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

VHF ITU submitted FRQS Shenzhou
by Luc Leblanc 26 Sep '08

26 Sep '08

Downlink 294.3 and 299.3 MHz Uplink 259.2 MHz and 260.2 MHz. FM! Max BW=1 MHz Credit to Sven Grahn from Heasat mailing list "-" Luc Leblanc VE2DWE Skype VE2DWE www.qsl.net/ve2dwe WAC BASIC CW PHONE SATELLITE

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alogger
by ryan woods 26 Sep '08

26 Sep '08

can anyone help me with alogger i want to igate iss,pcsat and maby go-32 but i don know how to set it up 73 kd8atf tnk and 7

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Re: ARISS school contact
by David - KG4ZLB/MØZLB 26 Sep '08

26 Sep '08

I see the BBC has changed it to a "live teleconference link" now so thats a bit better. Here! <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7636229.stm> Trevor - any chance of getting the BBC to add more specific websites to the "Related Internet Links" panel to the right of the story? RSGB would be a good start! David Howard Long wrote: > David > > I really don't think I need to make any excuses here. Carlos and I were > there, we know what we did. > > We only knew about the contact early on Tuesday morning, so we had two days > to get it done, including taking a day off work. > > We had no idea about their telephone system until we arrived. We had to wire > up stuff to their ISDN PABX on the fly on the morning of the contact. > > We made an effort for them NOT to be speaking into a telephone by using the > microphone. We could have had them holding the telephone receiver but we > didn't think that would have the right image. So we wired up the mic to > their telephone receiver on the moring. > > We gained access at 08:45. Journalists started turning up at 10:30, > demanding audio feeds. As you will know, once the media turn up you have no > more time to do anything else. So we had 1:45 on site to get everything > working. > > Carlos had a 20 minute spot just prior to the contact where it was made > patently clear that this was amateur radio. > > I have spent hours if not days doing press packs in the past. They are > largely ignored in my experience. > > Carlos and I would much prefer direct contacts rather than telebridges. But > a telebridge was all we were offered. > > Journalists will say what they like I'm afraid. But at least we had one more > mention of amateur radio that we would otherwise not have. > > Howard > > ________________________________ > > From: David - KG4ZLB/MØZLB [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: 26 September 2008 03:31 > To: Howard Long > Cc: 'AMSAT-BB' > Subject: Re: [amsat-bb] ARISS school contact > > > Hi Howard, > > Always happy to volunteer but geographically speaking I can't really be much > help to AMSAT-UK except on rare trips home :-) > > Trevor (M5AKA) is the AMSAT-UK PR guru and does a fine job - after I brought > this to his attention I believe he will be in touch with the BBC to have the > article corrected. > > Of course mistakes happen but if no-one notices them and reports them then > errors remain and for something as high profile as this we really can't > afford to pass up on any publicity. > > In response to your e-mail though, I am not sure why "volunteers" would > need to be "experts" in PR - the question asked by the media would be "how > is the contact made", the answer would be "amateur radio" - how satellite > phones got mentioned and by whom is more the issue I would have thought! > > Having been part of a team that conducted a highly successful School contact > a couple of years ago, I am well aware of the enormous pressures that are > ever present with these things and therefore things can slip! We had two TV > News crews and 3 local papers in attendance and we had pre-prepared Q&A crib > sheets for them to ensure that the subsequent reporting was as controlled > and therefore as accurate as possible. > > > 73 > -- *David* *KG4ZLB/MØZLB* *www.kg4zlb.com <http://www.kg4zlb.com/>* *www.mØzlb.com <http://www.m0zlb.com/>*

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AO-51 L/U FM operation
by Gould Smith 26 Sep '08

26 Sep '08

There was a problem changing to FM operation on the L uplink to the second repeater on AO-51 last night. That problem was corrected on the 1345Z pass this morning and the second repeater is in mode L/U FM and is now working fine. Enjoy this mode the rest of the week. 73, Gould, WA4SXM for the AO-51 Command Team

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ARISS school contact
by David - M0ZLB 26 Sep '08

26 Sep '08

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7636229.stm Disappointing to note that the BBC's on line news report of the ISS school contact today with a school in England noted that the contact took place via "satellite phone" doh! Bearing in mind there were three or four TV crews there, it is surprising that they were not given a handout with the facts or that the organisers failed to brief the media properly! A bit of a waste of good publicity for ARISS and the amateur radio service methinks! David KG4ZLB/M0ZLB

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AO-51 mode-L/U FM observations
by OZ1MY 25 Sep '08

25 Sep '08

Hi all, AO-51 is working very well in mode-L/U FM. On the two last passes here over Copenhagen [Denmark :-)] The signals on the uplink went through the "transponder" with nice downlink signal. There is some slow fading, QSB, on the uplink when the satellite turns. That can not be avoided - but if you keep talking your signal will come up again. Remember that the downlink on 435.150 MHz is left hand circular. I use an IC-910H with 10 W on 23 cm. Antennas are two 19 turn helixes - gain about 18 dBi, right hand circular. Cable loss like 4 dB to the antennas from the transceiver. Another observation is that it helped to use the compressor in the IC-910. Managed to get a resonable downlink signal when the distance was about 3200 km. Have fun. 73 OZ1MY Ib

