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

FM satellites from a Novice point of view
by Jim Danehy 25 Sep '08

25 Sep '08

I have been (back) for 5 weeks. With my several recent QSOs on AO16 I have operated on 7 satellites. If you check me out on QRZ.COM you will see that I am a CW operator. I made my first QSO on October 9, 1952. Well what does an old CW man think of FM satellites. It is a lot of fun. Not just the QSOs but in setting up my station with a pair of high gain yagis (14 ele and 30 ele). Installing them on an elevation rotor and a Ham M turning the entire set up. Without the FM birds I would have no way to really test this gear. I also operate FO 29 and AO 7. As we know AO 7 has been around for 34 years. I even worked it in the 70s. It is a LEO also with 15 minute passes. I get a thrill working Europe on AO 7. Working DX or Grid Squares while fun is not the point. It is the activity. I have CW skills that allow me to carry on a QSO on CW at speeds in the 40 wpm to 55 wpm range. I used to be able to have QRQ QSOz on the low end of forty meters. Unfortunately these skilled CW ops are fast becoming SK and the joys of QRQ CW QSOs are fading. I do not see the logic from those that harp on the fact that there is no HEO. What do they want ? If they want to sit in their rocking chairs in front of their rigs chewing the rag with somebody overseas they can do that now on 20 meters. I never had the chance to operate an HEO. I got off the birds before AO 40 got launched. We know that working FM birds is easier than controlling doppler effect on FO 29, VO 52 or AO 7. Besides tracking these birds the doppler issue causes some not to operate SSB/CW satellites. I hear some folks struggle to get doppler under control. I had that same issue but overcame it with the help of other satellite users. Thanks to K9QHO and K9CIS who both helped me. They also live hundreds of miles from me too. The CW/SSB birds require more investment in gear. I do hope that those that use FM will eventually graduate to CW/SSB satellites where there is plenty of spectrum. I thought N3TL's recent email put things into perspective for most. Even this 70 year old ham (me) is having fun and also has learned about several technical issues. Having CW FM and SSB contacts on 7 satellites in the past month has been fun. Most have been FM. However some good DX (12 countries so far) have been worked on SSB & CW. At my age learning and participation is what ham radio is all about. Tomorrow we are having a local lunch with 4 satellite users none of whom I knew a month ago. There may not be an HEO in my short lifetime but I am enjoying what we have and I am thankful for it. Thanks for all of you who have worked me during the last few weeks. It has been a real hoot. A CW man operating FM who would have thought that possible. I love my signal on AO 7 with its chirpy signal. Reminds me of 1952 . . . . nostagilia 73 Jim W9VNE Cincinnati, Ohio

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Re: FO-29
by Michael Heim 25 Sep '08

25 Sep '08

I consider myself a newcomer to trhe satellites like Tim, but in all actuality, I'm not really. I operated AO-10 and AO-13 for a short time back in the 1980's. They were great fun, but... I could never put up the kind of antenna system today that I needed to work those birds where I am located now. I had an 11 element CP yagi on 2, and a rather large helix on 70 cm. Even with that size of an array, signals were on the weak side, and could not hit the birds at apogee reliably. The FM birds gave me the opportunity to get back on the air from this new QTH with a minimum of antennas. I am working towards a couple of goals here, one is the capability to work AO-51 in mode S mode, and will be starting work on a mode L transmit converter soon. AO-51 offers a nice test bed for equipment that most likely will be used on P3E and others. When AO-51 goes into mode U/s, Ill be ready to work that mode, I hope. I have a 1296 transverter, but it isnt working properly at this time, and I do want to continue using it for terrestrial work once I can get things working there. As far as operating the SSB birds, I'm also working on that too. Actually, I have everything I need to do it. I do have 2 multimode rigs that cover 145 and 435 MHz. Only thing getting in the way is a preamp situation that I installed on 435, as well as a mast mounted diplexer that I installed without any foresight of where I want to go next. It wont be hard to remedy, and I hope to have it all working soon, so I can operate these birds, hopefully in a week or 2. I have listened in on them, they are relatively quiet, few signals on, and the capability of having an extended QSO on them. I built a new antenna (U/V), and am currently debugging it. 145 has a high SWR which I'm currently working on. When I get that worked out, I'll be coming down with 2 feedlines so I can operate both radios at the same time. If it all works out, I should be on the SSB birds soon. Mike, kd0ar

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Problem in mode change on AO-51
by Luc Leblanc 25 Sep '08

25 Sep '08

Around 0008 UTC the change of mode on AO-51 from U/fm and L/usb to U/fm and L/fm seems to not working. The noise drop and only a carrier remain on U where i was able to hear my downlink from 1278 usb very very weak. Switching my L uplink to FM produce also a very weak signal but perfectly clear. Could be on the other west pass someone will be able to give some report. Thank's "-" Luc Leblanc VE2DWE Skype VE2DWE www.qsl.net/ve2dwe WAC BASIC CW PHONE SATELLITE

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Thanks for AO51 23cm USB uplink mode !
by Henk, PA3GUO 25 Sep '08

25 Sep '08

Dear AO51 team, As the person that requested the 23cm USB uplink mode, which has been active the past 3 days, I would like to say "thank you, to all the AO51 teammembers involved that made this happen". Quite a few people enjoyed this mode and conducted new experiments (isn't this what HAM radio is all about ?) ... for myself the preparation was also the end result: in my attempt to upgrade my 70cm antenna from fixed RHCP to switchable RCHP/LHCP I ran out of time, and my Cushcraft is today still not ready. Next few days we have 23cm FM uplink, I want to try to get at least 1 day out of that ! THANKS ! Henk, PA3GUO

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Re: FO-29
by Dave Guimont 25 Sep '08

25 Sep '08

>Mr. Guimont, > >I take exception to your comments about AO-51 and its relative merits. Except ahead, but don't give up... 73, Dave, WB6LLO dguimon1(a)san.rr.com Disagree: I learn.... Pulling for P3E...

