May 2015 - AMSAT-BB - mailman.amsat.org

Re: [amsat-bb] W1AW/0 MN Medallions
by Rick Tejera 31 May '15

31 May '15

Got mine yesterday as well. Agreed it was a nice surprise. Though I did not activate W1AW/7 on sats, I believe I was the only one to activate W1AW/7 from a SOTA summit. 73RickK7TEJ 7 ent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone -------- Original message -------- From: Rolf Krogstad <rolf.krogstad(a)gmail.com> Date: 05/30/2015 18:05 (GMT-07:00) To: "<AMSAT-BB(a)amsat.org>" <amsat-bb(a)amsat.org> Subject: [amsat-bb] W1AW/0 MN Medallions Today I got a surprise in the mail. The ARRL sent me two commemorative medallions mounted in a plexiglass display which is engraved "NR0T was W1AW/MN" Very sharp looking addition to the shack. I worked only Satellite QSOs on both of the Minnesota weeks. It is a beautiful commemorative gift and caught me totally by surprised. Thank you ARRL! 73 Rolf NR0T grid = EN34it Memeber of the following organizations: ARRL Life Memeber Minnesota Wireless Association Twin Cities DX Association AMSAT AMSAT-UK _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB(a)amsat.org. AMSAT-NA makes this open forum available to all interested persons worldwide without requiring membership. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author, and do not reflect the official views of AMSAT-NA. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb

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ANS-151 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins
by Lee McLamb 31 May '15

