AMSAT UK MONTHLY SATELLITE REPORT: February 2006
As compiled by PAUL 2E1EUB.Inclusions to be included in this monthly 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 on the last sunday of each month around 10.00 local time. The next 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, Ive 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.
HAMSAT frequencies: ------------------- Indian transponder: Uplink : 435.225MHz to 435.275MHz LSB/CW Downlink: 145.875MHz to 145.925MHz USB/CW Beacon : 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
February 2006 AO-51 (AMSAT Echo) Schedule
February Schedule
Feb 1
FM Repeater, V/U
Uplink: 145.920 mhz FM, 67 hz PL Tone
Downlink 435.300 mhz FM
9k6 Digital, V/U, PBP BBS (Pacsat Broadcast Protocol BBS)
TLM Data Active, Digipeater ON
Uplink: 145.860 mhz FM, 9k6 PBP Digital
Downlink: 435.150 mhz FM, 9k6 PBP Digital
Feb 6
FM Repeater, V/S
Uplink: 145.920 mhz FM, No PL Tone
Downlink 2401.200 mhz FM
Feb 13
QRP FM Repeater, V/U
Uplink: 145.880 mhz FM, no PL Tone
Downlink 435.150 mhz FM
FM Repeater, V/U
Uplink: 145.920 mhz FM, 67 hz PL Tone
Downlink 435.300 mhz FM
Feb 20
9k6 Digital, V/U, High Power, PBP BBS (Pacsat Broadcast Protocol BBS)
TLM Data Active, Digipeater ON
Uplink: 145.860 mhz FM, 9k6 PBP Digital
Downlink: 435.150 mhz FM, 9k6 PBP Digital
Digipeater will be Turned ON
Feb 27
FM Repeater, V/U
Uplink: 145.920 mhz FM, 67 hz PL Tone
Downlink 435.300 mhz FM
9k6 Digital, V/U, PBP BBS (Pacsat Broadcast Protocol BBS)
TLM Data Active
Uplink: 145.860 mhz FM, 9k6 PBP Digital
Downlink: 435.150 mhz FM, 9k6 PBP Digital
INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION (ISS) - ARISS
Status: Operational
Current Mode: Packet
Digipeater: off
Russian callsigns RS0ISS, RZ3DZR
USA callsign NA1SS
Packet station mailbox callsign RS0ISS-11
Packet station keyboard callsign RS0ISS-3
Reminder: The ARISS packet mode aboard the ISS has been turned OFF for the duration of SuitSat project. Please do not transmit any packet or voice data on the 145.990 MHz SuitSat downlink frequency.
Expedition 12 Commander Bill McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev spent the weekend restoring the station to its normal layout after the spacewalk.
They dried their spacesuits to be ready for future spacewalks and reconfigured station systems. The crew had off-duty time on Monday and Tuesday, and they completed post-spacewalk conferences with flight controllers and engineers.
Other work included standard ground communications checks with sites at White Sands, N.M., and Wallops Island, Va.
Tuesday, McArthur transmitted a narrated video tour of the station, offering viewers a look at the interior, equipment and stowed supplies.
On Wednesday, Tokarev prepared the Progress cargo spacecraft docked to the station's Pirs Docking Compartment for a thruster test. Tokarev checked the Progress's attachments for leaks to ensure they were properly sealed.
The Progress thrusters will be used to reboost the station's altitude on Saturday.
This test will be the first time thrusters of a Progress docked to Pirs are used for a reboost.
The station's Elektron oxygen generator was reactivated yesterday. The unit was shut down for the spacewalk, and the station used oxygen from tanks in the Progress.
Today, McArthur gathered data for the Foot/Ground Reaction Forces During Spaceflight experiment. It's designed to help develop ways to counteract lower body muscle and bone loss during long spaceflights.
He wore cycling tights outfitted with 20 sensors, which measure hip, leg and ankle joint angles and lower extremity pressures during the experiment. It's conducted on four separate days evenly spaced through the six-month mission.
For information about crew activities, future launch dates and station sighting opportunities on the Web, visit:
<http://www.nasa.gov/station>
Florida School Contact Successful
On Thursday, February 2, Bill McArthur, KC5ACR, answered 13 questions posed to him by 13 Timber Creek High School students in Orlando, Florida. Sarah Longino, longtime friend of McArthur’s, was the coordinating teacher for the contact. Approximately 100 students, teachers, and parents gathered for the event. John Winn, Commissioner of Education for the state of Florida, was also present. Among the media covering the event were the Orlando Sentinel, CBS affiliate WKMG, Orange County Public Schools Public Relations office, East Orlando Sun, and the Timber Creek newspaper and television station. The Orlando Sentinel article, “Biology students connect with space station,” may be viewed on their website: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/custom/space/orl-spacestation0306feb03,0,4677459.story?coll=orl-home-headlines
Echolink and IRLP were both used for the event. Echolink had 32 connections from the following 9 countries: USA, Japan, Germany, Australia, Korea, Russia, Thailand, Turkey, and the UK. IRLP had 10 connecting nodes from the U.K., U.S.A., Canada, Japan, and Australia.
