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

AMSAT Awards
by Bruce 28 Nov '07

28 Nov '07

Awards this week are: We would like to welcome the following to the satellite community. They have made their first satellite contact and are now members of the AMSAT Satellite Communicators Club. Richard Silva, WA6ES AMSAT Sexagesimal Award Juergen Pape, DF7WIN, #145 AMSAT W4AMI Satellite Operator Achievement Award Basic Chris Martin, KG7EZ, 2K, 3K, 4K endorsements AMSAT W4AMI Satellite Operator Achievement Award 5,000 Chris Martin, KG7EZ, #20 To see all the awards visit http://www.amsat.org or http://www.amsatnet.com Bruce Paige, KK5DO AMSAT Director Contests and Awards ARRL Awards Manager (WAS, 5BWAS, VUCC), VE Houston AMSAT Net - Wed 0100z on W0KIE Also streaming MP3 at http://www.amsatnet.com

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Satellites at the Peace Conference
by Robert Bruninga 28 Nov '07

28 Nov '07

For the Peace Conference, the Academy was cordoned off, students prohibited from going on that side of the Yard, and photos of the proceedings were prohibited. The Academy was locked down the whole day, including all WEB page servers. To see the Satellite Technology, however, I put together this web page for the students in our Satellite Labs: http://www.ew.usna.edu/~bruninga/PressStuff.html WB4APR

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How to receive OSCAR telemetry and setup APRS system
by Hamradio .9m 28 Nov '07

28 Nov '07

Dear all, I've been struggling with packet satellite since day one and I have two questions pertaining my Amateur Satellite Ground Station. 1. I'm new to MixW and very interested to know more about MixW configuration to receive Packet Satellite telemetry specifics for OSCAR. I have bought one complete package which included MixW software, RigExpert plus and interface cable. Unfortunately, till today I can't even decode any OSCAR telemetry either by using RigExpert or TNC. 2. My next question is how to operate my station as APRS? I'm be able to receive somthing from ARISS but the signal is not digipeated. The data as follow; > 9W2NRL/ISS>CQ>UI,C,F0: > HELLO FROM 9W2NRL > RS0ISS-4/SGATE>CQ>UI,R,F0 (1199 baud): > >ARISS - International Space Station (BBS/APRS on) How do I verify the packet is really transmitted on air? My station is equipped with X-Yagi Antenna, UHF Preamp, IC-921, FT-817 and KAM-XL. In the software part, I used GSC and WxTrack for tracking and MixW. A million thanks for your suggestion and guidance. -- 73 Nuril 9W2NRL

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Re: Weather Effect
by John Marranca, Jr 28 Nov '07

28 Nov '07

How old is your coax? John KB2HSH -- _______________________________ John Marranca, Jr PBX Technician/Shop Steward CWA Local 1122 BN Systems, Inc Orchard Park, NY (716)972-2006

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LUSAT-OSCAR 19 beacon
by Rob Hardenberg PE1ITR 28 Nov '07

28 Nov '07

Hello, Today I was monitoring the LO-19 cw beacon on 437.125 and noticed that there is always a small signal present between the cw telemetry blocks. The beacon transmit about 750mW. The small signal is about 30db down, so I guess it must be around 1mW. Does anybody have some more info (power?) about this unsupressed carrier signal? 73 Rob PE1ITR

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Problems Reading ANS Bulletins
by Clive Wallis 28 Nov '07

28 Nov '07

Hi, Some time ago there was a discussion about formatting of ANS buttetins from Lee KU4OS. I'm finding it impossible to read some of these bulletins. Four recent ones are 245, 266,308, 329. I think that these may have been sent as MIME encoded attachments, instead of being sent in plain text. Here is a bit of what my text based mail reader sees - QU1TQVQgTkVXUyBTRVJWSUNFCkFOUy0zMjkKCkFOUyBpcyBhIGZyZWUsIHdlZWtseSwgbmV3cyBhbmQgaW5mb3JtYXRpb24gc2VydmljZSBvZiBBTVNBVCBOb3J0aCBBbWVyaWNhLCAKVGhlIFJhZGlvIEFtYXRldXIgU2F0ZWxsaXRlIENvcnBvcmF0aW9uLiBBTlMgcmVwb3J0cyBvbiB0aGUgYWN0XZpdGllcyBvZiBhCndvcmxkd2lkZSBncm91cCBvZiBBbWF0ZXVyIFJhZGlvIG9wZXJhdG9ycyB3a Could these bulletins be resent to ANS as plain text? Alternatively, are they available for download anywhere. I couldn't find the complete bulletins on the Amsat Website, only individual items of news. The archive didn't include any for 2007. Any help would be appreciated. 73 Clive G3CWV Hitchin, North Hertfordshire, UK.

