AMSAT UK MONTHLY SATELLITE REPORT: APRIL/MAY 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
Happy Birthday HAMSAT! 1 YEAR IN SPACE, and a big thank you AMSAT-India:
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.
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, S band still with qrm! and the software reload that upset the sked! but its all back to normal now.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
Echo Operating Schedule for: MAY
May 5 (by request for university satellite command station testing)
38k4 Digital Downlink, V/S, PBP BBS (Pacsat Broadcast Protocol BBS)
Uplink: 145.860 mhz FM, 9k6 PBP Digital
Downlink: 2401.200 mhz FM, 38k4 PBP Digital
May 8
FM Repeater, V/U, High Power Mode
Uplink: 145.920 mhz FM, 67 hz PL Tone
Downlink 435.300 mhz FM
May 15
FM Repeater, V/U
Uplink: 145.920 mhz FM, 67 hz PL Tone
Downlink: 435.300 mhz FM
FM Repeater, V/U (QRP only)
Uplink: 145.880 mhz FM
Downlink 435.300 mhz FM
May 22
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)
Uplink: 145.860 mhz FM, 9k6 PBP Digital
Downlink: 435.150 mhz FM, 9k6 PBP Digital
May 29
No Change
AO-51 Echo Mode Suggestion Email Address
The VP-Operations for Amsat-NA has established an Operations Group and email address for AO-51 satellite users to submit requests and ideas for the Experimenters Wednesday sessions. We will also take suggestions for the normal weeklong operational periods as well. Every member of the Operations Group will receive emails from this address. This is your chance, the amateur satellite user, to request from the AO-51 Operations Group the modes you are interested in seeing operated on the satellite during the weekly Wednesday sessions. Do not expect a reply to every email, as we will not have the time to respond to each one, but your input will be noted. The email address to send your requests or ideas to the Operations Group is:
ao51-modes@amsat.org
The AO-51 Operations Group is made up of Amsat Members who are also AO-51 users. The Operations Group works with the Command Team to create the monthly schedule for the satellite. 73 KE4AZN Amsat VP-Operations For AO-51 Operations Group (VE7WFG, KO4MA, VE3NPC, W0SL, KE4AZN)
INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION (ISS) - ARISS
Status: Operational
Current Mode: Packet, with the odd live voice qso!
Digipeater: Active
Russian callsigns RS0ISS,
USA callsign NA1SS
Packet station mailbox callsign RS0ISS-11
Packet station keyboard callsign RS0ISS-3
Completing their first month in space, Expedition 13 Commander Pavel Vinogradov and Flight Engineer Jeff Williams eased into normal station activities this week.
Most of the week was focused around routine maintenance and inspections. Williams completed checks of the refrigerated centrifuge, updated the inventory system and took samples of potable water for routine testing. He also changed the cooling water used in the U.S. spacesuits to ensure that the pumps work and to prevent microbial growth in the water tanks.
Vinogradov did similar jobs in the station's Russian segment, completing an inspection of the pressure hull in the Zvezda living quarters, performing maintenance of the ventilation system in Zvezda and testing emergency vacuum valves in the atmosphere purification system.
On Wednesday, the crew updated onboard laptop computers. Williams began to install new software on the medical equipment computer, but stopped to allow ground specialists to troubleshoot some difficulties he encountered. The problem was resolved and the task will be rescheduled for Williams. Vinogradov installed and tested new software on a Russian laptop.
Both crew members spent time packing unneeded gear inside the ISS Progress 20. The 20th Progress to visit the station is docked to the Pirs compartment and will be jettisoned from the complex in mid-June to burn up in the atmosphere. Russian flight controllers also fired the newer ISS Progress 21 cargo craft's engines for about six and a half minutes on Thursday to boost the station's altitude by about 1.7 miles. The Progress 21 is docked at the aft docking port of the Zvezda module.
Williams kicked off the first Expedition 13 session of the Pore Formation and Mobility Investigation this week. It is an experiment that studies bubbling that occurs in weightlessness as liquids cool and turn into solids. It provides insight into how materials solidify in space and may benefit similar processes used in industry on Earth. The experiment is performed in the microgravity science glovebox in the Destiny Lab.
The crew took time this week to reach out to more than 1,500 students, teachers and NASA personnel participating in a Space Day educational event at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The event was part of a larger program highlighting NASA Explorer Schools as well as a collaboration between NASA and America Online (AOL).
Upcoming School Contacts
Bob Jones High School in Madison Alabama (Jeff Williams' crew pick) has been approved for an ARISS contact. It has been scheduled for Monday, May 1 at 18:36 UTC via the telebridge station VK5ZAI in Australia. The audio from this contact will be fed into the EchoLink AMSAT (node 101 377) and JK1ZRW (node 277 208) conference servers. It will also be available on the IRLP Discovery reflector 9010.