Dale High School in Dale, Oklahoma completed an ARISS contact on Tuesday, February 7 at 14:56 UTC.
E.L. DeGolyer Elementary School in Dallas, Texas completed an ARISS contact on Tuesday, February 7 at 16:32 UTC.
Children at Pine Ridge Middle School in Naples, Florida completed an ARISS contact on February 8 at 15:24 UTC. The contact included students from neighboring Immokalee Middle School.
Upcoming School Contacts
Cosmos Centre Charleville in Charleville, Australia has been approved for an ARISS contact. It is planned for Friday, February 17 at 07:34 UTC via the telebridge station WH6PN in Hawaii. The audio from this contact will be available on the EchoLink AMSAT (node 101 377) and the JK1ZEW (node 277 208) conference rooms. It is expected to be fed into the 9010 IRLP Discovery Reflector as well. The event will be webcast.
To join the event:
URL: https://e-meetings.mci.com/
CONFERENCE NUMBER: 1642340
PASSCODE: SPACE STATIO
The Discover Engineering Family Day event, which will be held at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, February 18, has been scheduled for a contact at 16:04 UTC. The telebridge station WH6PN in Hawaii will assist in the contact. The audio will be available on the EchoLink AMSAT (node 101 377) and the JK1ZEW (node 277 208) conference rooms. It is also expected to be fed into the 9010 IRLP Discovery Reflector. The event will be webcast.
To join the event:
URL: https://e-meetings.mci.com/
CONFERENCE NUMBER: 1642601
PASSCODE: SPACE STATIO
ARISS International Meeting Held
The monthly ARISS International Team meeting was held on January 24. SuitSat, training of the next taxi flight crew member, Marcos Pontes and the Columbus Module were discussed. Minutes have been posted to the ARISS website. See: http://www.rac.ca/ariss/arisstel23.htm.
BILL REACHES 100 PLUS DXCC FROM ISS
Bill was able to work a few more stations prior to and just after the space walk which deployed SuitSat-1 and now has exceeded the 100 mark.
The entities worked since the last report are Brunei (V8), Chagos Is. (VQ9), Falkland Is. (VP8), Malaysia, E. (9M6), Reunion (FR), Tajikistan (EY) and Trinidad & Tobago (9Y-9Z). The complete list of DXCC entities worked now stands at 102 countries worked from space.
This past week also had three school contacts on Cmdr. Bill McArthur's schedule. By the end of the last contact, Bill had made his 24th successful contact. That contact breaks the previous record of 23 set by Leroy Chiao during Expedition 10.
The contact record for an expedition was also broken this week and stands at 25 since Valery Tokarev also had a school contact with students in Russia earlier in the expedition.
With several weeks still left for Expedition 12, the final records have yet to be established.
Congratulations Bill and keep it up!
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.?
ao7 seems to be changing its trend its spent a lot of time in mode A this month...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 .....I also reported working twice my old friend from ao10 and fo20 days,KL7BK TOM IN ALASKA and many more! And now the bird is in full sun light its really great! I think its the best sat we have in operation today and its 30 years old!
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, I’ve used ao27 in the last few days and worked dx on the bird and it sounds great, 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: GB1CPB K1HTJ KB2M
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:
UO-11 OSCAR-11…semi operational
24 January 2006
Users of OSCAR-11 may be interested in recent additions to my website.
Firstly UCAP, this is a simple OSCAR-11 capture program for Windows, and
may be used instead of CTERM. It features an accurate time stamp facility,
which is useful for checking the satellite's real time clock.
Secondly, the news and telemetry archives have been updated to include all
the 2005 data. The URL is www.users.zetnet.co.uk/clivew
During the period 14 December 2005 to 23 January 2006 the VHF beacon on
145.826 MHz. has been heard from 23 to 31 December and from 11 to 21
January.
Signals during the December passes were very variable. Sometimes received
at good strength, at other times they were inaudible , even with the BFO
switched ON (ie. in CW mode). Signals during the January passes tended to
be much stronger, and good copy was obtained on most passes.
The on-board clock continues to accumulate a very large error. On 21
January it was 22.14 days slow, having lost 0.33 days (8 hours) since 09
December. However, the rate of change of clock error appears to vary
between zero and half an hour per day, over short periods. The greatest
changes seem to correspond with poor signals, which suggests that the clock
may slow or stop when the battery voltage is low.
All the analogue telemetry channels, 0 to 59 are zero, ie they have
failed. The status channels 60 to 67 are still working.
