message: "DE LA1CUB NCUBE2 FF LA1CUB" will be sent in morse at 26 words per minute using a 2400Hz tone.
At the end of the message an unnumbered AX.25 packet is sent containing the string: DE LA1CUB NCUBE2 NORWEGIAN CUBESAT - WWW.NCUBE.NO . The AX.25 header will include Callsign: NCUBE, and Destination: EARTH.
UWE-1
The UWE-1 spacecraft is a registered Pico-satellite of Julius Maximilians Universitaet Wuerzburg, Germany. Its research aim is to test IP based telecommunications protocols in space.
Downlink 437.505 @ 1.0 watts. The communication protocol is AX25. The satellite will transmit for about 1 sec every 1 minute.
XI-V
The XI-V satellite is a Pico-satellite of the University of Tokyo, Intelligent Space Systems Laboratory.
Downlink (telemetry) 437.345 @ 0.8 watts sending AFSK AX.25, 1200bps
Downlink (beacon) 437.465 @ 0.08 watts CW repeating every 30 seconds
SUITSAT DELAY:
Frank Bauer, KA3HDO, AMSAT V.P. for Human Spaceflight reports that he has received information that the Russian EVA that will deploy SuitSat, which had been planned for December 8, has been delayed to late January/early February
POSAT NEWS:
During the AMSAT-UK Colloquium in late July it was announced that it was expected that the POSAT satellite would be reconfigured for amateur radio use.
We are pleased to confirm that this is still the plan but it is taking a little longer than expected to make the necessary non-technical arrangements.
The final operating configurations will take into account the various options discussed on the AMSAT-BB within the constraints imposed by the operating system on board and by the load on the command station.
As soon as we have more detailed information we will make a further announcement
AMSAT AWARDS
This week, congratulations go out to all of the following.
Sebastiano Trovato, IW9HBY, Satellite Communications Achievement Award #425
Jonathan Poulton, W0CK, Satellite Communications Achievement Award #426
Keith Austermiller, KB9STR, 51 on 51 Award #42
Brock Thomsen, W6GMT, 51 on 51 Award #43
Mike Herr, WA6ARA, 51 on 51 Award #44
STRAIGHT KEY NIGHT
Once again, AMSAT-NA is pleased to sponsor Straight Key Night on OSCAR for enjoyment by all radio amateurs.
OSCAR SKN 2006 will run for 24 hours, 0000-2400 UTC, on 1 January 2006. It's very simple: no rules, no scoring, and no need to send in a log. Just operate CW through any OSCAR satellite using a straight hand key, working as many other SKN participants as you can. Contacts via the moon (OSCAR Zero) count too.
As in past years, all participants are requested to nominate one of the operators they worked for "Best Fist" recognition. Your nominee need not have the best fist of those you heard, just of those you worked.
Please send all nominations to Ray Soifer via w2rs@arrl.net (Note the new address. My old address, w2rs@amsat.org, only works sporadically now due to ISP problems at this end.)
A list of those nominated will be published via the AMSAT News Service in early February, and in The AMSAT Journal.
CALL FOR PAPERS FOR THE SA AMSAT SATELLITE CONFERENCE 2006
The Southern Africa Amateur Radio Satellite Association (SA AMSAT) will be holding its annual satellite conference on 25 March 2006 at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. The key note speaker will be Prof Justin Jonas who will deliver a presentation on the SKA (Square Kilometre Array) project. Prof Takawira, head of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering will open the conference.
SA AMSAT is calling for proposals for papers on subjects covering the various aspects of satellite and weak signal communication including equipment and antenna design and construction.
Prospective authors should send a brief synopsis of their proposed paper to saamsat@intekom.co.za for consideration by the conference committee. The deadline is 30 January 2006. Proposals and submission may also be mailed to SA AMSAT, PO Box 90438, Garsfontein 0042, South Africa.
Authors will be advised by 6 February 2006 of acceptance of their papers. Final papers in Microsoft word format are required by 10 March 2006.
The morning sessions will be focussing on technologies while the afternoon sessions will include practical aspects of satellite communication for both experienced satellite enthusiast as well as newcomers.
Attendance to the conference is open to all satellite enthusiasts. Details of registration and fees will be announced during January 2006
"wishing all my readers a happy christmas and a lucky 2006 ,looking forward working you all on the birds-paul"
PAUL . 2E1EUB. (AMSAT UK 6236)