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

OSCAR-11 Report
by Clive Wallis 31 Mar '10

31 Mar '10

OSCAR-11 REPORT 30 March 2010 OSCAR-11 achieved 26 years in orbit on 01 March! It was designed, built and launched within a period of six months, using commercially available 'off the shelf' components (COTS). Once again, congratulations to Professor Sir Martin Sweeting G3YJO, his team at the University of Surrey and groups of radio amateurs who also contributed to the project. Unfortunately, the satellite wasn't transmitting on its birthday, but was heard briefly, three days later. This report covers the period from 23 February to 30 March 2010. During this time the satellite was heard during three passes on 04 March. Good signals were received, and decoded. There was also an unconfirmed report that it was heard on 25 March. Due to eclipses, deterioration of the battery and other parts of the satellite, it's not possible to predict when the satellite will be heard in the coming months. It is likely that it may be heard occassionally, by stations tuning around the beacon frequency. The on-board clock was 263 days slow, when last heard on 04 March. The increasing error suggests that the clock may be stopping, when the satellite is in eclipse. Sometimes, the date counter also fails to increment. However, the retention of the date and time does suggest that a small amount of power may be still available during eclipses. The Beacon frequencies are - VHF 145.826 MHz. AFSK FM ASCII Telemetry UHF 435.025 MHz. OFF S-band 2401.5 MHz. OFF ------------- RECEPTION REPORTS REQUESTED! Please send reception reports to xxxxx(a)amsat.org (replace xxxxx by g3cwv) or post to amsat-bb. If you have a file, please do not send it but let me know that it is available. You may also like to add your reception report to the live satellite status page, on the website set up by David KD5QGR and Bob WB4APR. The URL is http://oscar.dcarr.org/index.php The satellite transmits on 145.826 MHz., set receiver to NBFM. OSCAR-11 has a characteristic sound, rather like raspy slow morse code, sending "di di dah dah dah dah dah dah dah" sent over a period of five seconds. If you are receiving a very weak signal, switch the receiver to CW or SSB. You should hear several sidebands around the carrier frequency and should be able to hear the characteristic 'morse code like' sound on at least one sideband. Please note that you need a clean noise-free signal to decode the signals, and your receiver must be set to NBFM mode, for a decoder to work. If you need to know what OSCAR-11 sounds like, there is an audio clip on my website www.g3cwv.co.uk/ which may be useful for identification and as a test signal for decoding. ------------- The satellite is now subject to eclipses during every orbit. Long term predictions indicate that eclipses will occur until 2019, when there will be some eclipse free periods until 2023. However these very long term predictions should be regarded with caution, as large tracking errors can accumulate over long periods of time. When eclipses started around 2005 the watchdog timer often switched the transmitter off before the ten day on period had finished, during parts of the eclipse cycle. When eclipses became a permanent feature of all orbits, after April 2008, the transmitter switched off within a single orbit, thus the satellite was effectively non operational. The satellite unexpectedly started regular transmissions in November 2009. Although there was a small variation in the length of eclipses, this wasn't enough to explain why the satellite started regular transmissions. It is possible that a fault developed, which prevented the watchdog timer resetting when the power supply fails, and now the watchdog timer settings are no longer retained during eclipses. The transmitter switches off during eclipses, and the real time clock stops during most of the eclipse. When analogue telemetry was last received, in 2005, it showed that one of the solar arrays had failed, and there was a large unexplained current drain on the main 14 volt bus. After 26 years in orbit the battery has undergone over 100,000 partial charge/discharge cycles, and observations indicate that it cannot power the satellite during eclipses. The current status of the satellite, is that all the analogue telemetry channels, 0 to 59 are zero, ie they have failed. The status channels 60 to 67 are still working. The real time clock is showing a large accumulated error, although during ten minute passes the clock increments correctly to within one second. The day of the month has a bit stuck at 'one' so the day of the month may show an error of +40 days for some dates. The time display has switched into 12 hour mode. Unfortunately, there is no AM/PM indicator, since the time display format was designed for 24 hour mode. The spacecraft computer and active attitude control system have switched OFF, ie. the satellite' attitude is controlled only by the passive gravity boom gradient, and the satellite is free to spin at any speed. The watchdog timer operates on a 20 day cycle. The ON/OFF times have tended to be very consistent. The average of many observations show this to be 20.7 days, ie. 10.3 day s ON followed by 10.4 days OFF. Listeners to OSCAR-11 may be interested in visiting my website. If you need to know what OSCAR-11 should sound like, there is a short audio clip for you to hear. The last telemetry received from the satellite is available for download. The website contains an archive of news & telemetry data which is updated from time to time. It also contains details about using a soundcard or hardware demodulators for data capture. There is software for capturing data, and decoding ASCII telemetry. The URL is www.g3cwv.co.uk . If you place this bulletin on a terrestrial packet network, please use the bulletin identifier $BID:U2RPT148.CWV, to prevent duplication. 73 Clive G3CWV xxxxx(a)amsat.org (please replace xxxxx by g3cwv)

