November 2009 - AMSAT-BB - mailman.amsat.org

CO-65 earth picture update
by Mineo Wakita 17 Nov '09

17 Nov '09

We, CO-65 station control, could get an image below from parts of the image data we had obtained until this morning. From our analysys seems that it was taken on Oct. 28th ,2009, and at the point whose latitude was 84.6392 degrees north and longitude was 128.3049 degrees., near to the north pole. http://lss.mes.titech.ac.jp/ssp/cute1.7/blog/1_48_caption.Jpeg JE9PEL, Mineo Wakita

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Problem with Basic Stamp based tracker box serial display
by Michael Tondee 17 Nov '09

17 Nov '09

I have a a homebrew tracking box designed around a Basic Stamp. It's known as the SaebrTrack, I built it from an article on the web. The circuit uses an LED display with a serial "backpack" attached from Scott Edwards electronics to display the Azimuth and Elevation readings. The information is fed to it from the Basic Stamp. Lately the display light will start flickering at times and then the letters will fade out completely as well. It takes turning the box off and back on to bring them back up. This seems to be a sporadic occurrence and can happen when the box is turning the rotators or sitting idle. There is no rotator control box, the entire operation is handled by this unit. I just basically read the schematic and built this thing and then loaded the Stamp with the software. I'm not well versed in this technology. Could this be something as simple as voltage regulation? There is a 12V transformer that runs the DC rotator motors and a separate 6V transformer that takes care of the display and indicator lights as well as feeding voltage to the position pots on the rotators. I believe there is a 7805 regulator in the 6V circuit if memory serves. Any thoughts or ideas? I've checked for loose connections. Could the serial backpack display itself be causing this? Any help would be appreciated. It gets kind of annoying when it happens. Tnx and 73, Michael, W4HIJ

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AMSAT, ITAR, More AMSAT-NA Volunteers & Such . . .
by Alex, N3SQ 17 Nov '09

17 Nov '09

Ladies & Gentlemen, Here's the main thing to think about ITAR. ITAR regulates OUTFLOW of information, it doesn't care about INFLOW of information. If you build or design it by a non-US Person (Citizen or Legal Permanent Resident) and you bring it INTO the US, ITAR does not care. So AMSAT-NA can use designs from P3E, but cannot design parts of P3E. So the logical thing to do is have all "major" future AMSAT spacecraft be AMSAT-NA managed spacecraft with design elements (camera systems, experiments, etc.) contributed by other AMSAT organizations. The only main technical interaction between the AMSATs would be via a standard, open-sourced, well-published-in-technical-journals interface specification. Money could be contributed from other AMSATs to fund launch & development costs. As for the mantra of "no one being able to develop the equipment in the US" . . . The volunteer base is not capped, just expand the size of the volunteer base and organize it better. None of the experienced engineers should be directly building hardware, we should all be supervising teams of engineering students who actually build the equipment. There are over 250 University Engineering programs in the US. Each of those programs have at least 50 students in each graduating class. Let's say that we can get 15% of the students interested in working on a satellite project (my personal observations are more like 75% of the students are interested). Let's do the Math: Worse Case: 250 Schools x 50 students per graduating class x 15% = 1875 POTENTIALLY INTERESTED STUDENTS IN THE US Best Case: 250 Schools x 50 students per graduating class x 75% = 9375 POTENTIALLY INTERESTED STUDENTS IN THE US And this is just talking about COLLEGE SENIORS - EE's, ME's, CE's, CS's, SE's . . . double the number if you include the Juniors. Anywhere near this load of students would completely overload the current AMSAT-NA volunteer base. But talk about the potentially available volunteer base! With Binghamton University, I had 7 Hardware Engineering slots available on the team. There are 200 Hardware Engineers in the BU graduating class - about 168 of the students wanted to be on the Satellite Project Team, a 24x over-subscription. That's pretty impressive. I could have had more teams, but we need to crawl, the walk, then run with this activity - EVOLUTIONARY not REVOLUTIONARY (but let's just make sure evolution works quickly . . .) The current BU student team is "stoked", they are really excited to be working the project. Every week I get thanked by the students for bringing the project to their attention. They have done some really great work and they have a great faculty advisor, Dr. Roger Westgate. I expect that there will be more than 1 project team next year working on an AMSAT satellite, assuming AMSAT is interested in sponsoring more. So stop crying into your beer over ITAR. The world is not coming to an end. Let's work to launch spacecraft within the ITAR limits. In the meantime, let the AMSAT-NA BoD navigate it's way through the byzantine structure of the US Govt to try to bring about change in ITAR. Alex Harvilchuck, N3NP

