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

ARISSat-1 - Another Charging Time Scheduled?
by Clint Bradford 25 Jul '11

25 Jul '11

OK - Charging of the ARISSat-1's battery is scheduled for July 27. And a test this weekend. Will the battery be charged a second time - before EVA-29 on August 3? What is the expected/anticipated battery "charge state" to be after the July 30 test? Good enough for deployment without another charge? Clint Bradford, K6LCS

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Re: Should I abandon full Doppler correction?
by Wayne Estes 25 Jul '11

25 Jul '11

NY4I wrote: One of the things I like most about MacDoppler is that I can turn the VFO and it will follow me. It does not enforce that I use the program to change frequencies. That allows one to use a simple VFO know interface to change frequencies while still having full Doppler correction. W9AE replies: SatPC32 provides three methods to tune across the passband of a linear transponder while under full Doppler control: 1. With the radio's VFO knob (most peoples' preference) 2. With the mouse, by clicking the on-screen tuning buttons (for example, to go up 5 kHz with a single click) 3. With the keyboard: up/down arrow keys for 100 Hz increments left/right arrow keys for 20 Hz increments +/- keys for 10 Hz increments Methods 2 and 3 only work when SatPC32 is the active program window. They don't work if, for example, your logging program is the active window. SatPC32 doesn't force users to start Doppler tuning in the middle of the passband. That's the default, but it's easy to modify the Doppler.SQF file to start away from center, or on the beacon frequency. Wayne Estes W9AE Oakland, Oregon, USA, CN83ik

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Russians' EVA29
by Clint Bradford 25 Jul '11

25 Jul '11

So far Roscosmos has published this regarding the upcoming EVA29 ... Expect more info soon! This one is "old news" - from July 4 ... Russian EVA Planned for August – Alexander Samokutiaev July 4, 2011 Alexander Samokutiaev, flight engineer of the International Space Station’s expedition 28, informed about the planning for the upcoming Russian EVA in his blog in Roscosmos web. According to Russian cosmonaut, the EVA is slated for August, pending the launch of the shuttle scheduled for July 8. Alexander will work outside the ISS with his colleague Sergey Volkov. The cosmonauts are to perform several ISS RS refurbishing tasks, as well as to launch small satellite Kedr. Russian cosmonauts onboard the International Space Station switched on small spacecraft Kedr on April 12, in order to commemorate the jubilee of Yury Gagarin’s mission. Small spacecraft Kedr developed under the RadioSkaf experiment bears the name adopted by Yu.A. Gagarin call sign in his historical flight, namely Kedr. The satellite’s signal will be transmitted at radio amateur frequency of 145.95 MHz. Kedr has radio amateur call sign RS1S. RadioSkaf is implemented in the framework of UNESCO’s student space education program. Kedr will transmit different signals, images, including the talks of famous Russian scientist Kostantin Tsiolkovsky, rocket Chief Designer Sergey Korolev conversation with the first cosmonaut during his 108-min historical mission, and famous Gagarin’s “Go!” (Poekhali!), of course. From Roscosmos today ... ISS Cosmonauts Prepare for EVA July 25, 2011 Russian cosmonauts Sergey Volkov and Alexander Samokutiaev on-board the International Space Station prepare for a space walk slated for August 3. Today the cosmonauts will check EVA panels, prepare tools and replaceable items of the space suits. The objectives of the upcoming EVA include maintenance and scientific tasks, as well as launch of the Kedr microsatellite devoted to the 50th anniversary of Yury Gagarin’s space mission. This will be the first EVA for Samokutiaev, and the third for Volkov. The space walk is to commence at 18.30 MSK and to last about 6 hours. Roscosmos PAO Clint Bradford, K6LCS

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Russians' ISS Schedule
by Clint Bradford 25 Jul '11

25 Jul '11

>From the public info office of the Russian Federal Space Agency ... July 27, Wednesday ... Pre-EVA: space suit leak check, test of the suit’s communication and medical links, test of the equipment located in Pirs and Zvezda transfer compartment, charging battery for Kedr microsatellite ... July 30, Saturday ... Preparation and test initialization of the Kedr microsatellite ... July 31, Sunday ... Kedr switch-off ... Clint Bradford, K6LCS http://www.work-sat.com

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Arissat-1: EVA 29 live stream coverage
by Fabio Azzarello 25 Jul '11

25 Jul '11

Hello, Nasa TV Schedule reports: *August 3, Wednesday 10 a.m. - ISS Expedition 28 Russian Spacewalk Coverage (spacewalk begins 10:30 a.m. EDT.)* it seems that the deployment of ARISSat/KEDR will be one of the first tasks of the EVA, does anybody know where to find the EVA timeline? 73s Fabio Azzarello IW8QKU/5

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FUNcube Videos Released
by Trevor . 25 Jul '11

