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

I: What a shame!
by Francesco Grappi 21 Feb '09

21 Feb '09

Hi John ...unfortunately same situation more or less here over europe.. my thought is that education must not give way to ignorance and rudeness. 73" Frank IW4DVZ -----Messaggio originale----- Da: amsat-bb-bounces(a)amsat.org [mailto:[email protected]] Per conto di John Price Inviato: sabato 21 febbraio 2009 3.52 A: amsat-bb(a)amsat.org Oggetto: [amsat-bb] What a shame! During the over head pass this evening of AO-51 on the QRP transponder there was a station that called QC from AOS to LOS. He obviously could not hear himself or anyone else. A couple of stations tried to call him and got no answer. I wont give the call but I am sure he it was him. What a shame! Hard to believe anyone would be that inconsiderate. I don't know if the DX was on or not but they sure would have had no chance if they were. Then someone started sending music towards the end of the pass. How bad is ham radio going to get before we all get feed up and find another hobby? Sure is causing me to rethink my opinion. -- N4QWF Amateur Radio Operator AO-7,AO-27,SO-50,AO-51,VO-52,ISS Internet N4QWF(a)AMSAT.ORG Echolink nodes #110903 -L #388463 Formerly KC4AHW VK3FEZ Amsat Member #27845 DXCC #33,478 VUCC SAT #135 WAS SAT #296 51 on AO-51 #13 LON -79.256 LAT 37.459 Grid FM07il >From the Foothills of the Blueridge *Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming - "WOW, What a ride!" _______________________________________________ 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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Friday at the Yuma (Arizona) hamfest...
by Patrick STODDARD (WD9EWK/VA7EWK) 21 Feb '09

21 Feb '09

Hi all! Friday was a good day out here. The Yuma hamfest in Arizona started at midday (1900 UTC), and there was a small crowd that came through the exhibit hall where I had an AMSAT table. Since this was a normal workday for most, tomorrow's crowd should be much better. The weather was nice, but some of the Harrier pilots from the Marine Corps airfield south of the hamfest site made it very hard at times when the planes were taking off. Flying low over the hamfest before gaining altitude, those Harriers are LOUD! Even when sitting inside the hall. Since this was only a half-day, I only had two passes that I did demonstrations on - an ISS pass around 1930 UTC, and an SO-50 pass later in the afternoon. Thanks to all who showed up on those passes, and helping show off this corner of amateur radio. Even long-time operators like Allen N5AFV and Rick WA4NVM, good satellite operators who have thousands of QSOs in their logs and a fair number of QSOs with me already, drop in and say "hello" to me and the hamfest audience. Thanks! After the hamfest ended at 0000 UTC, I saw I had some time before another SO-50 pass and an AO-51 pass that followed immediately after that. I decided to drive east from Yuma to a spot I visited several weeks ago, on the DM22/DM32 grid boundary. I worked those two passes, and made a total of 17 contacts (14 of those on a busy AO-51 pass!). I said I would be on from "DM22-land" for a few days, and kept to that - but also added DM32 to the list. After that pass, I drove back to where I am staying while here for the hamfest in Calexico CA. Just before reaching Calexico, there was one more AO-51 pass just before 0300 UTC to the west. I made 8 more QSOs there, including real long-distance contacts :-) with Alex N2IX (my host while in Calexico, a few miles/km west of where I stopped) and N6RNN north of me in the next grid (DM23). Tomorrow will be a full day at the Yuma hamfest. I'll have a couple of helpers for the AMSAT table with me (Alex XE2BSS/N2IX, David XE2DAK), which should let me do many demonstrations: on the FM birds, the ISS (including hearing the ISS side of a scheduled contact in the late morning), and a couple of SSB birds (VO-52, FO-29). There is a barbecue in the evening after the hamfest officially closes, and then I will have a chance to figure out what I'll do on Sunday before I head back home on Monday. 73! Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK http://www.wd9ewk.net/

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KKS-1 observation
by David Giles 21 Feb '09

21 Feb '09

Hello All, Just heard KKS-1 go over (2009-02-21 0220 UTC). During the past infrequent times I have listened to it, it just repeats the same message for the full pass. This time it gave: Message 6 twice, Message 1 three times, Message 2 once Message 3 once fully, then once without the last 5 characters No message 4 Message 5 four times fully, then once with the last 2 characters missing and back to message 6. The 6 messages are detailed on their website. I wonder if something is starting to fail? 73 de David VK5DG