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Grid Expeditions
by KK4AK 17 Nov '09

17 Nov '09

When attempting to make a contact on the sats one of the customs is to add "handheld", "portable", etc. to your announced call. Would it make sense to start a new custom of adding "Roving" or "Grid Expedition" or something similar when transmitting from a rare grid. This could alert everyone to let that station have some priority in making contacts during that pass. Just a thought. 73's Allen KK4AK

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Re: SO-67 and FT-60R
by Clint Bradford 17 Nov '09

17 Nov '09

>> ... please the wonderful document on amsat website that give a lot of hint and trick ... It was that seven-year-old document - in addition to a couple others - that made me "update" things with the four-page tutorial at ... http://www.work-sat.com Clint Bradford, K6LCS 909-241-7666

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Re: AMSAT, ITAR, More AMSAT-NA Volunteers & Such .
by Alex, N3SQ 17 Nov '09

17 Nov '09

For those following what was announced at the AMSAT Symposium, there are two different ways AMSAT is working with the Universities: (a) AMSAT-NA helps a University Satellite Program: This is the case with UCF, AMSAT volunteers are helping a University with their satellites. (b) A University helps the AMSAT-NA Satellite Program: This is the case with Binghamton University, BU Students are helping build & launch AMSAT satellites. The two ways are not mutually exclusive, each has benefits. The BU activity was organized to help get AMSAT back on it's engineering feet and to provide continuing assistance. We're doing that by providing engineering assistance and manpower to help AMSAT launch more modular design satellites ASAP. We're at 35 students right now, that number can grow significantly next fall at AMSAT's direction. Our goal is to get an Engineering model of the NextGen satellite bus ready for the AMSAT booth at the Dayton Hamvention in May 2010. Engineering model says we have the modified spaceframe with deployable wings ready, power system ready (with mock supercaps & solar cells) and the non-flight boards installed - basically stuffed 'n mounted on a stand for your viewing. NextGen is an open-source spacecraft bus, it will provide a stable & robust platform for any university to build an experiment to fit within the bus. I would personally advocate AMSAT launching up to two or three of the NextGen-class spacecraft in different 600-800km, sun-synchronous orbits to provide as much worldwide coverage as possible. Given the proposed characteristics of the NextGen spacecraft bus, there is a strong possibility of carrying an IF Matrix Switch with L/S RF capability instead of an experiment payload. This would provide capabilities similar to AO-51 (V/U, V/S, L/U, L/S) but using SDX with an IF Matrix Switch. By using Supercapacitors instead of batteries there is a very good chance of having a significant satellite lifespan (15+ years). All technology developed can be applied to other classes of AMSAT spacecraft, just as NextGen is using modules from the ARISSat-class spacecraft. I would expect that ARISSat-2 will most likely take advantage of the power system modifications developed for NextGen. The possibilities are endless, all it takes are more people interested in working on a module. Alex, N3NP

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Re: SO-67 and FT-60R
by Clint Bradford 17 Nov '09

17 Nov '09

>> ... How do I set my FT-60R up for SO-67?? Its only one freq isn't it? -- Jerry - NR5A - Jerry - Watch the sat's operating schedule for updates ... http://www.amsatsa.org.za/ This past weekend, they had a cross-band repeater set up for many. Uplink: 145.875MHz Downlink: 435.345MHz CTCSS 233.6 As with other FM sats, please program to compensate for the Doppler effect on the receive side. Clint Bradford, K6LCS http://www.work-sat.com

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Uni_trac 2000 sat files
by Michael Wolthuis 16 Nov '09

16 Nov '09

Can anyone who is running a Uni_Trac 2000 or 2003 zip me up your .sat files and send them to me by chance? My directory seems to be missing these and I can¹t get it to create even one for an example. I¹m working on it, but the easy solution would be if someone can send me the files they use. Thanks! Mike kb8zgl

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Top 250 Grid Survey - Results
by Clary, James T, Civilian 16 Nov '09

16 Nov '09

Tks for collecting and assembling all the data, Jeff. I've got a trip lined up to Texas in January with DL88 as the primary target. Your list confirms what I'd already expected to see, and I'll do what I can to put a dent in those numbers by operating from a bunch of grids on your list in DL, EL, DM, and EM. 73, Jim, ND9M / VQ9JC Diego Garcia, BIOT

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38k4 mode switch delayed 12 hours
by Andrew Glasbrenner 16 Nov '09

16 Nov '09

That's all! 73, Drew KO4MA

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