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

RAFT & ANDE VOICE Competition Started !
by PA3GUO, Henk 10 Feb '07

10 Feb '07

*** ANNOUNCEMENT *** We will have a little VOICE competition for the coming weeks: 1 point for each APRS message you get spoken by RAFT or ANDE 2 points for each message to another HAM you get spoken by RAFT & ANDE Examples: "W3ADO says talk to me" will give 1 point "DK3WN says Hello Europe" will give 1 point "PE1ITR says DK3WN 59" will give 2 points Enrollment: - email the mp3 recording to pa3guo @ amsat.org (max 200kb, edit yourself !) - attach a picture of yourself/shack/station (optional, pls keep filesize small) - include the digipeated packet & timestamp (to identify RAFT or ANDE) example for a packet spoken by ANDE: 20070210005858 : W3ADO-15]APRS,ANDE-1*,qAO,W3ADO::TALK :talk to me I will post all results on the VOICE Competition URL: http://home.vianetworks.nl/users/hamoen/pa3guo/voice.html As this is only for fun we will have an initial end date of March 1st, but let's see ! Please note that ANDE needs to be enabled first by a command station in your footprint each pass, so monitor: http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/pcsat.cgi RAFT does not need that and is continuesly in VOICE mode these days. On the VOICE Competition URL (see above) you find details on how to operate the voice mode. Good luck - looking forward to the first VOICE reports ! Henk, PA3GUO

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Pile-up in space ! (RAFT & ANDE both active)
by PA3GUO, Henk 10 Feb '07

10 Feb '07

This will be really new ! With ANDE & RAFT flying so close together, and both regular VOICE activited, you may see 2 satellites responding to 1 radio amateur call ! (both will voice-reply to messages send to TALK) Will be very busy in space (=at 145.825 MHz) Gonna be a lot of fun ! Henk, PA3GUO http://www.qsl.net/pa3guo

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Orbital Debris
by Jeff Davis 10 Feb '07

10 Feb '07

Just looking at some interesting images and stats from the CenterForSpace Web site. The quick stats are 3,100 spacecraft orbiting earth with two-thirds of those no longer active. Nearly 7000 pieces of man-made debris large enough to be tracked. And the satellite recently destroyed by China created more than 900 pieces of large debris. Take a good look at the various images depicting the debris. http://www.centerforspace.com/asat/ 73, -- Jeff, KE9V

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CI-V USB interface
by Jim Von Striver 10 Feb '07

10 Feb '07

I am looking for a company that makes a CI-V USB interface that will work with SatPC32 and an Icom IC-910H. Jim W6ASL

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Icom PCR-1000 PC controlled receiver
by Robert Bruninga 10 Feb '07

10 Feb '07

Does anyone have a PCR-1000 ICOM remote controlled receiver? How long can the serial port cable be? I heard it was operating at something like 112,000 baud and could not be run the 200 feet to our roof. This makes it a deal breaker. Is there a better all mode all band remote controlled system for roof mount to avoid long cable runs for satellite receiption across all bands..? Bob

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RAFT and ANDE speak
by Robert Bruninga 10 Feb '07

10 Feb '07

ANDE now speaks! The same laryngitis bug affecting RAFT was also found in ANDE. So tonight we fixed that too, and now both ANDE and RAFT will speak any APRS packet message addressed to TALK. Here is a summary: RAFT is weak signal and hard to hit, but speaks * if ANYONE has CONNECTED RAFT * Pse do not CONNECT if you cannot hear RAFT 10s beacons! * Then any APRS MSG to TALK will be spoken ANDE is stronger, but is lazy and sleeps unless woken up. * ANDE must be awakened by 145.825 activity * ANDE voice must be activated by command station each pass * Then any APRS MSG to TALK will be spoken ANDE has better link performance for users, but needs command stations, but you get more workable passses due to its better links. We would like to hear a recording of the first two-way packet-voice-packet-voice QSO... For more info, see the ANDE-RAFT-OPS web page. http://www.ew.usna.edu/~bruninga/ande-raft-ops.html Enjoy! WB4APR, Bob

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AMSAT-DC Seminar Coming Soon
by Pat Kilroy 09 Feb '07

09 Feb '07

Are you near Washington, D.C. or know someone who is? Then ... YOU ARE HEREBY INVITED to the next AMSAT-DC Meeting and Space Seminar. The day long event will be held on Saturday, March 24, in the same hall as last year, near BWI airport. Get the meeting announcement at http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/fieldops/eventDetail.php?eID=259 and share it with others. Today. Tomorrow too. In building our agenda, we are lining up one or two presentations from local folks who are building a CubeSat of all things! Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubesat before coming. We'll take a close look at the brand new AMSAT lab on our eastern shore. Get news on a new S-Band beacon. Lots more will be offered too. OUR NUMBER ONE NEED for success: Publicity ... Please forward the event announcement to one who might like to know about it. Take it to a club meeting. Announce it on a net. Gosh, tell a high school or college student -- and an instructor too. All are invited. See you then! Sincerely, Pat Kilroy N8PK AMSAT-DC Co-host ================================================================= Patrick L. Kilroy WK Integration & Test (I&T) 301-286-1984 Voice NASA Goddard Space Flight Center 301-286-1673 Fax Building 5, Mail Code 568 Patrick.L.Kilroy(a)nasa.gov Greenbelt, Maryland 20771 http://lro.gsfc.nasa.gov/ ================================================================= "Imagination is more important than knowledge." - Albert Einstein