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Re: AA5UK/KH6 Schedule for 3/31/2010
by Adrian Engele 31 Mar '10

31 Mar '10

I have had several of you ask why I am not on the FM satellites. I actually have been on FM. I was recently on AO51 when it was in VU mode. I was on Oahu at the time and I had blockage from the local mountains and hotels on several passes. Even being on the 33rd floor did not helps matters but I was able to work a few people. Many contacts were made in FM mode. AO27 and SO50 schedules simply conflict with my vacation plans on Kauai, sorry. There are several Hams on KH6 who are on almost every weekend and will be happy to work you on those satellites. There is only one operator on Oahu able to work the linear satellites. He can only work down to 30 elevation. At my QTH here in Kapaa, HI I can see the ocean from our deck and I can work the low passes very well that is why I am concentrating on SSB as this makes the most sense due to the limited time I am here on the islands. There are some good morning (HI) passes that I will be able to make and I expect some fairly busy passes over the next four days. Please make an effort to show up based on my posts to the AMSAT BB. Again this evening I worked a pass up Western US Coast into VE and Alaska. I called CQ the entire FO29 pass with no takers. I recently messed up an HO-68 FM pass I heard many stations calling me but my transmit locked up. I finally figured out my SatPC had locked up and this messed up the transmit. A major opportunity was lost. Blame it on the technical gremlins. Sorry. I hope to be on the HO68 FM pass on 4/3/2010 at 18:55 UTC subject to better weather. We are having strong wind gusts up to 50 mph, the next few days. Keeping the radios and Antennas intact are top priority. If I am not on the satellite based on the provided schedule it will mostly be due to the wind. Thanks for listening to my rant. I have appreciated all the kind notes for sked requests (many have been successfully completed) and encouraging emails but I have also been frustrated to be the only station on numerous passes with a good footprint to Hawaii. Even stations with fixed elevation antennas should be able to work the SSB sats Let's get some activity going. I hope this adventure encourages others coming to HI in the future to try a DXpedition from the 50th state to help those that could not make a contact with me this time around to get them HI in their logs. The gear all easily fits in a travel bag! Aloha, Adrian AA5UK/KH6 ________________________________ From: Adrian Engele <aa5uk(a)yahoo.com> To: AMSAT-BB(a)amsat.org Sent: Tue, March 30, 2010 8:26:57 PM Subject: [amsat-bb] AA5UK/KH6 Schedule for 3/31/2010 Here are the plans for 3/31/2010: AO-7 15:51 UTC I have a sked at the start of the pass that will last 2 mn after that I will be around 145.960 to .965 SSB only. FO-29: 16:13 UTC FO-29: 17:58 UTC looking for JA's VU-52: 18:31 UTC 4/1/2010: FO-29: 03:34 UTC FO-29: 05:16 UTC AOS to TCA only due to house blockage VU-52: 06:50 UTC On most passes look for me middle of the band. Aloha! 73, AA5UK/KH6 BL02ic _______________________________________________ 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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AA5UK/KH6 Schedule for 3/31/2010
by Adrian Engele 31 Mar '10

31 Mar '10

Here are the plans for 3/31/2010: AO-7 15:51 UTC I have a sked at the start of the pass that will last 2 mn after that I will be around 145.960 to .965 SSB only. FO-29: 16:13 UTC FO-29: 17:58 UTC looking for JA's VU-52: 18:31 UTC 4/1/2010: FO-29: 03:34 UTC FO-29: 05:16 UTC AOS to TCA only due to house blockage VU-52: 06:50 UTC On most passes look for me middle of the band. Aloha! 73, AA5UK/KH6 BL02ic