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F3ZD 5000th on AO7
by dcowden＠nc.rr.com 25 Sep '08

25 Sep '08

Congrats Henri and thanks for our QSO's. 73 de Don, N8DDk

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Baikonur Cosmodrome
by Clint Bradford 24 Sep '08

24 Sep '08

Twenty-six spectacular photographs at... http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/09/the_baikonur_cosmodrome.html#photo6 Clint Bradford, K6LCS / KAF3359 909-241-7666

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July/August AMSAT Journal
by Ed Long 24 Sep '08

24 Sep '08

Everyone, I wanted to let you know that this issue of the Journal was uploaded to the printer this afternoon. Once again I must apologize for being late. This issue was due to the printer the first week of August. I had no content to place into this issue until considerably later. So, again I am late and realize that I am letting you down. If you have articles for the Journal I need them now. I will repeat this for those of you that have been contributing to the Journal and for those of you that are hopefully thinking about it (and I thank you for it!) -- The deadline for contributions to the Journal is the 15th of the ODD numbered months (1-3-5-7-9-11) throughout the year. The intent is to get the Journal released to the printer the first week of each EVEN numbered month. That means that contributions for the Sept/Oct issue are already LATE and were due a week and a half ago. Once again I have only a small amount of content to publish right now so I need your help. Please, if you have an article to contribute to the Journal, get it to me right away. Do not delay. I want to get the Journal back on schedule. 73 and thanks, Ed Long WA4SWJ Editor, The AMSAT Journal

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ARISS Sept 24, 2008 Update and Call for Support
by Frank H. Bauer 24 Sep '08

24 Sep '08

All, The ARISS volunteer team is working quite feverishly in preparation for the upcoming Soyuz 17S mission with Richard Garriott, W5KWQ, and Mike Fincke, KE5AIT, on-board. This e-mail provides an interim update for the mission and some new news regarding on-orbit ARISS hardware. Please refer to the press release dated Sept 18 for additional information on Richard Garriott's flight operations. Hardware Deliveries SSTV: Richard plans to take a Kenwood VC-H1 SSTV communicator with him on-board the Soyuz for his flight and leave this on-board the ISS for future ARISS use. The VC-H1 has completed all hardware certification on the US and Russian sides. The final test, an EMI radiated emissions test, was performed last week and the test data was delivered to Sergey Samburov, RV3DR in Russia this week. The VC-H1 provides a very simple interface for ISS crew members and does not require the use of a computer. Computer usage has been a real challenge for ARISS, so the VC-H1 represents a lesson learned to improve ARISS operations. Backup Hardware: At this week's ARISS-International Meeting we received confirmation from Sergey, RV3DR, that the recent Progress flight delivered the flight backup D-700, a David Clark Headset for the Ericsson system, and an additional VOX box and cables to support the computer-operated SSTV system. The D700 may be installed as early as late this week, depending on crew availability. The flight backup will not provide a significant change in ARISS ops. It will make it easier for the crew to change program modes (PMs). Richard Garriott Operations--Call for Support Early during Richard Garriott's flight, he expects to setup the VC-H1 and autonomously transmit a new Earth image every 3 minutes. He hopes to have this system on a great deal of his flight. We encourage the ham community to bring SSTV equipment into schools and download these images in real-time. The ARISS team also plans to display images from hams around the world on a special on a web/blog site. A beta site has been developed and will be rolled out to the ham community in the near future. To successfully implement the on-line SSTV picture site and support it 24/7 during Richard's flight, we will need some savvy individuals that can sort through the many SSTV photos that ARISS will receive and keep the SSTV site up to date in near real time. Some computer skills will be required. We are looking for global support from a few individuals in each international region to make this happen. That way we will not be asking individuals to volunteer all-night to realize this project. If you are interested in helping on this, please e-mail me directly. Stay tuned for more information on the upcoming ARISS activities. And get your stations ready! 73, Frank Bauer, KA3HDO AMSAT V.P. for Human Spaceflight Programs ARISS International Chairman E-mail: ka3hdo(a)comcast.net

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AO-51 L/U SSB/FM mode report
by Rob Hardenberg PE1ITR 24 Sep '08

24 Sep '08

Hi, Today I was qrv on the AO-51 17:43 and 17:20UTC pass. The audio from the L-band receiver was good on the downlink. The first pass there was no activity. Worked OZ1MY and EA3EMG in the last pass. There is a slow deep qsb on the satellite coming from the L-band uplink. When the AO-51 is north from me a strong radar is heard on the downlink. The SSB/FM mode is an interesting mode to study the L-band uplink propagation. 10Watts + 26 el yagi on L-band is sufficient for Horizon to Horizon communication. 73 Rob PE1ITR http://www.pe1itr.com

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