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Re: New CubeSats #2
by Daniel Schultz 21 Feb '09

21 Feb '09

Since the Hawk Institute has reorganized itself as a for-profit organization, any radio amateur who provides tracking services for HawkSat-1 should be sure to invoice them for those services at the commercial rate. Since you are only receiving the signals and not transmitting, you would not be in violation of Part 97 to be paid for your work. (However if Hawksat is transmitting on amateur frequencies, they might be.) Dan Schultz N8FGV -------------------------Original Message-------------- Subject:Re: New CubeSats #2 From: "Alan P. Biddle" <APBIDDLE@xxxxxxxxxx> Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 06:29:06 -0600 Satellite Operator Downlink Mode ----------- ------------- -------- ------------------ PharmaSat-1 NASA Ames 437.465 1200bps HawkSat-1 HISS 437.345 ? CP-6 CalPoly 437.365 1200bps AeroCube-3 Aerospace Co. ? ? ----------- ------------- -------- ------------------ Unless that is another HISS besides the one at UMES, I don't plan to provide any support until they give AMSAT-NA's stuff back, with interest. ;) Alan WA4SCA

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K5D on SO-50
by Andrew Glasbrenner 20 Feb '09

20 Feb '09

K5D was on the 20:05 pass of SO-50 with good signals this afternoon. It was a low pass but I managed to work him with the mobile and 1/2 an Arrow on receive. They are having problems with high winds and blockage from the island, especially to the east. This evening on AO-51, PLEASE give them plenty of space to reply, and call one at a time. 73, Drew KO4MA

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New CubeSats #2
by Mineo Wakita 20 Feb '09

20 Feb '09

Launch : 17 May 2009 (Maybe postponed) Vehicle: Minotaur-1 Site : WI LA-0B Main Payload: TacSat-III Satellite Operator Downlink Mode ----------- ------------- -------- ------------------ PharmaSat-1 NASA Ames 437.465 1200bps HawkSat-1 HISS 437.345 ? CP-6 CalPoly 437.365 1200bps AeroCube-3 Aerospace Co. ? ? ----------- ------------- -------- ------------------ http://showcase.netins.net/web/wallio/CubeSat.htm http://www.amsat.org.uk/iaru/finished.asp?order=sat JE9PEL, Mineo Wakita

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Yes, my call was XE2/WD9EWK today...
by Patrick STODDARD (WD9EWK/VA7EWK) 20 Feb '09