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Re: Ham Radio Astronaut procedures.
by tosca005 09 Feb '07

09 Feb '07

On 9 Feb 2007, Robert Bruninga wrote: > A 2W TX on shuttle or ISS is considered a catastrophic safety > hazard due to potential for loss of life due to interference or > reset of the space suit, or shuttle ISS control systems or > anything else. Hmmm.... I'll have to keep that in mind the next time I take my 200 watt 2 meter brick amplifier with me when I go out roving for a VHF contest. My vehicle has a lot of computerized control systems in it. (Okay, I don't transmit while traveling at 17,000 MPH through a near perfect vacuum...) :) 73 de W0JT

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Ten Tec 2510 additional frequencies?
by James Hickox 09 Feb '07

09 Feb '07

Hello. I am looking for a way to add additional frequencies to a Ten Tec 2510. The manual indicates that additional crystal oscillators would be made available to extend transmit range up to 437.0 Mhz when available, but I havn't been able to find out anything on this. Is there anyone on the list that has done this modification or has a circuit board diagram or templete? Thanks and 73, James, AA5AO

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Ham Radio Astronaut procedures.
by Robert Bruninga 09 Feb '07

09 Feb '07

> What made the man-safety issues of PCSAT2 costly? > Didn't you just agree to power PCSAT2 off for long > periods of time whenever the need arose? I'll answer this on the AMSAT-BB to share the pain. This should be a real eye-opener as to what the space business is like from the inside out... A 2W TX on shuttle or ISS is considered a catastrophic safety hazard due to potential for loss of life due to interference or reset of the space suit, or shuttle ISS control systems or anything else. Not only must we then design a system with FOUR independent ground commandable OFF switches in series (or three that have positive feedback) they all must be proven to be man safe to NASA man safe criteria. This means, not a $2 on/off switch, but a $5,000 on/off switch that has been built from raw materials that have a paper work history all the way back to the manufacturer certifying the materials, assembly procedures, and all testing, and all handling of -each- such switch. Now that is just a switch. You have to have this for every component involved in the on/off of a man-safe circuit or that an astronaut touches. Then you have to present this material and plans 4 times to the 30 or so engineers on the NASA Safety Review board. Each meeting involves flying people from all over the country to participate. Meetings usually take 2 days to review every detail of the design. At $200 per man day plus travel, that is $6000 times 4 or $24,000 just for the meetings, not counting the days of preps and reviews of everyone leading up to it. Then the documentation, and reviews, and presentations... And testing, and travel to observe testing, and paper work over 3 years, all because a 2W TX is considered to be a catastrophic hazard. Then you fly. Now you say, we "simply agree to turn it off". But this involves a week of planning for each "turn off". NASA must have a plan at least a week in advance, not only showing when we are going to turn it off, but what backup systems we have in place to assure that it will be off. And the exact time is planned, but is not known for sure, It changes up to the day of the EVA or whatever evolution. Hence we are constantly revising this plan all week long... We have to coordinate the schedules of all our ground stations, find who can be awake at the right time, and still have 2 more chances to turn it off after that. Each change of 5 minutes to the evolution completely changes the ground station we need and all our planning. Mean time, NASA has to man the consoles, and DOD has to provide a 24 hour operator at their console to talk to NASA to talk to me. Then we send the commands, and have to report it to all concerned. Meanwhile NASA has to plan contingencies in case we fail to get the switch turned off from the ground. They have to include the plan in their Astronauts procedures to take time out of their EVA preparations (getting their suits ready) to include then going over to the HAM radio and going through 74 steps in a 5 page procedure to send the OFF command themselves. Yes, 74 steps... Just to send the DTMF code 123456, because you have to have a procedure for the crew to turn on the radio, set the channels, tune the radio, set the controls, verify operation, etc, etc... This requires 15 minutes or more and has to be done before they get into their space suits. Which takes 3 hours. So, this means we had to have exhausted all three of our ground opportunities prior to that 3 hours, so, we have to attempt to send the command 6 hours prior to EVA. Many times that is in the middle of the night over the ground station of choice, and since we had to do this for every EVA, every Docking, and Every use of the robot arm, you can see why no-one is going to let us do that again. It wore everyone out. DOD had at least 6 people probably 1/4 time on this project over 3 years, that is about $500,000. And that had nothing to do with actually building the hardware. That is just "oversight and management" overhead. Presumably if we didn't have all the man-safety issues due to the 2W TX, this effort would have been much less involved. But it all makes sense. NASA must assure the safety of the Shuttle ISS system, and these procedures all make sure that the material, plans, procedures and operations are thoroughly reviewed and are as safe as possible. Hope that helps. Bob, WB4APR

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