25 Jul '11

AMSAT-UK have released a number of video showing the Assembly, Integration and Verification (AIV) testing of the FUNcube satellite at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratories: Wouter removes the stack from the Thermo Vac chamber after nearly 5 hot/cold cycles over a period of two and a half days in the chamber. The GOOD news is that the stack was still working after these tests! http://vimeo.com/26798894 Graham and Wouter return to the lab with the stack after removal from the Thermo Vac chamber. They both make comments on how the test have gone so far. http://vimeo.com/26799097 Applying 'Space Glue' to the screws holding the side panels in place, ready for Vibration Testing on July 25. http://vimeo.com/26799910 Further FUNcube videos can be seen at http://vimeo.com/user3575668 The AMSAT-UK International Space Colloquium will be held July 30-31 at the Holiday Inn, Guildford, GU2 7XZ, England. It is open to all. Either day passes or full packages comprising overnight accommodation and meals are available. For futher information see http://www.uk.amsat.org/colloquium-2011/ The Colloquium schedule, times in BST (GMT+1), is at http://tinyurl.com/2011ColloquiumSchedule The Spring issue of the AMSAT-UK newsletter OSCAR News can be downloaded free at http://www.uk.amsat.org/on_193_final.pdf Join AMSAT-UK at http://tinyurl.com/JoinAMSAT-UK/ 73 Trevor M5AKA ----

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SatPC32 Band Change?
by Paul Delaney - K6HR 25 Jul '11

25 Jul '11

Hello Erik et al, I'm using SatPC32 with an ICOM 821H. Is it possible to have SatPC32 change the up/down band for each satellite? The way I have it working now, I have to manually swap bands. Paul Delaney paul.hamradio(a)verizon.net http://k6hr.dyndns.org:8080

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Saturday (23 July) on the satellites...
by Patrick STODDARD (WD9EWK/VA7EWK) 25 Jul '11

25 Jul '11

Hi! Thanks for all the QSOs when I was out at the DM32xx/DM42ax grid boundary south of Phoenix yesterday afternoon. Normally the Arizona heat is a dry heat, but there was enough humidity mixed with the 104F/40C heat that I didn't stay out there the whole afternoon. I worked two AO-27 passes, followed by one pass each on FO-29 and AO-51, before heading back to Phoenix. Before and after that quick road trip, I did some operating from my "home QTH", a Phoenix city park on the DM33xp/DM43ap grid boundary. I will send out QSL cards from yesterday's activity tomorrow morning. If there isn't an SASE in the envelope, there's no need to send a card back to me. For a few, I have included an SASE, as I would like to receive your QSL card in that case. I uploaded yesterday's QSOs to LOTW last night, and have seen a few QSLs out of those QSOs already. Before I drove out to DM32xx/DM42ax, I tried AO-7 in mode A from the city park in the morning. I had played around with this during Field Day last month, and I was determined to complete a QSO this time. I had no problems hearing the downlink using an FT-817ND with a Buddipole portable dipole in an "L" configuration on its tripod and 8-foot mast. I heard Leo W7JPI calling CQ. He was very easy to hear, and I proceeded to line up on his frequency. After a couple of minutes, we made a quick QSO. Thanks, Leo, for pulling me out of the noise! I need to work on either more antenna gain than what I have from my FT-817ND and Elk log periodic on the 2m uplink, or more transmitter power, so I can have a better signal on the mode A transponder. Or just confine my attempts to higher passes, as yesterday's pass was only up about 19 degrees from the horizon. During the AO-51 pass just after 2200 UTC yesterday afternoon out at the DM32xx/DM42ax boundary, I worked KO6E for my 10,000th satellite QSO as WD9EWK. Thanks, Merv, for the quick contact - even though I wasn't in Utah, Nebraska, or any of the other places you were looking for on the satellites. With the exception of possibly a dozen or so of the QSOs, all have been completed with portable equipment and not from a home/fixed station. Except for a pair of QSOs on SO-35 in 2000 and one QSO on UO-14 in 2003, all of my satellite QSOs have been made since December 2005, when I first worked AO-51. Lots of hot summer afternoons (like yesterday), some cold days, and some nights - all out trying to make QSOs, and having fun. :-) 73! Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK http://www.wd9ewk.net/

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100 Degree Passes
by Clayton W5PFG 25 Jul '11

25 Jul '11

It's summer time and a lot of us are operating mobile or portable. Due to the heat and drought conditions here in the US I have named this summer the "Summer of 100 Degree Passes," commemorating the triple-digit temperatures. ..and you thought I was referring to maximum elevation / TCA in the subject line, didn't you? 73 Clayton W5PFG

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Member Survey
by Clint Bradford 24 Jul '11

24 Jul '11

I have spoken to more than 50 clubs the past three or so years. As I prepare my presentations, I always go online and research the clubs. I want to see how they are "marketing" themselves ... Only two clubs in my region (Southern California) that I have encountered have actually prepared and sent to there membership a "customer/client survey" - a document/questionnaire asking for input FROM the membership of what they expect from their club. And to be successful (in ANYone's definition of "successful") - one must know what is expected FROM the club leadership ... as well as what is to be expected from the members. Which brings me to the Radio Society of Great Britain's recent project ... http://www.rsgb.org/survey/ They have well-defined what their membership is, and what they expect from leadership. We ALL can learn from what they have done. It can be as simple as a membership mass-email message of, "What can WE do for YOU?" ... Clint Bradford, K6LCS

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