March 2011 - AMSAT-BB - mailman.amsat.org

Fair Lawn a Success!
by Clint Bradford 14 Mar '11

14 Mar '11

All 10 questions - PLUS one extra - asked and answered. And as Principal Marcella took the stage, he announced the passing our of our NASA surveys to complete! Clint Bradford, K6LCS NASA / ARISS 909-241-7666

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Is it 100% impossible to work a satellite belowthehorizon?
by Ellis Foley 14 Mar '11

14 Mar '11

Return Mail to wa1rks(a)yahoo.com Back in the late 70's I was working AO7 mostly on Mode A, two radios,same stacked 11's,and tri-bander for HF. had few passes that were below my horizon,no problem for F2 downlink, but was able to get into it on 2m, with passive reflections off nearby MT Greylock,from 1100ft el. to 4k el. discovered it by accident one day, and duplicated it two or three times after.But only on passes aligned with the reflected 2m uplink.Where there is a will, there is a way! 73 ud dx'ing! de Ellis/Wa1rks.

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National Science Week -Special Event Stations UK
by GW1FKY＠aol.com 14 Mar '11

14 Mar '11

Hi all, Apologies for this very late notification. During this week events are taking place as part of the "National Science Week " and this years title is "Communication" - a very significant and key player especially in our modern day life. It is also a great opportunity to fly the flag for our hobby "Amateur Radio " and role that it also plays along with other services. Here in "Wales" - UK -members of the "Barry Amateur Radio Society " are putting on two special event stations at separate schools near Cardiff - South Wales. The event stations will operate from the schools on Wednesday 16th March 2011, but are restricted to the hours of school attendance. We will be making a school link up using amateur radio and also demonstrating the many modes of operation that are now used and how it has progressed with technology. This will also include making contact with as many stations throughout the world with an exchange of a special QSL card designed by the students of the schools. They are also competing for an award. The special event call signs that will be used are GB2SCD and GB2SCP. I shall be operating with call GB2SCD which is St.Cyres School in Dynas Powys. Locator: IO81jk The main operation will be on the HF bands I would also like to make some contacts using the amateur satellites available in the timescale. As I stated we are limited to the hours of school attendance which limits my operation to available pass times - Sadly SO-67 is not scheduled for Europe and HO -68 only in beacon mode. With the kindness of operators -mainly in Europe - I will try to operated with a limited set up for the early passes of AO-7 and VO-52, may also be OK for the first afternoon pass of AO-51. To get as many contacts in these short passes I would be obliged if operators would just confirm their calls sign and exchange a signal report. My locator as stated is IO81jk. The second station GB2SCP located in Penarth but will operate HF and digital modes. QSL manger for both of these events is: GW0ANA ( Glyn Jones ) Thanking you for your time. Ken Eaton GW1FKY Amsat -UK Amsat NA

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ND9M/MM Op Sked: 14 March
by Clary, James T, Civilian 14 Mar '11

14 Mar '11

Today's departure started off with a disappointing run through DM02 when I couldn't hear AO27 well at all. The satellite only got up to 6 degrees at my QTH, but I've worked that satellite a lot of times at lower elevations, so I really couldn't figure out why I had such difficulty. The next pass was much better, although it didn't help the stations in the eastern areas that were out of the footprint, but nearly two dozen stations got DM02 in their logs. I was able to put DM01 on the air for one full AO27 pass followed by part of an AO51 pass during which my ship crossed into DM11; several stations who'd worked me early in the pass called later in the same pass after I crossed the grid line and got two grids! Later on, I was on from DM10 as well. For the oh-dark-thirty bunch, I'll be on FO29 tonight for the only pass that I'll be on from DL19. Here's the schedule and the grids that I'm looking (or hoping) to operate from tomorrow: Planned Passes FO29 - 14/0938Z - DL19 AO7 - 14/1441Z - DL18 AO51 - 15/0012Z - DL26 FO29 - 15/0022Z - DL26 (after finishing with AO51) Probable AO27 - 14/2036Z - DL17, possibly DL27 SO50 - 14/2325Z - DL27 Maybe VO52 - 14/1555Z - DL18 AO7 - 14/1636Z - DL18 VO52 - 14/1732Z - DL18 AO27 - 14/2216Z - DL26 AO51 - 14/2234Z - DL26 FO29 - 14/2238Z - DL26 73, Jim, ND9M / VQ9JC Grid DM10

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ND9M/MM Op Sked: Tonight
by Clary, James T, Civilian 14 Mar '11

