September 2006 - AMSAT-BB - mailman.amsat.org

Fw: ARISS weekly report to NASA
by i8cvs 25 Sep '06

25 Sep '06

Hi Peter DB2OS and All Just received now additional news from Perry Klein W3PK about the ARISS activities. 73" de i8CVS Domenico ----- Original Message ----- From: "Perry Klein" <perryklein(a)earthlink.net> To: <i8cvs(a)amsat.org> Sent: Monday, September 25, 2006 7:52 PM Subject: ARISS weekly report to NASA Dom - Here is today's weekly status report to NASA of ARISS activities in the past week. 73, Perry, W3PK ==================================================== ARISS Status September 25, 2006 1. Swiss School Contact Successful Thomas Reiter, DF4TR, spoke with students from the Gymnase Intercantonal de la Broye at the Musee de l'aviation militaire in Payerne, Switzerland on Friday, September 22. Eight students' questions were answered as 50 people gathered around the radio. Another 300 witnessed the contact in the hall where the event was transmitted on screen by amateur television (ATV). Media coverage included newspapers and television. 2. George Washington University Contact Successful Space visitor Anousheh Ansari participated in a contact with her alma mater, George Washington University (GWU) in Washington, D.C. on Friday, September 22. As Ansari was Japanese participant, Dice-K Enomoto's back up on the Soyuz flight, she did not have time to get her U.S. license. Jeff Williams, KD5TVQ, acted as the control operator during the contact. Students from several area schools participated in the event: Eastern Middle School, Silver Spring, Md. (a NASA Explorer School); School Without Walls Senior High School, Washington, D.C.; Stevens Elementary School, Washington, D.C.; and Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, Alexandria, Va. Six students were able to have their questions answered. The event was held in the GWU Marvin Center amphitheater where approximately 125 people gathered. Television stations Fox TV 5, ABC WJLA 7 and news channel 8 provided coverage of the GWU ARISS contact as did the Washington Post and some other local papers. See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/22/AR2006092201 496.html Photos of the event may be viewed on: http://artemis.crosslink.net/~pk/AMSAT/AMSAT-ARISS-9-22-06/ The contact video may be seen here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1789656846413123353 The university posted a press release of the event. http://my.gwu.edu/mod/calendar/default.cfm?event_id=9660&option=view&day=09/ 22/06 3. ARISS - Illinois Contact, a Success Astronaut Jeff Williams, KD5TVQ, had his own contact scheduled for September 22 with his crew-pick school, Crete-Monee Intermediate Center in Crete, Illinois. Nineteen students asked one question each as the entire student body of 800 children looked on. The Kankakee Amateur Radio Society provided streaming audio via W9AZ 146.94 repeater on http://www.w9az.com. Two television channels, 7 and 2 covered the event. Crete's local newspaper, The Star, posted an online article: http://www.starnewspapers.com/star/spnews/cup/24-cup3.htm 4. Upcoming School Contacts The ARISS team continues to work on scheduling the Expedition 14 school contacts. 5. ISS Makes General Contacts Besides making the scheduled ARISS school contact with George Washington University, Anousheh Ansari has been making general contacts with stations in the USA and Canada using the callsign RS0ISS. News of her contacts has already hit the media. See: http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=852560db-b97c-4565-afa f-01a1ca1e4fce&k=82481 6. ARRL Article Covers Hams Onboard ISS ARRL ran a story on the shuttle astronauts visiting the ISS. The amateur radio payload PCSAT2 was picked up during an EVA and returned to Earth. "Five Radio Amateurs Now Aboard ISS; Power Upgrade, PCSat2 Retrieval Set" may be viewed on: http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2006/09/11/101/?nc=1 7. ARRL Covers Expedition 14 Launch ARRL ran an article on the launch of the Expedition 14 crew. The story, entitled, "Shift Change: New Two-Ham Crew, First Female Civilian Visitor on Way to ISS" may be found at: http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2006/09/18/102/?nc=1 8. ARRL Press Release on Three ARISS Contacts On Friday, September 22, three ARISS contacts were performed by three different people onboard the ISS. "ARISS Plans Triple Header of Ham Radio School Contacts" may be viewed on: http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2006/09/21/100/?nc=1

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Re: Why do the amsats get more and more complex?
by Rick Hambly (W2GPS) 25 Sep '06