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FO-29
by Dave Guimont 25 Sep '08

25 Sep '08

Where is everyone on FO-29??? Had a pass in San Diego ~1930z, and found one contact, Jim, W6ASL in Concord CA... It covered Alaska, a big chunk of the US and Canada, and the NE corner of Russia... I used about 50 watts EIRP on the uplink...with some polarity fading at times.... We've got from 145.900 to 146.000 on the uplink, cw or ssb, room for many, many SIMULTANEOUS QSO'S. Why fight the mob on AO-51???... Get Marty Davidoff's SATELLITE EXPERIMENTER'S MANUAL if you need help in understanding the procedure... A fifth grader could do it easily... 73, Dave, WB6LLO dguimon1(a)san.rr.com Disagree: I learn.... Pulling for P3E...

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The Moon - bit off topic
by JoAnne Maenpaa 25 Sep '08

25 Sep '08

Hello everyone, I saw this on the moon-net reflector and posting it here for us space faring hams to enjoy it also ... http://sundry.i2phd.com/moon.pps It's a packaged-up powerpoint slide show featuring the moon. -- 73 de JoAnne K9JKM k9jkm(a)amsat.org

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Re: FO-29
by Eric H Christensen 25 Sep '08

25 Sep '08

I'll have to agree with Tim. I dusted off my arrow a few days ago and walked outside to work AO-51 and I haven't had any problems at all. I have been consistently working three and four stations a pass using 5-watts or less and my arrow antenna. I remember when it was quite difficult to get into 51 with the same setup. Maybe people have gotten more polite or maybe it's just luck. 73, Eric W4OTN >For what it's worth, guys ... any day can be QRP day. > >I'll soon be applying for the AMSAT Achievement Award using confirmed contacts >that were all made while I was transmitting 50 milliwatts RF out from my Yaesu >VX-7R, on 2 AA Duracells - the same set of AA Duracells, actually. I ended up >making 51 contacts at 50 mW RF out, and another 3 at 300 mW RF out, from that >one set of Duracells. > >Only 4 of the 20 contacts I'll use for the Achievement Award came on AO-51's >QRP pair of 145.880 up and 435.300 down. The other 16 contacts included all >three Mode-J FM LEO satellites during operation on the standard V/U pairs. It >took me six days of operating to wear out the Duracells, and I ended up with >20 states, Ontario, Mexico and Venezuela worked. The highlight for me was >state No. 20, thanks to Mark, WA8SME - it was my first-ever contact (any mode, >any band) with W1AW. That was cool! > >So any time you'd like a QRP day, just reduce the output power and go for it! > >73 to all, > >Tim - N3TL >AMSAT Member No. 36820 >Athens, Ga. - EM84ha >-------------- Original message from Ben Jackson <bbj(a)innismir.net>: >-------------- > > >> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >> Hash: SHA1 >> >> Nigel Gunn G8IFF/W8IFF wrote: >> > Remember the weekly QRP day on ALL the sats until a few years ago? >> >> I actually like the idea of a QRP day. When Drew started bringing the >> 2nd V/U transponder online last winter/early spring it was fun to have a >> (nearly) empty satellite to play on and see "how low I could go" to get >> in. (5W into a vertical) >> >> Now that I'm testing a more directional antenna, it would be fun to not >> have to deal with the 50W stations muscling through. >> >> >> - -- >> Ben Jackson - N1WBV - New Bedford, MA >> bbj innismir.net - http://www.innismir.net/ >> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- >> Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (MingW32) >> Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org >> >> iQEVAwUBSNuglwQiWVsfSvVvAQIsYAgAhRjVWgNvET8NcTHhtM4bpJxY8iliWFaZ >> r/2UlyWyQsfuwpNBK0x6UvzKgORqwjtV/g12TuT31fTpDhahf+h5ogVGs0uzQxjM >> BYFhAUW10eol8bi5JFtlHN1PCV2wev3vy7frxbyAx5Z5d73S4TLZEUPbNa1dmZ9z >> q8R13i9nWRxISIDlm/35iCM0xCBuRgVtCi2CRR+BMk4Up/aMDmJU2p7TQyLjrB2r >> TuBHb/PMjs/PrDA2k2TnhQ+9Qjia+HraMxLNHtESa+pMCaO8vDZeKnlR3mNmA9q9 >> wm7HmUX/mB8BGe590LJWeN9Fo4gzllgp1dOUITxRIHMxIW5B25GTxA== >> =eGIs >> -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 >_______________________________________________ >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

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AO-51 L/U FM not working
by Luc Leblanc 25 Sep '08

25 Sep '08

HI I just check the 2 first morning pass here and there was a noise carrier on 435.150 and nothing seems to be received on 1278MHZ? nothing on the downlink only noise. "-" Luc Leblanc VE2DWE Skype VE2DWE www.qsl.net/ve2dwe WAC BASIC CW PHONE SATELLITE

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