Jaanimmarik School in Kuujjuaq, Quebec, Canada has been scheduled for a contact on Thursday, May 4 at 18:10 UTC via the telebridge station VK5ZAI in Australia. The audio from this contact will be fed into the EchoLink AMSAT (node 101 377) and JK1ZRW (node 277 208) conference servers. It will also be available on the IRLP Discovery reflector 9010.
School Committee Meeting Held
The ARISS Educational Outreach/School Selection Committee meeting was held on Thursday, April 13. Among the topics covered were lesson plans status, the Expedition 13 school crew picks and SuitSat QSL (confirmation) cards. The minutes have been posted on the ARISS web site. See: <http://www.rac.ca/ariss/arissschm.htm>
2006 Dayton Hamvention
The 2006 Dayton Hamvention will be held on May 19 - 21. AMSAT and ARRL will both set up exhibition booths at the event which is attended by 25,000 ham enthusiasts annually. ARISS Chairman Frank Bauer plans to attend and give a presentation, "ARISS & SuitSat: Current status & future opportunities," on Saturday May 20 at the AMSAT Forum. For more information on the event, see: <http://www.hamvention.org/>
ARISS International Meeting Held
The monthly ARISS International Team Meeting was held by teleconference on April 18. Agenda items discussed included program funding, SuitSat certificates and Slow Scan Television. The minutes have been posted to the ARISS web site: <http://www.rac.ca/ariss/arisstel26.htm>
The next ARISS International teleconference will be held on May 23.
ARISS Members to Participate in Space Day Events
The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center will celebrate Space Day on May 5. The center plans on a full day of activities with appearances by several astronauts. An AMSAT exhibition booth will be set up at the event which will include an ARISS display. Representatives will be available to inform students and the general public of the ARISS program.
Crew Debrief Plans
The U.S. team has been compiling questions for the crew debrief with Bill McArthur, KC5ACR. The meeting is expected to take place in late May.
Escola Americana do Rio de Janeiro Video
Marcos Pontes participated in an ARISS contact with students from the Escola Americana do Rio de Janeiro. Video clips of the event are now available. See:
<http://www.arissbr.org/globo.mpg>
<http://www.arissbr.org/tve.mpg>
<http://www.arissbr.org/sbt.mpg>
Jeff Williams Makes General Contacts
Astronaut Jeff Williams, KD5TVQ, has already made general radio contacts from on board the ISS. On April 21, ARRL ran an article, "ISS crew member gets early start on ham radio." See: <http://www.arrl.org/>
International Space Station Module to Arrive in Florida This Month
Columbus is embarking on a new journey to the United States. The European Space Agency's Columbus module, a laboratory facility destined for the International Space Station, is set to arrive at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla., from Bremen, Germany on May 30.
NASA will welcome Columbus during a ceremony Friday, June 2, at 10 a.m. EDT at Kennedy's Space Station Processing Facility. Media are invited. Video highlights will air on the NASA TV Video File on the Media Channel on the afternoon of June 2.
The Columbus module is the European Space Agency's primary contribution to the International Space Station. The module will be used to support a variety of life, physical and materials science experiments. At Kennedy, it will be processed for launch on a future space shuttle mission.
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.?
this last week the mode A transponder has been on with some very strong down link signals heard ,and asking the question is the mode timer back on? I worked SV1BS 5/5 on mode A ! I was trying a vert 10m loop and preamp in a bush!
AO-27 AMRAD *******
Status:semi Operational( off!!!!)
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, A new sked has been uploaded to ao27 ,and since then the bird has not really been heard? at this pointI ’m still trying to find out more information.
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'.
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
I have recently updated the software package for capturing OSCAR-11 telemetry, UCAP.ZIP. The update includes two new programs. UTCAP, which features an automatic time stamp, to aid unattended monitoring; and TIME_DIFF which eases the task of calculating clock errors. The software can be downloaded from my website - www.users.zetnet.co.uk/clivew/ During the period 26 March to 16 April 2006 the VHF beacon on 145.826 MHz. has been heard from 04 April to 14 April. Signals have not been as strong as during the previous ten day period, although they were usually decoded without difficulty. However, on one high elevation pass (11 April), the signals couldn't be detected until the middle of the pass, and then they were too weak to decode. If the current mode of operation continues, the beacon should next switch ON around 25 April 2006. The on-board clock continues to show a very large accumulated error. On March it was 22.31086 days slow. The stability of the clock, mentioned in the last report has not been maintained. It lost 2.2 hours during the last OFF period, and 1.8 hours during the transmission period. The observations of clock errors suggest 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 05 May, when eclipses will start again. This coincides with the time when the next ON period is due to finish. If the satellite behaves in the same way as it did last year, the beacon may only be heard for very short times, during the eclipse season, which ends around 05 August 2006. The watchdog timer now appears to have resumed operation on the 20 day cycle. During the last three months the ON/OFF times have been very consistent, and many observations show this to be 20.7 days, ie. 10.3 days ON followed by 10.4 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. I am indebted to Bob G4VRC and Gustavo LW2DTZ for their reception reports. They have reported mixed signals from the VHF beacon. Many thanks for those reports. 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 for part of the month ,but seams back now.