25 Sep '06

Jason, I can easily imagine how you may have come to the conclusion by listening to some people on amsat-bb that satellites are becoming bigger, more complex and more expensive while not providing you with better services. You might even think that AMSAT officials are not listening. Nothing could be further from the truth. P3E is designed to provide services similar to AO-13 in an effort to make it smaller, cheaper and simpler than AO-40. It also will carry experiments essential to the future P5A mission to Mars. This is a very reasonable increase in complexity for a good purpose. Eagle is intended to be a series of satellites. Eagle has been designed to be smaller, lighter and cheaper than AO-40. Its shape was designed to optimize a low inclination orbit like the one AO-40 attained. This unintended orbit turned out to be very attractive to many users and it provides for orbit stability and much less propulsion, further reducing mission risk. It also carries fewer payloads and these payloads have been specifically chosen to get the best performance for the maximum number of users. Both P3E and Eagle have chosen Software Defined Transponders (SDXs) to implement the "linear transponder" functions for many reasons. Among these are efficiency, stability, linearity, cost, in-flight performance improvement, the ability to simultaneously share the transponder with other modes (Packet, APRS, SMS are possible examples), and the ability to change performance parameters in flight. This choice does not make the satellite bigger, more expensive, or less useful, etc. In fact, it is just the opposite. Eagle will carry a payload that it is hoped will revolutionize Amateur Satellite communications and Ham Radio as a whole. Initially called C-C Rider, I will call it the Advanced Communications Package (ACP) because it no longer uses C-band for both uplink and downlink. This package will be designed to bring satellites and DX to you and to many other Hams who have never been able to use a satellite or operate DX before. This is because the ground station antenna will be small, power levels reasonable, many modes will be supported (from Voice and CW to Video and data communications), the ground station will be affordable and the signal quality will be superior. Much of this is accomplished through the use of digital techniques so it will require all new equipment on the ground. AMSAT will design the ground station equipment and publish everything so you can buy it, copy it, sell it, or build it. The Eagle band plan has been the subject of much discussion, of late. Eagle is still in the design phase and the band plan is not finalized, so don't worry just yet. The confusion was the result of the ACP (C-C Rider) team realizing that they had to find another band for the uplink. They chose S-band for some good reasons but that recommendation is under review by the whole Eagle team and is not yet final. There should be a final announcement at the AMSAT Symposium in a few weeks. I encourage everyone to come to the Symposium and meet your AMSAT officials and learn what is really happening in AMSAT. There is much more I could say but, in summary, the new satellites are getting better in every way compared to the old ones. The future is bright and we need your support and involvement to achieve these goals. Rick W2GPS AMSAT President Subject: [amsat-bb] Why do the amsats get more and more complex? From: Jason White <jason@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2006 10:48:44 -0400 ---------------------------------------------------------- This is intended to be an honest question that I've wanted to ask, but I don't want to spark controversy or long threads that monopolize the reflector. I have a feeling this could go either way, so I'm just asking politely that the thread not go that way! It's not my intent. Anyway, I'm just curious why it seems that every new satellite project proposed seems to be bigger and more complex than the last? I keep hearing about exotic modes and uplink/downlink bands for P3E. Software defined transceivers, etc. etc. and what it looks like to me are more and more failure points. I understand the need to push the limits of technology as a justification for our very existence, but personally I feel like the designs are overly complicated and highly priced. I'm not ready to switch my earth station to SDRs, for instance.. I'm dubious about putting one into orbit.. then again, I'm not skilled enough to make those sorts of decisions. What I'm getting at is that Oscar 7 proved how reliable older technology can be.. For the price of one of the phase 3 birds it seems like several Mode B linear transponder sats could be put up, or a few more FM sats. I personally would much rather see a modest mode B sat in AO-40s intended orbital pattern than to try to wrangle parts for microwave. Did it get too easy for people or something? Wouldn't it be better to separate out some of the more experimental stuff from the old standbys? That way a failure of one whole sat would still leave something usable for the same money spent. My vote would be to piggyback a completely independent analog satellite onto P3E "just in case". Like I said, please, I'm looking for a real, thought out response. I didn't write the above to be a critique or to troll or anything like that, I am just curious because it seems to me, as an outside observer, that after the failure of AO-40 the direction was to go bigger and even more complicated, which left me cold considering what I had done at my station to work AO-40. Even when AO-40 was up I felt it was very odd that time and money were spent on components and systems that were never used (did the solar panels ever deploy?) Yes, I know the sat was damaged, and that explains a good bit of it, but it still felt like some things were wasted. Emphasis on "felt".. I couldn't know the real process that resulted in the decisions made. If someone could help me understand why the direction is the way it is maybe I could get excited about the bigger sats, but I think you get more "bang for the buck" with the smaller less complicated birds. My favorite so far is PCSat I. Mostly off the shelf hardware and I had a very easy time digipeating APRS through it. One of those in an elliptical orbit would be a hoot! 73s, Jason - N1XBP P.S. - One last plea, this isn't a troll! I'm worried people will think it is. _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB(a)amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb

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HITSAT 1639 UTC
by Mike Rupprecht 25 Sep '06

25 Sep '06

AOS 1639 UTC Sep 25 (JN49lr) ... still no signal :-( LOS 1649 UTC 73, Mike DK3WN

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Re: Anousheh Ansari on Ham Radio
by M0ZLB 25 Sep '06