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Hardline available
by w7lrd＠comcast.net 27 Nov '07

27 Nov '07

Hello Switching to LMR coax with an amp near the antenna and I have a lot of hardline I want to unload. About 125 feet (one piece) of Cablewave systems 16733-810921-001 (not sure what that number is) FLC-78-50. Also about 300 feet (about 4 pieces total) of GCC-AL-500P 1/2 inch. Pick up or I'll meet you half way if you're within 150 miles of Seattle. I don't know what this stuff is worth, will sell or trade for whatever ( I could use a vhf/ufh mobile). Also on ebay some tunable connectors for 7/8 hardline. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=110199802903&ssPage… XYL says I'm collecting too much stuff. 73 Bob W7LRD Seattle

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Re: Weather Effect
by David Donaldson 27 Nov '07

27 Nov '07

John What you want to look for is the propagation effects of weather on the frequencies you are using on the satellite. ARRL has some info on its site for 2 meter and UHF. There are other sites that focus on microwave freqs such as 1.2 and 2.4 Ghz. As you found googling "sats and wx" are going to bring up sites related to geostationary sats. The weather effects will be the same between sats and terrestial use. It is possible to have weather caused refraction on your up link or downlink causing the signal strength to be have higher loss then normal line of sight. Hope my ramblings help. Dave Sent with Wireless Sync from Verizon Wireless by DAVE DONALDSON-Burnsville MN Amateur radio: WB7DRU Navy Mars: NNN0AXK ---- Original Message ---- From: "John Henderson" <jah(a)ec.rr.com> Date: 11/27/07 12:10 pm To: "amsat-bb(a)amsat.org" <amsat-bb(a)amsat.org> Subj: [amsat-bb] Weather Effect My reception on the LEO's has deteriorated over the last week. During this period we have had some rain but mostly overcast with thunderstorms within 50-60 miles. I have checked all the connections, etc on the antenna. The noise is sporadic hum and lots of QRN. I have searched for " effects of wx on amateur sats" but turned up nothing. Was hoping someone could point me to some info on wx and sats; I know it has some effect on Direct TV etc but need to get to the source of my problem. It is there with the PA on and off... Thanks John John Henderson N4NAB 212 Bayside Drive Cape Carteret, NC 28584 252-725-2744 <mailto:n4nab@amsat.org> n4nab(a)amsat.org <http://www.amsat.org/> http://www.amsat.org/ _______________________________________________ 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 --- http://USFamily.Net/dialup.html - $8.25/mo! -- http://www.usfamily.net/dsl.html - $19.99/mo! ---

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ANDE Re-Entry Campaign
by Robert Bruninga 27 Nov '07

27 Nov '07

ANDE Re-Entry Campaign: The ANDE-MAA satellite (Nav Oscar - 61) will de-orbit in the next few weeks but is fully operational. We encourage activity, because while it is in use (2m packet up/down), then it is awake and sending telemetry. We want to capture the most telemetry to see if we can catch the thermal changes as re-entry approaches. Who can capture the last telemetry frame? The most important telemetry is that which is fed live by IGate into the APRS-IS system. Because that is automatically logged and time stamped. You can verify your data got in by looking at the http://pcsat.aprs.org web page after each pass. If you manually capture any packets, Please take special care to accurately LOG the TIME of any packets received especially in the final day prior to re-entry. See the contest page below for how to submit entries: Here is the ANDE Operations web page. It has links to live telemetry too: http://www.ew.usna.edu/~bruninga/ande-ops.html And this one is the CONTEST for data collection and operations sponsored by PA3GUO and DK3WN: http://www.ande-deorbit.com Any APRS station that is also on the internet can contribute telemetry by simply QSY'ing their normal APRS rig receiver to 145.825 on that final day. If you do not normally run APRS or an IGate, then you can simply download ALOGGER.EXE which is a full up IGate designed just for satelite gating without having to learn APRS. See Bill's web page: http://www.billdiaz.dynip.com/ASatLogger.htm ANDE is coming over the northern latitudes in the afternoons and evenings local sun time, but this pattern moves earlier by 14 minutes per day. Just monitor 145.825 MHz. Enjoy! Bob, WB4APR

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Auto Audio Recording
by hobergenix 27 Nov '07

27 Nov '07

Do any of the tracking programs have a audio record function. I would like to track multiple satellites, tune my ft-897, and record the audio. Right now the program that I am useing to record audio has to have the start and stop record times manually programed into it for each bird. Mike N6IMF

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