Students at the Ivy League Brown University are developing an amateur radio satellite EQUiSat that will carry a Xenon Flash Tube (XFT) subsystem to act as an Optical Beacon that should be visible to the unaided eye of observers on Earth.
See http://www.uk.amsat.org/?p=10635
73 Trevor M5AKA
AMSAK-UK http://www.amsat-uk.org/
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Has anyone located a driver for the LVB Tracker internal USB to serial
port adapter on Windows 7 x64?
If not, has anyone reverted to the serial port connection on LVB Tracker
and used an external USB to serial port adapter successfully with
SatPC32 on Windows 7 x64?
I have an Edgeport multiple USB to serial port that has drivers for
Windows 7 x64 that I will use if I have to. I would prefer using the LVB
Tracker with its USB to serial adapter if someone has another solution.
73,
Bill
NJ1H
Hi All,
Here is a quick AO-16 update. On Sunday I turned AO-16 long enough to
get some telemetry packets. The satellite would remain on for less
than one minute after being commanded on. A quick test of the "bent
pipe" voice mode repeater was successful. . The "hardware watchdog
timer problem" is still evident; as expected, spacecraft temperatures
are insufficient to keep the transmitter ON (needs to be above 15 deg
C).
Orbit projections suggest that satellite illumination conditions will
not result in increased temperatures for nearly 10 years. Command
stations do periodically turn AO-16 "ON" to check on its condition and
see if the hardware timer problem has "automagically" fixed itself
(which in not anticipated, but who knows...).
AO-16 telemetry
3 Oct 2010 1838 utc
PACSAT MBL Telemetry Decoder Ver. 1.3 (c) Mike Rupprecht, DK3WN
===============================================================================
(average values)
+10V Battery Bus : 0.00 V
Battery Charge Reg : 0.55 mA
Base Temp : 9.07 °C
PSK RF Out : 1.90 W
+5V RX Bus : 4.87 V
+8.5V RX Bus : 8.49 V
+10V RX Bus : 11.24 V
Here is another teaser :) Several months ago I commanded the AO-16
S-band transmitter ON; it too remains functional (albeit weak), and
was received by me, Drew KO4MA, and Alan WA4SCA.
73,
--
Mark L. Hammond [N8MH]
In addition: Good reception of sat carriers (+/- 2320.190 MHz)
with AIDC3733 2400>144 converter (was modified for AO40 rx):
receiver set at +/- 64.190 MHz (instead of 144.190)
73 de Michel F6HTJ
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello all; for information here in south west Europe we use 2320,100 to
2320,300 cw/ssb portion of 13cm band for tropospheric , AS , RS, traffic.
I have been told by Piero I5CTE
there is permanent continuous carrier beacon around 2320.190 MHz (+/-
doppler) by 1 of the 3 Sirius elliptic NA satellites.
It appears reception is very good here with small 20 turn helix
antenna (in spite of 12m heliax coax) peaking 539.
Apogee (50000km ) around 325deg with 27deg elevation.
F5BOF reports same signal with small hand held 25 elements f9ft yagi.
So these are for us very interesting beacons. Depending hours we can receive 1 o 2 sats.
Real time positions (Sirius-1 / Sirius-2 / Sirius-3) here:
http://www.n2yo.com/satellites/?c=33
Any info about beacon sat polarisation and eirp ?
73 de Michel F6HTJ
Amsat #7409
Hi all
As part of my volunteer duties with ARISS, I post the schedule of upcoming
ARISS contacts on practically a daily basis. I post to the SAREX BB
(_sarex(a)AMSAT.ORG_ (mailto:[email protected]) ). You can also check the schedule
at _http://www.issfanclub.com/_ (http://www.issfanclub.com/) and at
_http://ariss.rac.ca/_ (http://ariss.rac.ca/) (actually
_http://ariss.rac.ca/upcoming.htm#NextContact_ (http://ariss.rac.ca/upcoming.htm#NextContact) and
look for the link saying Tentative List of Upcoming School Contacts . You
can also go directly to _http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/arissnews.rtf_
(http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/arissnews.rtf) .
In spite of what some may think as to how up to date the schedule is, as
soon as I get updates on the schedule and success of a contact, I usually
have updates posted in less than a day. There are times when we get the
locked down time from the ISS planners for a contact almost at the last minute
so my heads up might be very short. Unfortunately we sometimes find out
about the Russian contacts after the fact and thus I am unable to give
everyone a heads up. Usually we at ARISS get the scheduled date and time about 10
to 14 days in advance but we warn all schools that we may get told with
less than 36 hours. We have also been aborted with less than 10 minutes to
go before a contact.
We are often asked about when the crew is going to make a general contact.
