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

Re: Phase 4 versus Eagle
by Fred A Parker 16 Dec '07

16 Dec '07

Just a suggestion, Has Amsat explored the idea of hiring a professional to help in some of the day to management and fund raising? When Amsat has a potential consumer base of 700,000 hams. If things were done right money should be no problem. Amsat needs to do a better job of selling itself. Then money should be no problem. Fred

7 6

Re: Phase 4 versus Eagle
by Tom Clark, K3IO 16 Dec '07

16 Dec '07

N4HY stated > We are spending a significant amount of money THIS YEAR producing a > hardware frame for the Eagle spacecraft. The electronic systems are > very similar. Intelsat will have more capability than Eagle as we > currently understand what we THINK the situation is because we will have > a) a better antenna platform and b) much more power. One thing the members should realize is that the "amateur radio" portion of the satellite programs constitutes only about 10% of the programmatic effort. IMHO, if things go in the direction I'd like to see, the GEOstationary P4 possibility has several other advantages to be added to Bob's list: c) A major portion of the P3 satellite effort, going all the way back to P3A (that achieved an aquatic orbit way back in 1980), has involved the need for us to become real "rocket scientists" by flying our own propulsion systems to achieve the HEO orbit. With the GEO P4possibility, someone else worries about the motors. That lops off (at least) 30-40% of the 90% non-radio overhead (and helps to prevent ulcers among the volunteer builders). d) Flying as a piggyback on somebody else's spacecraft means that they will handle all the attitude control problems. This removes the need for earth sensors, magnetorquers and an incredibly labor intensive effort to use the magnetorquers to actually point the spacecraft (remember that you are trying to push a gyroscope and all pushes cause the spin axis to precess). We had to be really good at pointing the spacecraft because the spin axis has to be properly aligned in the orbit plane in just the right direction in order to fire the kick motor! e) (expanding on Bob's item b) -- The current GEO plans would have the main spacecraft provide us with power. The solar panels needed for EAGLE would have cost us upwards of $2 million (unless we were to find a really generous sugar-daddy). And the power levels we have been discussing with the GEO supplier are about twice what we would have been able to generate on EAGLE, meaning signals will be stronger. f) There has been a lot of discussion here about launch availability and cost. So far, we have had a hard time identifying an affordable launch for a single EAGLE. It appears that the GEO piggyback may well cost LESS than an EAGLE launch to GTO. g) An even more important aspect of (f) is that these launches are a renewable resource. Unless we blow the opportunity badly, we can launch additional payloads every year or so. (Some info on the most recent launch in October is seen at http://www.orbital.com/NewsInfo/release.asp?prid=629). The places we might be able to get a ride to can be seen by clicking on either the HTML or FLASH item at http://www.intelsat.com/network/satellite/. h) The pricetag for either EAGLE or a GEO P4 may well be more than we, as amateurs, are able to raise. We are actively pursuing new funding sources. Right now, one of the most promising is from the US Gov't under the aegis of Homeland Security. Amateur Radio is well known as a very competent "first responder" of communications services. The HS people learned from Katrina that there is a need for 24/7 rapid response capabilities that can cover a sizable area where the infrastructure has collapsed. Some commercial sources have responded with multi-Billion dollar proposals. We think that they will be responsive to a grant request of a few percent of this, including the provision of ground terminals which would be deployed at a number of locations around the country (like at your QTH?). As a Board member I have wholeheartedly embraced the P4 GEO concept as the best (and perhaps only) act in town. I hope that the rest of the AMSAT members are similarly enthusiastic about the idea. As of now, it still is only an idea. It may not happen. But I can guarantee that we are guaranteed to fail if we don't try; and to try we need to know that the community is behind the effort. Remember that AMSAT is an all-volunteer effort, and YOU ARE AMSAT. Season Greetings and wishes for a successful 2008 -- Tom Clark, K3IO

17 34

ISS Packet activity? I'm having problems and getting frustrated
by Michael Tondee 16 Dec '07

16 Dec '07

Since for the moment I am down to just a two meter mobile for ham equipment, I have been trying to get a setup going for packet and APRS. At the moment I have only been experimenting with the receive side of things but I'm not having much luck. I'm using a 4 element beam with Az/El tracking that I used to use when working the LEO's along with SatPC32 for rotor control. I'm setup with AGWPE and UIview32 using a soundcard. I've tried several passes tuned to 145.825 and so far on just one I was able to get one small packet to decode on the UIView32 terminal screen. I'm not seeing any APRS stations appear on the map and on the last three good passes I've tried I've heard little if any packet activity at all. What am I doing wrong here? Is it possible there is no activity on some of the passes? Even when I've heard packets I've only successfully decoded one. Tnx for any advice or pointers someone could give, 73, Michael, W4HIJ AMSAT # 36017

6 12

Re: Satellite Antennae
by Joe Krepps 16 Dec '07

16 Dec '07

> http://www.tech-software.net/antennae/ > > Some photos of my antenna antics How many of these did it take for your neighbors to think you were trying to contact the mothership? ;) :) Nice work. Thanks for sharing. I get looks when I stick the 20m element on top and the 40m element in the side of the Diamond MV3A magmounted to my Subaru. Nice conversation starter. Joe WB3CFN

1 0

IC-PCR1500 DopplerSoftware ??
by CE3SOC Raul Romero 16 Dec '07

16 Dec '07

any info have icom pcr1500 need software for automatic doppler any help Raul CE3SOC