14 Mar '11

I'll be QRV from DM11 for one more pass very shortly; this one is VO52 at 14/0229Z. It's a low pass here. Then the next VO52 pass at 14/0402Z will be the only time I'll be on from the next grid square south, DM10. After that, I'll be on FO29 from DL19 at 14/0928Z. I'll work up an op sked for tomorrow's grids once I check the navigation charts later this evening. 73, Jim, ND9M / VQ9JC Grid DM11

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VX-8x or TH-D72A, which is better for working satellites?
by Eric Christensen 14 Mar '11

14 Mar '11

I'm thinking about purchasing a couple of new HTs for the XYL and I to carry around but I'd like to make sure that whatever I get works well with the birds. Being that APRS is a must I narrowed down my choices to the Yaesu VX-8DR and the Kenwood TH-D72A. If I were just using the radio for terrestrial purposes I'd probably go with the Yaesu as the addition of 6m and 1.25m is a great feature for me. If you have one of these units and have used it on the birds I'd love to hear your feedback. 73, Eric W4OTN

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ISS Digipeaer over Japan
by Bob Bruninga 14 Mar '11

14 Mar '11

>> Hi, My name is toyo (JG2RZF). >> As you know, pacific side of some of North-East >> region (JA7) of Japan is still power outage >> And we cannot see the APRS mobile in this area >> because of no IGATE activity. >> For example, we cannot see the trace of Wakayama >> Red Cross (JA3FRI-12) now. >> >> Can we use satellite digi for this purpose? We have advised Toyo san that ARISS APRS digipeater can be used over Japan for this purpose. Any APRS operators in the affected area can switch to ISS digipeater by simply changing frequency to 145.825. ISS is coming over Japan about 6 times a day in the afternoon. The terrestrial path VIA WIDE?-? should work fine. But is better to change path to VIA ARISS so that the packets will be marked as having been digipeated by RS0ISS-4 each time. We hope Astronauts can be sure to keep APRS digipeater operating over Japan on 145.825. We hope that stations NOT in the disaster area can monitor the ISS downlink for emergency traffic and can IGATE the downlink into the APRS Internet System. Bob, WB4APR

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FT-8800R new toy
by Bob- W7LRD 13 Mar '11

13 Mar '11

Not wanting to reinvent the wheel. Anyone using the FT-8800R mobile for satellites have any hints or sugestions, antennas etc. Email direct-thanks. 73 Bob W7LRD Seattle

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Want to see the ND9M/MM QTH?
by Patrick STODDARD (WD9EWK/VA7EWK) 13 Mar '11

13 Mar '11

Hi! While I was just in California recently, I drove to Oceanside - along the coast north of San Diego, next to the huge Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton. I was hoping to see the USNS Sgt. William R. Button, the ship Jim ND9M has been on and operating from lately. After some driving around, I was able to see his ship offshore on Friday morning before I left the San Diego area. I had seen photos of the ship on the Internet, so I had an idea what to look for. After seeing an e-mail from ND9M on Friday, I considered myself lucky to see his ship. It had gone out to deeper water, in advance of the tsunami from the recent earthquake in Japan. It had come back to its anchorage by the time I went out there. I was able to see the ship, and took several photos of it in the 1800-1900 UTC (1000-1100 local time) hour. I posted a couple of those photos at: http://www.qsl.net/wd9ewk/pics/nd9m/ The first photo was taken at the north end of Oceanside Harbor, very close to Camp Pendleton. The second photo was taken about 1/2 mile (almost 1km) south of that location, on the beach. The helicopter deck on the rear of the ship was visible, which is where Jim has been operating from. These two photos are at a lower resolution than the original 7-megapixel photos, so they don't take much time to download. If anyone wants to see the originals, please e-mail me directly and I'll send them to you. More information about Jim's ship is available at (among other places): http://www.msc.navy.mil/inventory/ships.asp?ship=21 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maritime_Prepositioning_ship#2nd_Lieutenant_Jo… 73! Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK http://www.wd9ewk.net/

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Fwd: Next "HV Satcom Net date!
by Stuart Balanger 13 Mar '11

13 Mar '11

*Hi all, Am sorry that Lee didn't include my article in the ANS Weekly Bullitin (Week of 3/13) 73,.Stu (WA2BSS) * ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Stuart Balanger <wa2bss(a)gmail.com> Date: Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 6:06 AM Subject: Next "HV Satcom Net date! To: ans-editor(a)amsat.org *The next "HV satcom"group net is Thursday March 17 (St. Patties day); at 8PM (EDT; UTC4) on the 146.97 MHz Repeater with an Echolink node of "N2EYH-L" & the Mt.Beacon ARC Hamfest Sunday April 10. More info (Satcom"): www.hvsatcom.org More info (Mt.Beacon ARC) : www.wr2abb.org/home/ 73,.Stu (WA2BSS) *

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