December 2010 - AMSAT-BB - mailman.amsat.org

celestrack not available?
by Luc Leblanc 11 Dec '10

11 Dec '10

Celestrak web site in off line as of 1630 UTC did anyone succeed to access the site as orbitron cannot perform his TLE'S update and the site himself is unavailable? "-" Luc Leblanc VE2DWE Skype VE2DWE www.qsl.net/ve2dwe DSTAR urcall VE2DWE WAC BASIC CW PHONE SATELLITE

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AMSAT Tenure Track PHD position?
by Bob Bruninga 11 Dec '10

11 Dec '10

I didnt even know it, but the Naval Academy has an opening (that closes very very soon) for a Tenure Track Professor in the AeroSpace department focusing on our small satellite program. I'd love to see someone with real hands on engineering experience. Again, PHD and competative research is required. I don't even know a web site, but I assume that USNA.EDU is a start. The solicitation may have just closed, though I heard it may be extended a few days. Good luck. I am NOT a professor and am not in the inner sanctum. Im just the engineer, so dont count on me. Bob, WB4APR

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Re: thd72a (Freqs)
by Bob Bruninga 11 Dec '10

11 Dec '10

> I see my position says 'bruce,hou.tx.' but > appended to the front of the message is 410.975 > and i cannot find that in the menus. That is the current frequnecy of your BAND B receiver and is what is all new about APRS since 2004. Knowing not only your location but what channel you are monitoring so that you can be contacted. (You can turn it off under the APRS menu). These radios can then tune to anyone's frequency just by pushing the QSY(TUNE) button. It sets up FREQ, TONE and shift automatically. That is also why the APRS network now puts out such FREQUENCY objects for the locally recommended voice repeater in any given area, so that visitors can see these on the front panel of their radios and instantly can contact locals with the push of one button. See www.aprs.org/localinfo.html Echolink and IRLP nodes are also identified this way, so the visitor instantly can be in contact anywhere on the planet. Then tie this all together with an Automatic Voice Relay System (AVRS), and we will have a HAM equivalent of a cell phone system. You just send an APRS message saying you want to voice QSO with CALLSIGN, and the network will set up the call, and make the instant QSY to the nearby Echolink, IRLP, WIRES or D-STAR node to complete the call. At least that is where we are headed... Please see www.aprs.org/avrs.html Oh, and AMSAT satellites can extend this connectivity anywhere on the planet. Bob, WB4APR

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Re: thd72a (voice alert)
by Bob Bruninga 11 Dec '10

