May 2008 - AMSAT-BB - mailman.amsat.org

ARISS Featured On Australian TV Show
by Trevor 08 May '08

08 May '08

ARISS Featured On Australian TV Show Amateur Radio recently got some good publicity when Tony Hutchison VK5ZAI appeared in an interview on the Australian Channel 7 Today Tonight show. The show was broadcast on the 11th April and provided some great insights as to how Tony and others over the years have provided support to Nasa and how amateur radio helps to promote public awareness of the NASA space program through school contacts with the astronauts aboard the ISS. Read the full story and view or download the video from the WIA website at http://www.wia.org.au/newsevents/news/2008/20080504-2/index.php 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 --------------- __________________________________________________________ Sent from Yahoo! Mail. A Smarter Email http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html

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AMSAT/TAPR Banquet
by Martha 08 May '08

08 May '08

The following people have paid for banquet tickets as of today: Bob Stricklin Bill Reed Tony Hutchinson Robin Haighton Randy Kohlewey Mark Hammond Tim Pirkl Mel Whitten - 2 tickets Mel Preston Alan Biddle Larry Brown Keith Schlottman Howard Long Steve Sanger Bob Felt Steve Gunsel Stan Gunsel Nigel Johnson - 2 Tickets Wilse Morgan Gould Smith Nancy Makley Tom Clark Doug Quigliana Barry Baines August Frebig Keith Pugh Roger Ley Dee Interdonato Michelle Thompson Paul Williamson Roger Boncichi Lou McFadin Richard Hagen Mark Hammond Eric Ellison Phil Harman Leo Voelkle Walt Wittenburg Steve Belter Joe Fisher - 4 tickets Rick Hambly Chuck Pinkham Jim Randall Ian MacFarquhar Dave Toth John Shew Tony Kujims Harry Lees Steve Bible - 2 Tickets Bruce Perens Mike Swiader John Germanos - 2 tickets Frank Brickle Larry Stoskopf -- 73- Martha

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ANDE FCAL new re-entry prediction
by Armando Mercado 08 May '08

08 May '08

Greetings, FCAL continues to be heard. Space-Track now predicts entry to occur June 4. The latest keps are: ANDE FCAL SPHERE 2 1 29667U 06055J 08129.47585782 .00273160 00000-0 11659-3 0 9378 2 29667 051.6186 159.3029 0001625 000.2928 359.8620 16.22017515 80161 73, Armando, N8IGJ

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DELFI-C3 over Japan 13:00UTC
by ji1izr/Masahiro SANADA 08 May '08

08 May '08

Dear everyone, Thank you for many advices. The pass 11:27UTC may have made DELFI out of sunshine. I finally decoded 66 packets about 13:00 pass over Japan and sent them through net on my registered ID of RASCAL. I used "32789U" TLE for Winorb + WoStars (+1kHz offset). I am starting to know how to catch DELFI! Masahiro SANADA JI1IZR *************************** Masahiro Sanada de ji1izr Hiratsuka-city Kanagawa,Japan ji1izr_1975(a)nifty.com ji1izr(a)jarl.com ji1izr(a)jamsat.or.jp web: http://ji1izr.atnifty.com/ blog: http://ji1izr.air-nifty.com/ ***************************

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FT847 doppler tuning and RASCAL
by Robert Turlington 08 May '08

08 May '08

Hi All because the ft847 won't tune in increments of less than 10hz via the CAT port I have found it difficult getting data from DELFI. In the end I had to increase the update time to 10secs which gives RASCAL time to follow the doppler down and decode packets,this is ok when the rate of frequency change is slow but on high elevation passes at TCA it stuggles.Appart from tuning by hand has anyone got other (better) solutions to the doppler tuning problem with the 847?Regards Robert G8ATE _________________________________________________________________ Great deals on almost anything at eBay.co.uk. Search, bid, find and win on eBay today! http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/msnnkmgl0010000004ukm/direct/01/

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Re: Yaesu G500 bearings, KLM antennas
by i8cvs 08 May '08