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
STATUS: PCSAT2 was switched back to UHF downlink for both Packet and PSK-31/CW transponder on 28 March. This concluded over 2 weeks joint operations on its VHF downlink with PCSAT-1 which awoke from hybernation on 8 March .
AMSAT-UK will be holding their 21st International Space Colloquium
at the University of Surrey, Guildford, England on the 28th - 30th July. The detailed programme will be published on the web site at <http://www.uk.amsat.org/Colloquium/programme/default.php> There will be guided tours of the Surrey Space Centre at the University with the satellite mission control centre and the satellite assembly facility. These tours are always popular and they provide a unique opportunity to see satellites in various stages of construction. On Friday in addition to the main lecture programme there will be a special "Beginners Session" to show newcomers how to use the many Amateur Satellites that are available. SSTL/UoS Space Centre students will be holding a poster exhibition on Friday. About a dozen post graduate students will be present with posters and some exhibits, and they will explaining the projects they are working on. This Exhibition will take place on Friday afternoon approximately 5pm to 6pm. The RSGB GB4FUN van will be present throughout the event to allow visitors to work the satellites. The event is open to all Amateurs and SWL's. Either Day passes costing £18:00 (includes buffet lunch) or full packages comprising overnight accommodation and meals at the University are available. For further details see the AMSAT-UK web site at http://www.uk.amsat.org.
Astronaut Bill McArthur Thank You Guestbook
Your help is needed!!
Astronaut Bill McArthur was very active on ham radio during his 6-month mission aboard the ISS. McArthur enjoyed amateur radio and gave many amateurs the chance to talk with an astronaut on the Space Station.
Cor, PD0RKC, is making a CDROM for McArthur with MP3 audio files from the many amateur radio contacts that he made during his mission. Pictures of operators will also be included.
If you have audio files for this CDROM or you know of web sites where Bill McArthur (NA1SS) audio files - including school contact files - can be found, please send them to: wegaman@gmail.com
The CDROM will be delivered to Bill McArthur via Kenneth Ransom, N5VHO (NASA JSC.)
To sign the guestbook visit: <http://www.pd0rkc.com/>
Best Satellite DX for Home Microwave Station
Luis, CT1DMK has detected Voyager 1 on 8420.4286 MHz (~8 GHz) while it is about 98 Astronomical Units from earth. This is 3 times further away from Earth than Pluto at approximately 14698 million Km.
Since this signal is well below the noise floor of a conventional receiver Luis employed a combination of his homebrew 8 GHz receiver design used with his 5.6 meter dish along with software for digital signal processing.
Luis said, "I had to acquire and integrate spectrograms for a long time. I did several acquisition periods of 15 minutes (900 seconds). My receiver is operated at fixed frequency and the Doppler variation were corrected by skewing successive spectrograms in software. Positive identification Voyager's signal arises from the fact that signal is only visible for the right skew amount that corresponds to the Doppler variation as predicted by the relative velocity calculation."
Luis' has recorded additional success at 8 GHz by receiving these Deep Space Network spacecraft:
· Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in orbit around Mars on 8.438444 GHz at a
distance of 243 million Km from earth.
· Mars Express on 8.420432 GHz also at a distance of 243 million Km from earth.
· Mars Odyssey on 8.406852 GHz at 243 million Km from earth.
· Rosetta on 8.421790 GHz 'en route' to the comet 67P, at a distance of 389 million Km from earth.
· New Horizon Pluto Charon on 8.4378947 GHz while en-route to Pluto but still relatively close to earth at about 104 million Km from earth.
Details of Luis' operations can be found on-line at:
<http://w3ref.cfn.ist.utl.pt/cupido/dsn.html>
CQ SAT FROM IO86,76,87
2E1EUB will be active as 2M1EUB/P from 27.May.06 ,for 7 days from the Cairngorms National Park, Royal Deeside, N.E Scotland ,on all sats and modes! and some hf......yes I’m driving 400miles north to play on the sats! mad?....i will be doing some back pack work as well as base, so may be a little qsb at times!! BUT PLEASE CALL ME, as I may me in the middle of no where . QSL details via qrz.com
PAUL . 2E1EUB. (AMSAT UK 6236)