11 Dec '10

> ... went outside and it did popup with one > person on the list when i hit beacon. The BCON button is your XMIT button, and what you hear and what goes into the list is independent of that. Rubber ducks suck. In Japan, hardly anyone uses VHF, so the rubber duck (in my opinion) is optimized for UHF... > just went outside....heard 5 stations in about 15 min. > do i have to have the radio on 144.39 to use aprs? Yes. Band A is usually left permanently on 144.39, and then the Band B can be used for VHF or UHF voice comms for normal ham radio. Since the radio is full duplex, then if your favorite voice repeaters are on UHF, then APRS can run without interruption on band A while you are talkin gon band B. But if band B is also on 2m voice, then when you are yacking, you are blocking your own receipt of APRS. And if you set the beacon to automatic transmit, then your voice band B receiver will be muted during those 1 sec xmissions. But do not turn down the volume on band A! Mute the packet racket instead by setting CTCSS 100. This way, you dont hear anything on band A, but it can still be used by anyone to give you a VOICE CALL on 144.39 PL 100. Its an-always-there contact capability no matter what you are doing with voice on band B. This is called VOICE-ALERT. A side benefit is that it also acts like a proximity detector. That is, if anyone else is running VOICE ALERT (CTCSS 100) then if they get within SIMPLEX range of you, then you will hear their packets once a minute or so, alerting you that someone is IN RANGE, and IS LISTENING on 144.39 with CTCSS 100 for a call! Please see www.aprs.org/VoiceAlert3.html Bob, WB4aPR >On 12/11/2010 10:13 AM, Bob Bruninga wrote: >>> oh, boy, got a thd72a.... I thought I would give >>> the aprs a try. I put my callsign in. but have >>> no idea what to do next. >> There are only a few more things you need to do to start viewing Ham radio around you: >> >> 1) Set Band A to 144.39 (in N.America) >> 2) Push the TNC key to turn on the TNC >> 3) Be sure you can hear packets (may need a good location or antennna) >> >> Then leave the radio on for 10 minutes. If your list does not begin to fill with everything going on around you in ham radio then wait 30 minutes and you should at least see what is going on in your region. (those are standard APRS refresh times). If APRS is working in your area as an information resource, then you should be able to see what is going on. >> >> Press the LIST button and you will see callsigns and local objects and frequencies. The list is 100 deep, but it is also 9 pages wide. Use the LEFT-RIGHT buttons on the joystick to navigagte the WIDTH of these pages, and use the UP/DN joystick buttons to go though the depth of the list. >> >> Oh, to make the list more visible, press and hold the LIST key. This will display 5 lines per screen, instead of 3. >> >> The STATION LIST is the left column of the columns below. If it is in 3-station mode it only shows calls. But if it is in 5 line mode, it also shows the station TYPE. But HOLDING the list key another second will add DATE heard. Here are all the other 9 pages (COLUMNS) of info per station: >> >> STN | TYPE |1st20|2nd20|ICON& |PWR/HGT|GAIN|LAT |PATH >> LIST|COMMNT|TEXT |TEXT |DIR/DST|CSE/SPD|DIR |LONG|LAST >> >> Hopefully, the default settings will set you up to basically begin receiving data out of the box. >> >> Oh, inorder for the radio to display the DIRECTION and DISTANCE to every item in the list, the radio has to know where it is. Either turn on the internal GPS with the [F] GPS key or enter a position by pressing the POS key. >> >> Now to TRANSMIT your APRS information, there are more decisions to make. TO me, the most important is to have the radio automatically insert your Band-B Voice frequency in your beacon, so people can see wat repeater or channel you are on. This is the APRS menu QSY(FREQ) setting. Set QSY-in-status to ON. >> >> You can set your beacon to AUTO if you are actually outdoors doing something, or just leave it on MANUAL since most of the time an HT in a pocket is not in an ideal antenna location to actually get out. When the HT is in the hand and can see the sky, then each press of the BCON button will transmit. If the local APRS digipeater hears you, the raido willl flash that info and also show you the digipeater that relayed you. >> >> But the fun is SEEING what else is going on. Us the list key and joystick for that. Oh, also, when on the LIST, you can press the MENU key and SORT the list by TIME, by CALL or by DISTANCE. These are very powerful! >> >> Bob, WB4APR >> > > >-- > >Bruce Paige, KK5DO > >AMSAT Director Contests and Awards > >ARRL Awards Manager (WAS, 5BWAS, VUCC), VE > >Houston AMSAT Net - Wed 0100z on Echolink - Conference *AMSAT* >Also live streaming MP3 at http://www.amsatnet.com >Podcast at http://www.amsatnet.com/podcast.xml or iTunes > >Latest satellite news on the ARRL Audio News >http://www.arrl.org > >AMSAT on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/amsat >

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thd72a
by Bruce 11 Dec '10

11 Dec '10

oh, boy, got a thd72a. however, this is my first kenwood radio and i got it to turn on and figured out how to put it on a local repeater. that works. next i thought i would give the aprs a try. i have never used aprs before. i put my callsign in. but have no idea what to do next. the manual isn't really any help as i don't know what values need to go into the aprs fields or where to program in the aprs frequency. which i don't have either. i may have bit off more than i can chew with all the features of this radio. also, how do you set the time/date. looks like there is a place for it at the bottom of the screen but can't figure out what to punch to get it to do something. 73...bruce

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Re: [eu-amsat] Re: AO-51 December schedule
by Luc Leblanc 11 Dec '10

