October 2007 - AMSAT-BB - mailman.amsat.org

Sputnic1 passes on the 4 Oct 1957 in IO92JP
by Robert Turlington 01 Oct '07

01 Oct '07

Hi Andy putting your keps into IT this is what it predicts for the 4/5 Oct 1957 as you can see the first pass on the 5th is very close to your predictions 39. sputnic1UTC Date Time Azim/Elev Range Lat Long Doppler Phs/04Oct1957 0511 326/ 0 1938 65N 24W 1904Oct1957 0515 31/ 10 1318 62N 11E 30--------------------------------end of pass--------------04Oct1957 0650 321/ 0 2050 64N 28W 2504Oct1957 0654 13/ 37 609 57N 0E 3604Oct1957 0658 116/ 9 1653 45N 16E 46--------------------------------end of pass--------------04Oct1957 0829 306/ 0 2166 60N 33W 3204Oct1957 0833 252/ 21 1005 49N 13W 4204Oct1957 0837 180/ 8 1862 37N 1W 53--------------------------------end of pass--------------04Oct1957 2242 156/ 0 1787 38N 7E 24604Oct1957 2246 87/ 3 1502 51N 20E 1--------------------------------end of pass--------------05Oct1957 0019 225/ 0 1780 40N 16W 24805Oct1957 0023 358/ 69 258 53N 1W 3--------------------------------end of pass--------------05Oct1957 0159 280/ 0 1772 52N 27W 205Oct1957 0203 356/ 8 1144 62N 3W 13--------------------------------end of pass--------------05Oct1957 0340 318/ 0 1859 63N 25W 1305Oct1957 0344 23/ 5 1570 65N 11E 24 Regards Robert G8ATE Regards Robert G8ATE _________________________________________________________________ The next generation of MSN Hotmail has arrived - Windows Live Hotmail http://www.newhotmail.co.uk

1 0

ISS BBS contents as of 2007-10-01 0620z
by Joe Veldhuis 01 Oct '07

01 Oct '07

Looks like the ISS digi gets very little use during early morning passes over North America, so I decided to play around with the BBS a bit. During the ~0620z pass this morning I was able to log in with just my HT hooked up to an old, wind-damaged scanner antenna and get a message listing. Over the 2 following passes, I QSY'd my 45-watt packet BBS to 145.825 and used it to download all of the messages currently stored on the ISS BBS. Note that, despite previous reports to the contrary, it appears that the commands are NOT case-sensitive. At least they weren't for me... If the attachment gets killed, you can get it from: http://www.electroblog.com/iss_20071001.txt -Joe, N8FQ

1 0

UK Born Son of ex-NASA astronaut Owen Garriott W5LFL may fly in space
by Trevor 01 Oct '07

01 Oct '07

The Week in Amateur Radio (TWIAR) have spotted an item in The Hindu which reports that the UK born son of former NASA Astronaut and Radio Amateur Owen Garriott W5LFL may fly in space in 2008. See http://www.southgatearc.org/news/october2007/son_of_us_astronaut_to_travel_… 73 Trevor M5AKA --------------- Daily Amateur Radio RSS News: http://www.southgatearc.org/ Email your news items to: editor at southgatearc.org News On Your Website: http://www.southgatearc.org/rss/index.htm News On Your PC: http://www.southgatearc.org/rss/newsreader.htm Upload Your News: http://www.southgatearc.org/news/your_news.htm --------------- ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Answers - Got a question? Someone out there knows the answer. Try it now. http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/

1 0

Re: Keep It Simple Silly
by G0MRF＠aol.com 01 Oct '07

01 Oct '07

To say the hardware does not not get any simpler is perhaps true for the number of components, but the complexity within those components is much greater than anything flown before in AMSAT transponders. It's probably true to say that Eagle will use 20,000 transistors to do the same job as 20 transistors in Oscar 7. But it's also fair to say those 20,000 transistors will do a much better job. The SDX technology will get its first on orbit test with suitsat2. That will tell us all something about reliability in LEO before launching Eagle and P3E. In 2009 The SSETI ESEO mission to a higher radiation geostationary transfer orbit will include a mode U/S transponder. It converts 435 down to 10.7MHz and that signal can be routed to a software defined transponder or to a conventional linear transponder before being upconverted to 2401MHz. Hopefully, the SDX will perform flawlessly, but should there be a problem, then the satellite can be commanded to bypass the SDX and use a traditional circuit. Somewhere along the line an SDX will be designed that is reliable and give much better performance than whats been flown in the past. It's a learning curve, there may be problems along the way, but we have moved on since October 4th 1957 and we need to investigate new technologies and sort out what works and what does not. Happy 50th birthday Sputnik (I wonder how many valves were inside that?) David G0MRF In a message dated 30/09/2007 16:06:16 GMT Standard Time, hartzell(a)gmail.com writes: Even as a proponent for SDR (and an SDR "user"), the lingering thought in my mind regarding SDX in space is survivability. There is no flight heritage (yet) for an SDX in space, and there is quite a bit of complexity with regards to software and integrated components (ADCs, DACs, FPGAs, CPUs, etc.). But these problems plague analong XPNDRs as well....with the right selection of components, de-rating of components, and rad-hardened when feasible, chances for success increase. 73, Dave n0tgd On 9/30/07, David B. Toth <ve3gyq(a)amsat.org> wrote: > > Patrick: it is too bad that you were unable to join us here in > Hartford, CT this weekend for the TAPR-ARRL DCC ... > There were many presentations on SDR, some by AMSAT personnel ... > > The hardware does not GET any simpler than in SDX ... the HUGE > advantage is that a component with a shifting value (such as might > occur in a spacecraft with wide temperature swings) does not degrade > the performance/optimization of a device, because if the hardware > does age/shift, then that can be compensated for in software ... >

7 8

AO-27 scheduler
by John Hackett 30 Sep '07

30 Sep '07

AO-27. Easysat ? ... right !!!l. I've been trying (unsuccessfully) to figure out how to tell when the AO-27 transmitter is switched on over my QTH ... (Frei Island JP33WB) ... or not. Of course, any tracking program tells me *WHEN* the satellite is over my QTH but tracking programs don't tell me whether the transmitter is switched on or not. The AO-27 scheduler supposedly does this ... the only problem is ... I find it thoroughly confusing. The passes (according to any tracking program with the latest keps) and the AO-27 scheduler don't seem to agree ... (me'thinks John is doing something wrong !!!) ... or ... from the scheduler I can see if the transmitters are on (or not) when the satellite is well out of my footprint ... but I'd like to know whether it's on when the satellite is workable from my QTH. Is there anyone out there who can explain in words of one syllable (or less) how one figures this out ... and then explain it to a thick and illiterate old sod like me. This mail is in NO WAY meant as any form of criticism of the AO-27 scheduler, it is ENTIRELY me being TOTALLY stupid! and not being able to see the wood for the trees ... and asking for HELP. How about an example that a 5 year old could understand? (Even I might have a chance then). 73 John. <la2qaa(a)amsat.org>

4 3