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Re: Kenwood TS-711A & TS-811A...SOLD
by John Neeley 31 Mar '10

31 Mar '10

SOLD pending arrangements for delivery. John W6ZKH

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XE2BSS @ DM30, Wednesday (3/31) through Saturday (4/3)
by Patrick STODDARD (WD9EWK/VA7EWK) 31 Mar '10

31 Mar '10

Hi! Alex XE2BSS will be traveling to grid DM30 tomorrow morning, and will be out there through Saturday (4/3) afternoon. He will try to work AO-27 and SO-50 passes from there. Alex will only have FM gear on this trip, so he won't be able to work other birds from there. Alex will be in the city of Caborca, in the Mexican state of Sonora - approximately 90 miles/140km southeast of the Lukeville (Arizona) border crossing. If you work XE2BSS over the next few days, I am his QSL manager. Please send QSL requests for XE2BSS to me, and please include an SASE with those QSL requests. I may be able to post updates while he is down there, as he should have Internet access from there. Thanks and 73! Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK http://www.wd9ewk.net/

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4800 bps GMSK TNC
by Nathaniel S. Parsons 31 Mar '10

31 Mar '10

Hi all, Does anyone know of a commercially available TNC that supports GMSK at 4800 bits per second? I have a KAM-XL which has 9600 bps GMSK, and it seems like the KPC-9612+ is also close, with 4800 DFSK (or could a DFSK device talk to a GMSK device?). KISS mode or something similar would also be very nice. Thanks and 73, Nate KC2SVI

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AA5UK/KH6 QRV this evening from BL02ic
by Adrian Engele 31 Mar '10

31 Mar '10

Sorry for late notice I will check to see if AO 7 in in Mode B in 20mn. Then look for me on FO29 and VU52 this evening. I will post tomorrow's schedule. I plan on being on the 15:50UTC AO7 pass which will be bes shot for many towards the eastern edge of the footprint. I will send update later tonight. I also plan on FO29 and VU52 passes during Wednesday morning HI time. Have to run to set up. Please note we are experiencing heavy winds today and it may be difficult handling the ELK antenna. At least the heavy rains have stopped. TTUL Aloha 73, Adrian AA5UK/KH6

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SatPC32 and FT-857
by Joel Black 30 Mar '10

30 Mar '10

It seems that any time I leave SatPC32 to operate my FT-857 on HF, SatPC32 leaves my radio in split mode. Is there a setting or something else I have missed somewhere? Thanks, Joel, W4JBB

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Re: WOUXUN Radio
by Ari Kosonen 30 Mar '10

30 Mar '10

Hi, Joe KK0SD wrote: > Has anyone bought and played with one of these ultra cheap WOUXUN dual band > hand helds that are selling on eBay? Do they hear well enough for satellite operation? I also recently got a Wouxun KG-UVD1P and today gave it a try on HO-68. My antenna is a long telescopic whip, Diamond RH-770 (quite similar to Pryme AL-800). I was very surprised to hear traffic from HO-68 almost immediatelly it was over the horizon. There was many very strong stations and I did not manage to get my 5 W signal through, but at least the receiver-side seems to be very sensitive. There is few quirks in the usage of Wouxun, but with pre-programmed channels and other settings I probably can live with it. Anyway Wouxun's felt quality and usability is sheer improvement compared to earlier HT offerings from China I've seen. I have not made comparisons with other radios yet, but to me Wouxun seems quite promising. I usually use Yaesu FT-60r with Arrow II yagi for my backyard-portable FM-satellite QSOs. The SMA-connector in FT-60 feels quite fragile for long telescopic whips (Yes, I know KC2BHO's adapters might provide a solution), whereas Wouxun's casing provides some support even with standard BNC-SMA(F) adapter, reducing the stress caused by a long whip. In Europe, Wouxun's are available in some reputable vendors, with CE approval (whatever it's worth..). Mine came from eBay, though... 73 de Ari OH3KAV (grid: KP11)

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Re: Matching Funds
by Clint Bradford 30 Mar '10

30 Mar '10

>> ... DARA (Dayton Amateur Radio Association) will match ... Martha - Would "New Membership Fees" be included in this opportunity? I mean, can this be further incentive for new members??? Clint, K6LCS ---------------------------------- Clint Bradford, K6LCS http://www.clintbradford.com

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