The satellite is now in continuous sunlight until around 06 May, when
eclipses will start again. 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
pointing attitude, ie the sunlight illuminating the ends of the satellite,
instead of the solar arrays.
The watchdog timer now appears to have resumed operation on the 20 day
cycle, ie. approximately ten days ON followed by 10 days OFF. However, at
any time, poor solar attitude, and battery problems, may result in a low 14
volt line supply, which may cause the beacon to switch OFF prematurely, and
reset the watchdog timer cycle.
The Beacon frequencies are -
VHF 145.826 MHz. AFSK FM ASCII Telemetry
UHF 435.025 MHz. OFF
S-band 2401.5 MHz. OFF
Listeners to OSCAR-11 may be interested in visiting my website which
contains an archive of news & telemetry data. It also contains details
about using a soundcard or hardware demodulators for data capture. There
is software for capturing data, and decoding ASCII telemetry. The URL is
www.users.zetnet.co.uk/clivew/
If you place this bulletin on a terrestrial packet network, please
use the bulletin identifier $BID:U2RPT117.CWV, to prevent duplication.
73 Clive G3CWV g3cwv@amsat.org
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...
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
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
AMSAT-UK ANNOUNCE NEW SATELLITE TRANSPONDER PROJECT
In December 2005 two AMSAT-UK members were invited to attend a SSETI
Workshop at the ESA ESTEC facility in the Netherlands. This workshop, which lasted a week, had over eighty students in attendance from more than twenty universities around Europe.
The project that was under discussion was the planned SSETI ESEO
satellite. This bird "ESEO -European Student Earth Orbiter" has been in planning
for several years but, after the launch of SSETI Express last year, ESEO is
now the current project.The special interest to radio amateurs is that this satellite is
intended to launch into a Geostationary Transfer Orbit similar to the initial orbit
of AO40 and the type of orbit also planned for Eagle and P3E.
The involvement of the AMSAT-UK team with the project was confirmed at
The Workshop and indeed the team were also elected as "Honorary Members "
of the SSETI Association in honour of the work done to support the previous
SSETI Express project.
The prime communications system for ESEO is intended to be a package
Being developed by the University of Wroclaw in Poland that will operate on
the "commercial" S-Band frequencies used for spacecraft. It will provide
all the usual telecommand and telemetry facilities and use the standard ESA
CCSDS packet communication techniques.
ESEO also has a need for a redundant system - one that can operate if
the main one fails and also work satisfactorily if/when the spacecraft is
not in its intended earth-pointing mode. This is where we are planning to
assist them. The current project details call for a unit that will receive
telecommands from earth on UHF (435MHz), transfer those to the OBDH via
a CAN bus and transmit telemetry and mission data to the ground on our
S-BAND (2.4GHz). We are planning to use omni-directional antenna systems so
the data rate will necessarily be quite low although we are planning on an
output power of approx 9 watts.
It is likely that the student experiments will be completed within a few weeks/months from launch after which time it could become available as a linear U/S mode transponder.
Visualise if you will, a rectangular 120kg spacecraft in GTO, with deployable and steerable solar arrays, a nitrogen gas propulsion system, with two UHF canted monopoles on opposite ends of the spacecraft as receive antennas, a 50 kHz linear transponder with a sensitivity of -119dBm for a 6dB S/N in the 50 kHz B/W with a 40dB dynamic range, with a STELLA option and switchable 3 watt or 9 watt S-Band amplifiers feeding two turnstiles or quadrilifar helixes. As well as the transponder, the unit will also
provide 400 bps BPSK telemetry in AO40 format.
Obviously we cannot expect the transponded signals on the ground to be as
strong as we enjoyed from AO40 but we are, of course, not building a complete satellite just for our own use!
The AMSAT-UK team (G4DDK, G7OCD, G6LVB, G0MRF, & G3VZV), who were
responsible for the S-Band transmitter on Express, have committed to work on
this new, much larger, project and current plans are based upon a possible
launch towards the end of 2008.
It must be stated that this new opportunity to participate in this new venture is very much as a result of the impressive support that the amateur fraternity around the world gave to the SSETI Express project - so thank you and congratulations!
We can also report the good news that a student team from the Technical University of Budapest has been added to the SSETI programme to work on the on-board power systems. This team is under the leadership of Dr. Andras (Bandi) Gschwindt, HA5WH, who has masterminded the similar systems on AO10, AO13 and AO40 - all of which have proven to be extremely successful.
More news will be published as soon as it becomes available through all the usual channels. At the time of writing the SSETI ESEO webpages are not completely up-to-date but they are presently being updated so please check www.sseti.org
SuitSat Readies for Operationon 145.990 mhz
SuitSat Status 4 February
Paraphrasing Mark Twain....the demise of SuitSat-1 is highly exaggerated!!