1 0

ANDE Dec 15: cruising now below 215km
by Henk, PA3GUO 15 Dec '07

15 Dec '07

ANDE is still doing fine, and many stations grab the opportunity to make a quick APRS QSO during the last days in space of our friend: 5P22U]APRS,ANDE-1*,qAO,PA3GUO::F1SRC :copy, 59 tnx F1SRC]CQ,ANDE-1*,qAO,PA3GUO:73, 5P22U de F1SRC qsl qsl 5P22U]APRS,ANDE-1*,qAo,ON7EQ::G0ISW :59 qsl Based on todays keppler set & NOVA, I took the average height of ANDE and updated the plot: http://home.vianetworks.nl/users/hamoen/pa3guo/ande_predict_pa3guo_15dec200… Have look yourself on that graph, the end is coming soon ! Will ANDE celebrate its first birthdate / 1 year in SPACE ? Who dares to make a prediction in the amsat-bb on which date ??? Then: this may be a false alarm, but for the first time ever ANDE-2 did not execute a command properly. After I set the telemetry rate to 10 seconds, it did in reality take a period of 16 seconds: 20071215150027 : ANDE-2]BEACON,qAo,DL8DR:T#006,119,146,142,156,168,10101110,770 20071215150009 : ANDE-2]BEACON,qAo,DL8DR:T#005,130,048,051,048,213,11100001,770 20071215145953 : ANDE-2]BEACON,qAo,ON7EQ:T#004,118,175,112,001,030,00000010,770 20071215145937 : ANDE-2]BEACON,qAO,PA3GUO:T#003,119,146,142,156,167,10101110,641 First sign of heat ? Well: maybe not, but click here and you see the TEMP trend: http://www2.findu.com/cgi-bin/tele1.cgi?call=ANDE-1&cycle1=10&last=168&para… ... it's going up slowly ! Why not join and provide the telemetry data yourself ?! Just wake up ANDE and press now and then an APRS message, only then telemetry will be transmitted by ANDE-1. Simply IGate the data to (using ALogger or UIView) and you make a difference ! U APRS VIA ANDE @145.825 is all you need ! Coming days I expect: - ANDE to fly faster and faster - ANDE to fly lower (more doppler effect) - Kepplers to be updated at least every day - Kepplers to become less accurate Watch the health of ANDE 'live' here: http://www.ew.usna.edu/~bruninga/andeTLM1.html Or decode it yourself: ANDE-1]BEACON,qAO,PA3GUO:T#012,009,176,121,002,131,00100010,515 Can be analysed with the software of Mike, DK3WN: http://www.dk3wn.info/files/ande.zip Who will receive the very last packet ? Can your station grab each day a packet ? Did you make an APRS QSO ? Look at http://www.ande-deorbit.com for the AWARD. The official ANDE central source of information is here: http://web.usna.navy.mil/~bruninga/ande-ops.html The 'live' traffic: http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/pcsat.cgi Stay tuned (better: tune in)- it's getting very exciting ! 73 - Henk, PA3GUO http://www.qsl.net/pa3guo (my own satellite weblog)

1 1

Re: [Mw] Dish reflector density (and Kaguya)
by Michael Fletcher 15 Dec '07

15 Dec '07

Loren Moline WA7SKT wrote: > Hello, Hi, CC:ing AMSAT-BB in case somebody wants to quit the keyboard and do something cool for a change ;-) > Is there anything that says what the maximum space or hole size in a not solid dish should be. Depends on the thickness and hence fringe effects (the cutoff is half a wavelength, but for all practical reasons (the "thinness" of the material), you can take 10 - 20 % of the freespace wavelength. > I have been told that a barbque grill antenna works better if you cover with 1/4" or smaller hardware cloth adhering to the curvature of the original dish shape. Well, the grill design is linearly polarised, so for circular polarisation (with a suitable feed also), making the reflector more complete can give you up to 3 dB gain (circular over linear). Tonight I used a +- 45 degree linearily polarised W-LAN patch, outer dimensions 8 * 10 cm, with a commercial preamp specified at 1.2 dB NF; solid copy with the naked ear, even through double glazing (i.e. the antenna is seeing a lot of ambient noise temperature too). This thing is extremely difficult to make non-audible by the ear. I just did pretty much the ultimate test and used a QBFH omnidirectional: no problem hearing Kaguya by the ear. What this means is you can hear the 2.2 GHz carrier from the moon whilst mobile, no DSP, SDR, nothing... > Loren Michael, OH2AUE -- "Life is too short for Sudoku"

1 0

AO-16 and IO-26 MBL telemetry
by Mike Rupprecht 15 Dec '07

15 Dec '07

Hi, both Microsat satellites , AO-16 and IO-26 are in MBL state and sending telemetry (1k2 PSK) PACSAT AO-16 Dec 15, 2007 1220 UTC ############################ +10V Battery Bus : 0,00 V (sensor faulty) Battery Charge Reg : 0,78 mA Base Temp : 29,68 °C PSK RF Out : 1,81W +5V RX Bus : 4,91 V +8.5V RX Bus : 8,50 V +10V RX Bus : 10,89 V ITAMSAT IO-26 Dec 15, 2007 1310 UTC ############################ +10V Battery Bus : 10,89 V Battery Out Current: 37,80 mA Base Temp : 17,50 °C TX Power : 0,00 NC +5V RX Bus : 4,92 V +8.5V RX Bus : 8,36 V +10V RX Bus : 10,23 V 73, Mike DK3WN

1 0

satpc32 labjacj question
by Nick Pugh 15 Dec '07

15 Dec '07

Hi All I am using satpc32 and labjack for the rotator control. Is there a switch that detect a rotator stall? nick

1 0

RG213 @ 435 MHz
by Andrew Rich 15 Dec '07

15 Dec '07

I have 15 meters of RG213 @ 435 MHz. I worked out arounf 2dB loss. If I move to heliax, is it going to make that much of a difference ? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Andrew Rich VK4TEC vk4tec(a)people.net.au http://www.tech-software.net

1 0