We simply do not know. The crew is super busy and when they do get free
time, they have many things they can do. We can suggest that they get on
the radios; we can never demand. So ham radio may or may not be in their
game plan for that day. By the way, all of the ARISS school contacts
actually take place during a scheduled off time for the crewmember. That means
they either gave up some free time or their day gets extended.
73,
Charlie AJ9N
One of the ARISS mentors
In a message dated 1/30/2013 7:30:56 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,
ve3nxk(a)gmail.com writes:
On 30/01/2013 9:30 PM, Personal wrote:
> Remember they don't get paid to sit up there on the radio. Remember too
that
> ham radio in manned space flight has changed since SAREX and Mir.
> It's no longer the back up system it once was. They have iPods and such
aboard
> now. There is Internet access and a telephone to speak with family.
I don't generally get into these types of verbal banter, but this time I
make an
exception. Right now a Canadian, Chris Hadfield, is onboard and doing a
great job
with pictures and Twitter. I see today that he did a live feed to a
school here
in Ontario. The part that bugs me is there were a few ARISS Ham contact
before
Christmas that did not show up till the day of the contact. The Canadian
RAC site
had no mention of it on their site and still is stuck in November.....
I read a lot of AMSAT/ARRL news letters and I have suddenly realized that
the ham
community is out of it altogether. It would appear that starting this
year NASA
themselves is looking after the contacts. I would have thought that the
ham
community would have been in an uproar over this, guess not.
I know that the chances of hearing or contacting the ISS is like winning
the
lottery, but I think now it is long gone. I am disappointed that when an
USA or
Russian is onboad you may hear them once or twice. I doubt that you will
ever
hear Chris at the mic......... he seems to be caught up in social media.
> I'm not sure what the definition of a real ham is but too many times it
seems
>to be a person stuck in the past, bemoaning the things that used to be
No I do not feel that way, I try all kinds of stuff when I have the time.
Mind
you I see the day when the radio will have an iPhone built in, and we will
no
longer need the the communication devices we have now.
Long live the smell of the big tube Collins and Heathkit rigs
Sent from my personal computer.
--
Bill Booth VE3NXK
Sundridge ON, Canada
79.23.37 W x 45.46.18 N
FN05ns
Visit my weather WebCam at http://www.almaguin.com/wxcurrent/weather.html
Organ and Tissue Donation - The Gift of Life
Talk to your family. Your decision can make a difference.
_______________________________________________
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
> Instead of asking what do we "want", maybe a more useful poll might be
> "what can you build us?"
>> Wel that is easy too, you can grab a off the shelf cubesat...
>> and put a pe1ruh space proven linear transponder in it.
Amen. Also there are TWO flight ready PSK-31 uplink with FM downlink
transponders also ready to fly built By Mirek at Brno University. Ideal
for a Cubesat.
They allow up to 20 or more simultaneous PSK-31 users on a 28 MHz uplink
to all appear full duplex in the 435 MHz FM downlink that anyone can
receive on any FH HT. Run PSK31 software and see all the conversations
and transmit all 8 minutes of the pass and join the fun talking to
everyone at once..
All the advantages of linear transponders (20 simultaneous users) and all
the advantages of FM (simple 5 Khz Doppler tuning using any old FM radio).
And it fits on a 3" square card.
See details: http://aprs.org/psk31uplink2.html
All we need is someone to fly it.
Bob, WB4APR
Belden 9268 or equivalent..need just four feet of it for an eggbeater
antenna project; prefer it to have a solderable shield.
Thank you,
Robin E. Midgett
Electronics Technician
Vanderbilt University Mechanical Engineering
406-C Olin Hall
2400 Highland Avenue
Nashville, TN 37212-2010
615-322-5836 phone
615-343-6687 FAX
Please QRT all transmissions to PCsat to save power for COMMANDing.
PCSAT (W3ADO-1) is entering its 3 day RECOVERY window this year starting 31
Jan.
Today we got logged on for commanding twice, but both times user packets
killed the bird.
At best PCSAT can usually only save up enough power for 2 or 3 solid
packets per pass and we need 3 successfully for command and recover. One
user packet in the middle of that and we lose it for the pass.
MY fault for not making this announcement earlier. Not their fault. But
if you see this email and you are transmitting to PCsat, please QRT for the
next several days.
Commanding is being done from the East and West coast of the USA and over
Germany.
WB4APR, Bob
USNA Command Station
The Verge reports how ordinary people are funding a new wave of rocket and satellite missions.
The video features Zac Manchester KD2BHC from the Kicksat project, Peter Platzer of ArduSat and Rouslan Dimitrov of SkyCube.
There is also a report on Copenhagen Suborbitals who are building a rocket to carry a human to the edge of space and back.
Watch the video and read the story at
http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/31/3929342/the-stars-on-a-shoestring-amateur…
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73 Trevor M5AKA
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