It is now nearly 24 hours since the successful deployment of the SuitSat-1 experiment. These past 24 hours have been a wild ride of emotions...tremendous highs...deep lows when people reported no signals and said SuitSat-1 was dead and now....some optimism.
It is absolutely clear that SuitSat-1 is alive. It was successfully turned on by the ISS crew prior to deploy and the timing, micro-controller functions and audio appear to be operating nominally. The prime issue appears to be an extremely weak signal.
I have heard several recordings and have monitored two passes today. When the signal is above the noise level, you can clearly hear partials of the student voices, the station ID and the SSTV signal. One of the complicating factors in reception is the very deep fades that occur due to the spin of SuitSat.,,,,,I CAN CONFIRM THIS AS I HAVE DEARD THIS MY SELF! (2E1EUB)
Based on the information we know thus far, one can narrow down the issue to the antenna, the feedline, the transmitter output power and/or any of the connections in between. Through your help, we would like to narrow down the issue further and also gather some internal telemetry from the Suit.
If the transmitter is running at full power, we would expect the Suit to end operations in the next few days to a week. If it is not, then it will operate much longer. Since we do not know how long this experiment will last, we ask for those with powerful receive stations to listen for Suitsat---especially during direct overhead passes when the Suit is closest to your area. If you can record these passes and send the audio to us, it would be most appreciated. We will continue to be optimistic that this issue will right itself before the batteries are depleted. So please KEEP LISTENING!
Based on what we have learned, we would like to provide the following guidelines to save you time and facilitate gathering information:
SuitSat QSL Information
Those who hear SuitSat should send their signal reports with a large (9x12 inch) self-addressed stamped envelope to one of the addresses listed below:
· Europe: F1MOJ - Mr CANDEBAT Christophe, SuitSat Europe QSL Manager, 7 Rue Roger Bernard, 30470 AIMARGUES FRANCE
SuitSat-1 is AMSAT-OSCAR-54
SuitSat-1 has been given an Orbiting Satellites Carrying Amateur Radio
(OSCAR) number. It has been denoted AMSAT-OSCAR-54.
P3E NEWS:
I have informed the owner of the NASA Space Calendar, that the published "March 2006" launch date for P3-E is not correct. Unfortunately this mis-leading information is still there. In the meantime the solar generator for P3-E was finished and delivered to our Integration Laboratory in Marburg. 5 panels (each Pmax = 35W) were equipped with Si cells and 2 panels (each Pmax = 49W) with GaAs cells. One panel is therefore in reserve. For the P3-E solar panels we use for the first time a new material: Sandwich layers of aluminium honeycomb material and a surface layer from glass fibre/epoxy resin in 6mm strength. The reason for this is, that the special honey honeycomb material used in former times was only available when purchased in enormous quantities and to exorbitant prices. By installing inserts with an electrically conducting adhesive, the electrical conductivity is secured by the aluminium structure of the honeycomb material. Additionally thick cover glasses were attached, in order to protect the solar cells against the rough conditions in space. For material and expenditure for the production of the panels we had to pay an amount in the order of six digits of Euros . Further important activities concerned the assembly of the earth and sun sensors, qualifications of the separation spring, final work on the assembly of the solar panels, manufacturing the clamp band for the separation system, preparing for building the wiring harness and various technical meetings to finish the IHU-3 software and designing the new SDX. I have to apologize that our Web pages are a little bit outdated. But as mentioned in my previous eMail, the transfer of contents to our new CMS system takes somewhat longer than hoped and more time is needed. On the other hand, we currently have to concentrate our efforts to finishing P3-E. 73s Peter Guelzow, DB2OS President AMSAT-DL Project Leader P3-E
THIS MONTHS AMSAT AWARDS:
Bruce, KK5DO, AMSAT Director Contests and Awards reports this week congratulations go out to all of the following.
John Choo VE7JRX Satellite Communicators Club Award
Bill Greene VE7WFG Satellite Communicators Club Award
Zachary Schrempp KE7EYQ Satellite Communicators Club Award
Masahiro Myoga N3LQ Satellite Communicators Club Award
Jack Burris K6JEB Satellite Communicators Club Award
Bill Ward GM0ICF Satellite Communications Achievement Award #428
Eric Christensen KF4OTN Satellite Communications Achievement Award #429
Zachary Schrempp KE7EYQ South Africa Communication Achievement Award #US93
Robert Fairfield K7RQN South Africa Communication Achievement Award #US94
Shigekazu Yoshikawa JE2TLZ 51 on 51 Award #61
Andrzej Laczmanski SP1WSR 51 on 51 Award #62
To see all the awards visit http://www.amsat.org./
PAUL . 2E1EUB. (AMSAT UK 6236)