20 Feb '09

Hi all! Despite a lot of local QRM on the SO-50 downlink and the absolute wall of stations in the first half of one AO-51 pass (50W could not break through from here!), it was a very nice day in Mexicali. A good day to visit, with nice weather and (mostly) good conditions on several satellite passes. After over 4 years since my last trip to Mexico, this would be my first opportunity to work the satellites from there. Please note that my callsign when in Mexico is XE2/WD9EWK, as the Mexicans follow the CEPT convention (also used by FCC in the US except for visiting Canadian hams) with the prefix/indicator comes before the foreign ham's call. Please keep that in mind, if you are using Logbook of the World and upload satellite contacts to that system - I hope to do the same for my satellite QSOs eventually, including those made from Mexico. After getting my paperwork at the border (Mexican immigration) and at the communications ministry, I was itching to get on the air. The ISS was passing by just after midday local time (2039 UTC, to be precise), and I was able to work it from a spot in the west end of Mexicali for a few QSOs. I tried SO-50 from there around 2250 UTC, but had lots of QRM from nearby TV transmitters on towers very close to that area. Ouch! After that pass, I went across the city to the "Ciudad Deportiva" (Sports City) complex, near the baseball stadium that is home to a Mexican winter-league club and the recently-concluded Caribbean Series tournament. More open space, and not as close to those pesky TV transmitters. The AO-51 pass around 0010 UTC was crazy for the first 5 minutes. I could only break through a couple of times, and at one point it was nothing but stations calling for me - and I could not even get through to acknowledge any of them. I apologize for that, as even 50W into my handheld antenna was no good against all that RF to my east. I sincerely hope K5D is not greeted in the same manner if they show up on the FM satellites, especially since they will only have 5W to work with. After K7WIN cleared some space for me to come through the crowd (many thanks, Jeff!), I was able to log contacts. SO-50 right after that pass was a bit easier, with fewer stations and less QRM from those TV transmitters. There was a really high AO-51 pass to the west around 0147 UTC, and I was on there from a park area in a neighborhood a few miles/km southwest of the baseball stadium. This turned out to also serve as an impromptu demonstration for a local radio club, the "Red Digital Noroeste" (Northwest Digital Network). Four club members were there, and saw me work that western pass. I was closer to the TV transmitters, but they seemed to have less effect on the AO-51 435.300 MHz downlink compared to the SO-50 436.795 MHz downlink (and zero effect on the ISS 145.800 MHz downlink). This was a great pass to show satellite operating to hams who had never seen or tried this part of the hobby. Thanks to all the stations from central Mexico up through the western USA and Canada on the pass! Then a quick get-together with the local hams to talk about radio, satellites, and other stuff hams like to talk about almost anywhere before crossing the border back into the USA and calling it a night. Quick stats... I worked 5 passes this afternoon/evening. On those passes, I worked 6 stations through the ISS U/V cross-band repeater on one pass, 12 on the 2 SO-50 passes, and 28 on the 2 AO-51 passes. I operated from 3 different locations in Mexicali, two in DM22go and one in DM22gp (the baseball stadium), and all 3 were not too far south of the USA/Mexico border. Alex XE2BSS/N2IX, who was with me during the day, took some pictures and has started uploading them to: http://www.xe2bss.org/patmxl.html Alex is still adding pictures to this page, so consider it a "work in progress". Check it again in a couple of days to see additional pictures he posts there, and run the link through Babelfish or some other translation site if you can't read the Spanish-language text on that page. For Friday afternoon and all day Saturday, I will continue to be in grid DM22. For those two days, I will have an AMSAT table at the Yuma AZ hamfest, and will do satellite demonstrations on FM and SSB satellites as I had originally planned. I don't have firm plans for Sunday yet, but hope to be on satellites once again from somewhere. Monday is still my travel day back to Phoenix, possibly including stops to work passes in other grids on my way home. Good night, and 73! Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK (now also XE2/WD9EWK) - Calexico, California http://www.wd9ewk.net/

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FT-51 Satelite HT's and more
by Robert Bruninga 20 Feb '09

20 Feb '09

The FT-51 is a popular AMSAT HT for full duplex satellite work. But the FT51 (and TH78) can also display DTMF Text Messages, and I am considering updating my APRSdata program that sends real-time satellite-in-view data for display on those radios. Just set the radio to the DTMF text messaging channel whenever you are mobile, and there on the radio, will appear the satelite name, frequency of downlink and direction and elevation to the satellite. When you see one of these, just QSY and work the bird. Then return to monitoring the DTMF data channel for the next bird. You wont ever have to do any predictions for casual operations again. But I don't have an FT51. SO I need someone that is familiiar with their radio, has their manual, and can take the time to figure out the DTMF text messsaging capabilities. See www.aprs.org/aprs-dtmf-gate.html to see how we are taking local APRS data and displaying it on the FT51 and TH78 radio front panels just like we do for APRS radios. Adding Satellite info is trivial to add. Also, I need confirmation that the FT11 and FT41 can also do the DTMF TEXT MESSAGING too. Thanks Bob, WB4APR

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Debris TLE
by PY2ZX 19 Feb '09

19 Feb '09

TLE of Iridium-33 and Cosmos-2251 debris are now on Celestrak database: http://celestrak.com Flavio PY2ZX

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New CubeSats
by Mineo Wakita 19 Feb '09

19 Feb '09

Launch : 25Apr2009 (Maybe postponed) Vehicle: PSLV C12 Site : ISRO Satish Dhawan Space Centre Sriharikota India Main Payload: Oceansat-2 Satellite Country Downlink Mode ----------- ----------- -------- ------------------ BeeSat Germany 436.000 GMSK 9600/4800bps UWE-2 Germany 437.385 CW, AFSK ITU-pSat Turkey 437.325 CW, High speed TLM SwissCube-1 Switzerland 437.505 CW, AFSK 1200bps ----------- ----------- ------- ------------------ http://showcase.netins.net/web/wallio/CubeSat.htm http://www.amsat.org.uk/iaru/finished.asp?order=sat http://epubl.ltu.se/1653-0187/2008/032/LTU-PB-EX-08032-SE.pdf http://www.isispace.nl/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=80&Itemid=… Thanks to Ralph Wallio, W0RPK JE9PEL, Mineo Wakita

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