11 Dec '10

On 10 Dec 2010 at 23:05, Mike Rupprecht wrote: Date sent: Fri, 10 Dec 2010 23:05:07 +0100 From: Mike Rupprecht <mail(a)mike-rupprecht.de> Subject: AW: [eu-amsat] Re: [amsat-bb] AO-51 December schedule To: eu-amsat(a)yahoogroups.com Copies to: lucleblanc6(a)videotron.ca Send reply to: no_reply(a)yahoogroups.com > Hi Luc, > > > > I think until March 2011. See attached illumination graph for the next 60 > days. > > The black boxes are the eclipses. > > > > 73, Mike > > DK3WN > Thank's Mike Batteries charging condition seems to be less than optimal if they are unable to sustain those small daily eclipse period +- 15 minutes per hour! As per this in May 2010: http://www.southgatearc.org/news/may2010/ao51_use_in_eclipse.htm could be AO-51 should be put on a kind of scheduling like HO-68? or the satellite should be off for the early NA and SA morning pass as the satellite usage is very low. As per the Space Quest web page their listed batteries products is BAT-4 Matched NiCd Flight Batteries (per cell) i don't know how the memory effect is affecting them? By the way it seems finally that AO-51 was mainly commercially built! Another undisclosed (Or not too disclosed) facts from AMSAT-NA!!! Could be that's the path to follow the various AMSAT'S should work as general contractor this will have a very positive effect helping to get rid of some personal ego from some of those involved in the making of the amateur satellites ;) This naturally take in account an ego issue among the satellite builders! SpaceQuest's Contribution: The following Spacecraft products are implemented in the AO-51 bus: * Battery Charge Regulator (BCR) * UHF Hybrid Coupler (H-420) * Flight Batteries (BAT-4) * Integrated Flight Computer (IFC-1000) * Programmable Permanent Magnet and Controller (PM-13) * Triple Junction, GaAs Solar Panels Just check: http://www.spacequest.com/success/echo.php The Space Quest web page http://www.spacequest.com/about.php Batteries are not equal but UO-11 is still working after all those years! What happen with our actual batteries? Are they manufactured is some remote countries... P.S. Did anyone ever hear about the Programmable Permanent Magnet and Controller (PM-13)? "-" Luc Leblanc VE2DWE Skype VE2DWE www.qsl.net/ve2dwe DSTAR urcall VE2DWE WAC BASIC CW PHONE SATELLITE

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Possible Problems With NanoSail
by B J 10 Dec '10

10 Dec '10

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/smallsats/nanosaild.html 73s Bernhard VA6BMJ @ DO33FL

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Satellite Earth Station for sale
by k0blt＠juno.com 10 Dec '10

10 Dec '10

Greetings, This is one posting I had hoped never to make. It appears that I'll not live long enough to see an HEO bird launched. It is with a heavy heart I list the following for sale. I am not listing any prices. I will discuss pricing on anything that is of interest to you or make me a "reasonable" offer. My land line phone no. is: 308-262-0439 Model No. AIDC-3033 2.4 Ghz Down Converter with a wall wart PS included. Down East Mocrowave Model 144-29 Transverter. (I fed 2.4 Ghz directly into the shack, down converted to 144 Mhz. with the AIDC and again with the 144-29 to 10 m. and used my HF rig (FT-920) as the satellite receiver.) Elevation Rotor: Ken Pro Model No. KR-500 with 50+ feet of control cable and control unit. (Old but it worked flawlessly until the day I took it down.) 3 Ft. Spun Aluminum Dish with Down East 2.4 Ghz. pre-amp attached. 19 Element 70 cm. Yagi: Cush Craft Model 719B 9913 low loss coax in various lengths of 50+ feet. The above equipment enabled me to work 1000+ QSOs and 93 entities via AO-40. Thanks and Happy Holidays to everyone. Frank, K0BLT K0BLT(a)JUNO.com ____________________________________________________________ DEAL OF THE YEAR: 2010 Honda Civic for $1,734.09 SPECIAL REPORT: High ticket items are being auctioned for an incredible 90% off! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/4cfa8c1e1e0045b0d8bst05vuc

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Any CAERUS updates??
by Mark L. Hammond 10 Dec '10

10 Dec '10

I'm using the only set of TLE's I've seen so far, and have had to automated--nothing copied yet. Anybody hearing this bird or read any updates? -- Mark L. Hammond [N8MH]

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Re: Congrats to SpaceX
by G0MRF＠aol.com 10 Dec '10

10 Dec '10

In a message dated 09/12/2010 13:37:06 GMT Standard Time, APBIDDLE(a)UNITED.NET writes: According to a report I saw from the NSS, they also deployed 4 CubeSats. Not a useful orbit for us, but a sign of good things to come. Alan WA4SCA Hi Alan. If they waited until the second stage had been removed from LEO, those cubesats would have had an apogee of 11,000km A very nice orbit......if it could be circularised to avoid the radiation belts. Thanks David G0MRF

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