08 May '08

----- Original Message ----- From: "KYLE YOKSH" <yokshs(a)sbcglobal.net> To: <amsat-bb(a)amsat.org> Sent: Friday, March 21, 2008 8:36 PM Subject: [amsat-bb] Yaesu G500 bearings, KLM antennas > Hello, > > I've got a KR-500 and G500a rotor that need a good servicing. I've found > a lot of great info in the archives that will help me, but still have a few > questions.. > > I've read that the original bearings were steel, and begin to rust > almost immediately after installation. Can anyone suggest a better quality > bearing, and perhaps a source and part number? > Hi Kyle, K0KN The KR-500 and G500a elevation rotors are mechanically similar and if you look at the KR-500 Instruction Manual you will find the exploded mechanical drawing with part numbar and location. Each bearing is composed by part numbar 34 made with 20 ball bearings size 0.312 ( 5/16 inch ) and a bearing holder part number 33 By the way one groove for the balls is casted into the "aluminum boom shaft tube" part number 29 and the other groove is casted into the rotor housing 1.2. The bearing holder 33 is a stainless steel toothed ring with 20 teeth and the purpose of it is to keep the 20 balls separated each other while holding the lubricant grease between them and lubricate the grooves during rotation preventing in addition the wather to enter the rotor housing from the outside. The problem here is that the balls are not in contact-to-contact each other but they are separated each other by the teeth of the bearing holder. In this condition when the weight of the antennas is very large the radial vertical force generated by it's weight is not absorbed by the balls but is completely applied over the teeth and so the 20 balls will be forced to separate away one from the other. This load is responsible to wear out, to deform and to cut the teeth but as soon only one or two teeth are broken then the distance from the balls decreases so that the assembly tube gear 31 has room to fall down a little bit but the distance between it and the internal gear 10,11 increases up to a point that to come into gear with the pinion fail. > > I've also read that the bearing cages are subject to failure, and some > folks prefer to ditch them altogether. > To cure this problem and prevent damages to pinion and gear 31 I have not used anymore the bearing holder 33 but I have filled the grooves with black molibden grease adding in it , I do not remember exacly if two or tree more same size balls in order to replace the original room occuped by the teeth and this rotator is actually running without problems from several years now. When I did this modifications in 1992 the spare parts for Kempro were sold by SMC South Midlands Communications l.t.d in UK actually available at shaun.hey(a)smc-comms.com but I got advice that actually they do not have many spare parts at stock for it. > > I'm also curious if anyone has any suggestions to optimize my old KLM > crossed yagis? > I use a KLM 2m14c and 43518c, and they seem to work fairly well, but are > not exactly > top performers. I've never opened the polarization switcher units on > either antenna, but suppose I might want to clean the relay contacts? > I have the same antennas and for the KLM 2M-14C I realized immediately that the PCB of the CS3 switcher carrying the polarization relay was the critical point exposed to rain and umidity condensation. For the above reason I have incapsulated the PCB with it's relay into an additional plastic box drilling in it few suitable holes to drain out water and let the relay to stay at the same atmospheric pressure inside and outside the additional box and this prevent condensation of the umidity. In order to prevent that during temperature variation occurring from night and day new contaminated air enters inside the original relay cup ( the relay breathe air + pollution) the original plastic cup of the switching relay must be very well silicon sealed and the studs fitted inside the PCB must be inspected for good soldering. In my antenna circularity switcher CS3 I found as new that one stud was not perfectly soldered to the trace of the PCB but when I attemped to better solder it I realized that the stud becames immediately oxidated when heated by the soldering iron. The stud of this relay is not made of copper and it became oxidated if the temperature of the soldering iron is too high so that it was necessary to scratch it and solder it again at a lower temperature using Alpha Metals Inc. Plastic Rosin Solder 62 Sn , 36 Pb and 2 Ag Another precaution to increase the relay contact life is not to switch the polarization while transmitting expecially with high power and the use of an electrical interlock between TX and polarization Switch seems to be a good idea. About my 435-40CX the original CS-2 switcher is identical to that of your 435-18 C but I have not used the CS-2 because I have replace it with one of my own designe 4 polarizations V-H-RHCP-LHCP as published into the AMSAT-Journal, March.April 2007 Part-1 and May-June 2007 Part-2 > > Since my tower must be tilted over to service the rotator and antennas, > I'd like to get several years of service out of this gear. > If you mount the antennas as per the Assembly Instruction of the Manual they will be already optimized for the best performance for gain and VSWR and I don't think it will be possible to do better. By the way in two separate email I will send to you copy of the mechanical drawings for the KR-500 and a set of pictures showing how I have water-protected the CS3 for the KLM 2M-14C and as well for the KLM 2M-22C > Thank you for any help. > > 73, > > Kyle > K0KN You welcome and 73" de i8CVS Domenico

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AO-51 mode change to V/S
by Gould Smith 08 May '08

08 May '08

I will switch AO-51 into V/S mode duirng the 2 hours around the UTC date change tonight. In addition to switching the mode, I need to downlink telemetry. I can not be any more precise exactly when the mode will completely switch. I plan on turning the L-Band uplink off, switching TXA to digital mode and getting the telemetry for the last few days. Depending upon conditions, I may have to turn TXB off for a while and increase TXA. Regardless, by the end of the second east coast of the US pass 0115Z AO-51 will be in mode V/S. V Uplink 145.880 MHz S Downlink 2401.200 MHz Note that we will be using the 145.88 MHz uplink to keep those users that don't read the current mode information from interferring with those using the proper frequency pair. This mode will last until UTC 12 May when we will enter the normal of V/U analog 145.92/435.300 MHz L/U digital 1268.7/435.150 MHz Enjoy V/U for the rest of this week. 73, Gould, WA4SXM AO-51 Command Station

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Delfi tonight
by john heath 08 May '08

08 May '08

Hi Chaps, Good signals in IO92. During the 22:30 UTC pass there were several breaks in transmission and periods when the signal did not have its characteristic sound. I see that the OBC runs very cool. I recorded the lowest temperature I have seen -5.679 C. RAP 1 Temp seems unchaging since I started to take telemetry at -68.1C is this sensor broken I wonder. 73 John G7HIA

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Re: "Birdies" from Linksys Wireless router
by Karl Sandstrom 08 May '08

08 May '08

I use shielded cat5 on my Linksys. I still have the birdies but have to get the HT within 6" of the router for it to break squelch. It does not affect my radios with outside antennas. Karl R. Sandstrom, K5MAN Greenwell Springs, Louisiana

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Yaesu G500 bearings, KLM antennas
by KYLE YOKSH 08 May '08

08 May '08

Hello, I've got a KR-500 and G500a rotor that need a good servicing. I've found a lot of great info in the archives that will help me, but still have a few questions.. I've read that the original bearings were steel, and begin to rust almost immediately after installation. Can anyone suggest a better quality bearing, and perhaps a source and part number? I've also read that the bearing cages are subject to failure, and some folks prefer to ditch them altogether. I'm also curious if anyone has any suggestions to optimize my old KLM crossed yagis? I use a KLM 2m14c and 43518c, and they seem to work fairly well, but are not exactly top performers. I've never opened the polarization switcher units on either antenna, but suppose I might want to clean the relay contacts? Since my tower must be tilted over to service the rotator and antennas, I'd like to get several years of service out of this gear. Thank you for any help. 73, Kyle K0KN

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