25 Sep '06

Hi Drew, This morning she was using NA1SS call! Does 3rd party traffic rules spread as far as Iran? David M0ZLB -----Original Message----- From: Andrew Glasbrenner [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, September 25, 2006 9:54 PM To: M0ZLB; amsat-bb(a)amsat.org Subject: Re: [amsat-bb] Re: Anousheh Ansari on Ham Radio She doesn't have a license of her own, so when using the RS0ISS call she has to observe Russian third party traffic rules. Or at least that's what I read somewhere ;-) 73, Drew KO4MA AMSAT LM 2332 ----- Original Message ----- From: "M0ZLB" <m0zlb(a)btinternet.com> To: <amsat-bb(a)amsat.org> Sent: Monday, September 25, 2006 4:28 PM Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: Anousheh Ansari on Ham Radio > Hi Luc, > > Nice picture, nothing else there! > > Anyway, what I was trying to ascertain was that just before she went up > there was an article somewhere that said that she was only going to be > making contacts with US stations! I just wondered why the selectivity! At > 7.00am this morning she was calling for an Iranian station so she was > certainly over Europe and was on the radio! > > Just curious! > > David > M0ZLB/KG4ZLB > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: amsat-bb-bounces(a)amsat.org [mailto:[email protected]] On > Behalf Of Luc Leblanc VE2DWE > Sent: Monday, September 25, 2006 9:01 PM > To: AMSAT-BB(a)amsat.org > Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: Anousheh Ansari on Ham Radio > > On 25 Sep 2006 at 20:31, M0ZLB wrote: > >> I wonder if there is any reason why Anousheh is only making random > contacts >> with US and Canadian hams......? >> >> David >> M0ZLB/KG4ZLB > > > Matter of taste could be? You could check why on www.qrz.com for a partial > explanation:) Just type > VE2DWE in the call sign search box... >>"-" > The medium is the message...The content is the audience...;) > > Luc Leblanc VE2DWE > WAC basic,CW,Phone,Satellite > Skype VE2DWE > www.qsl.net/ve2dwe > _______________________________________________ > Sent via AMSAT-BB(a)amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. > Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! > Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb > > > _______________________________________________ > Sent via AMSAT-BB(a)amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. > Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! > Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb >

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Re: Anousheh Ansari on Ham Radio
by Tom Clark, K3IO 25 Sep '06

25 Sep '06

Peter -- there is (jumpy) video with good audio of her classroom QSO here in the Washington, DC area available at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1789656846413123353 73, Tom

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AO-51 38k4
by Viktor Kudielka 25 Sep '06

25 Sep '06

Today, Monday, I followed three passes of AO-51. Downlink seems to be perfect with antenna mounted pre-amp activated and LHC polarisation: Four to five times "PB: Empty." followed by "Open ABCD: B: 96373368" No sign of any successful uplink. I tried directory requests with different output levels and different circular polarisations on 145.86 MHz, to no avail. Anybody else successful ? Vy 73, Viktor, OE1VKW

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Items for sale!
by Stefan Wagener 25 Sep '06

25 Sep '06

This might be of interest: 1. FT-847 + FC-20 + MD-100; 2. MFJ-1278B Multi Mode TNC; 3. PSK-1 Satellite Modem; 4. Kansas City Tracker Rotor interface; 5. Three (3) new (unmodified) California Amplifier 31-Channel downconverter (for S-band); 6. SSB UEK-3000 (S-band) downconverter (new), 144Mhz out; 7. Timewave DSP-59+; 8. MFJ-1214 Multi Mode Computer Interface; Information on everything can be found on the web. Will ship worldwide. Have photos of all items upon request. If interested, please reply off-line to: VE4NSA(a)amsat.org 73, Stefan VE4NSA

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Re: SO50
by Wayne Estes 25 Sep '06

25 Sep '06

I couldn't hear anything from SO-50 tonight, around 0425 UTC. No response after sending the turn-on tone and then transmitting high power with the squelch PL tone. Usually I hear it very well after I remember to switch on the mast-mounted preamp. Wayne Estes W9AE Oakland, OR, USA, CN83ik

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HITSAT 1509 UTC
by Mike Rupprecht 25 Sep '06

25 Sep '06

AOS 1509 UTC Sep 25 (JN49lr) ... nothing heard :-( LOS 1515 UTC 73, Mike DK3WN

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GO-32 house party this AM
by Andrew Glasbrenner 25 Sep '06

25 Sep '06

There was quite the party on GO-32 this AM. I saw the following stations on the satellite: KE4ZXW, KT2Q, N0NTX, N8BBQ, KC4LPL, KX4Y, WA4SXM, and N5UXT. I can't recall seeing that many on one pass before. 73, Drew KO4MA

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