31 May '15

AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-151 The AMSAT News Service bulletins are a free, weekly news and infor- mation service of AMSAT North America, The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation. ANS publishes news related to Amateur Radio in Space including reports on the activities of a worldwide group of Amateur Radio operators who share an active interest in designing, building, launching and communicating through analog and digital Amateur Radio satellites. The news feed on http://www.amsat.org publishes news of Amateur Radio in Space as soon as our volunteers can post it. Please send any amateur satellite news or reports to: ans-editor at amsat.org. In this edition: * 2015 AMSAT-NA Board of Directors Nomination Deadline Approaching * Nick Lance, KC5KBO, SK * Update - VP2MKV Satellite Operation June 11-20 * Planetary Society's LighSail Satellite Stops Transmitting * 29 MHz – the forgotten frequency for amateur radio satellites SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-151.01 ANS-151 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins AMSAT News Service Bulletin 151.01 From AMSAT HQ Kensington, MD. May 31, 2015 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-151.01 2015 AMSAT-NA Board of Directors Nomination Deadline Approaching It is time to submit nominations for the upcoming AMSAT-NA Board of Directors election. Four director's terms expire this year: Barry Baines, WD4ASW, Alan Biddle, WA4SCA, Mark Hammond, N8MH, and Jerry Buxton, N0JY. In addition, up to two Alternates may be elected for one year terms. A valid nomination requires either one Member Society or five current individual members in good standing to nominate an AMSAT-NA member for Director. Written nominations, consisting of the nominee's name and call, and the nominating individual's names, calls and individual signatures should be mailed to: AMSAT-NA, 10605 Concord St, #304 Kensington, MD 20895-2526. In addition to traditional submissions of written nominations, which is the preferred method, the intent to nominate someone may be made by electronic means. These include e- mail, Fax, or electronic image of a petition. Electronic petitions should be sent to MARTHA(a)AMSAT.ORG or Faxed to (301) 822-4371. No matter what means is used, petitions MUST arrive no later than June 15th at the AMSAT-NA office. If the nomination is a traditional written nomination, no other action is required. If it is other than this, i.e. electronic, a verifying traditional written petition MUST be received at the AMSAT-NA office at the above address within 7 days following the close of nominations on June 15th. ELECTRONIC SUBMISSIONS WITHOUT THIS SECOND, WRITTEN VERIFICATION ARE NOT VALID UNDER THE EXISTING AMSAT-NA BYLAWS. [ANS thanks Alan, WA4SCA, for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Nick Lance, KC5KBO, SK On behalf of the ARISS-International team, it is with great sadness that we announce the passing of long-time ARISS team member Nick Lance, KC5KBO, SK. Nick passed away on May 24 from an aneurism of the aorta. Nick was a smart, caring, considerate and helpful person that loved the amateur radio hobby. As the primary amateur radio license trainer for the ISS astronauts, Nick played an integral role in encouraging and training countless astronauts (US, Canada, Japan and Europe) to pursue their amateur radio license and become active on ARISS. He inspired and trained dozens of NASA's aerospace education specialists (who talk to schoolteachers nationwide) to get their ham tickets. He also taught a "Hamster" course to middle schoolers, inspiring them to pursue careers in technology through Amateur Radio and ARISS activities. Personally, I enjoyed working with Nick both as a NASA engineer and an amateur radio operator. I will miss his quick wit and sense of humor. Nick will be deeply missed by many. A Celebration of Life for Nick Lance will be held Sunday, June 14, 2015, 2 p.m. at the Gilruth Center. A map to the public entrance of the Gilruth Recreation Center, Building 207 http://ewh.ieee.org/r5/galveston_bay/events/GilruthCenterMapandDirections.p… A flag will be flown over Mission Control and presented to Renee and the family. Our deepest sympathy goes out to all that knew Nick, especially Renee, his wife, and all his family members. Frank H. Bauer, KA3HDO ARISS International Chairman [ANS thanks Frank, KA3HDO, for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Update - VP2MKV Satellite Operation June 11-20 Operators Barry/N0KV, Ken/W0ETT, Greg/W0ZA and Jim/WD0E will be active as VP2MKV from Gingerbread Hill, St. Peters (grid square FK86), between June 10-18th. Activity will be on 80-2 meters using CW, SSB and RTTY. They will also participate in the ARRL VHF Contest and some satellite operations (FO-29 only on selected passes). The two primary radios will be Elecraft K3's with 500 watt amplifiers. Antennas include a Mosley Classic 33 on 10/15/20, a folding hexbeam by Folding Antennas (Germany) on 20-10 meters, verticals on 30 and 40 meters, a dipole on 75-80 meters, and an M2 5 element 6 meter beam. They will run 500 watts on 6m SSB/CW and FSK441. A 6 meter beacon is planned and will be on 50.102 MHz when the station is not manned, and the receiver will be active between beacon transmissions to listen for calls. The primary callsign for the operation will be VP2MKV, and VP2MTT will probably be used on 6 meters. Near 24 hour operation is planned. Tentative satellite pass plan for VP2MKV operation: They will attempt to be on the first two FO-29 ascending node passes June 11th through 20th. If time allows they may be on the third ascending node those days. Those passes happen in late morning to mid afternoon Montserrat time. On those passes they will look first for South America when the satellite is south of them, then North America, then Europe during the short mutual window. If there are 2 meter or 6 meter terrestrial openings during the VHF contest June 13th and 14th, they will not be on satellite at those times. Logs will be uploaded to LoTW soon after the group returns to the US. Paper QSLs via N0KV, direct or via the bureau. US addressees send SASE; addressees outside the US send SASE plus 2 USDs for return postage. Use of ClubLog has not been finalized at this time. Additional information will be posted under VP2MKV on QRZ.com. [ANS thanks Ohio/Penn DX Bulletin No. 1215 for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Planetary Society's LighSail Satellite Stops Transmitting Excerpt from the Planetary Society's page http://planet.ly/0gVop As of late Friday afternoon, LightSail was continuing to operate normally. The spacecraft’s ground stations at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Georgia Tech were receiving data on each pass. Power and temperature readings were trending stably, and the spacecraft was in good health. But inside the spacecraft’s Linux-based flight software, a problem was brewing. Every 15 seconds, LightSail transmits a telemetry beacon packet. The software controlling the main system board writes corresponding information to a file called beacon.csv. If you’re not familiar with CSV files, you can think of them as simplified spreadsheets-in fact, most can be opened with Microsoft Excel. As more beacons are transmitted, the file grows in size. When it reaches 32 megabytes-roughly the size of ten compressed music files-it can crash the flight system. The manufacturer of the avionics board corrected this glitch in later software revisions. But alas, LightSail’s software version doesn’t include the update. Late Friday, the LightSail team received a heads-up warning them of the vulnerability. A fix was quickly devised to prevent the spacecraft from crashing, and it was scheduled to be uploaded during the next ground station pass. But before that happened, LightSail’s automated chirps fell silent. The telemetry data is sent on a downlink of 437.435 MHz, AX.25, 9600 bps FSK. The last data packet received from the spacecraft was May 22 at 21:31 UTC (5:31 p.m. EDT). A LightSail map tracking application is at http://sail.planetary.org/missioncontrol/ [ANS thanks JoAnne, K9JKM, for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- 29 MHz – the forgotten frequency for amateur radio satellites Hans van de Groenendaaal ZS6AKV writes in the EngineerIT magazine about the potential for 29 MHz as a satellite uplink band. Universities and other scientific research institutions are using portions of the amateur spectrum for their CubeSat’s which has caused the 145 and 435 MHz amateur-satellite band segments to be very crowded, leading to an increasing number of satellite builders to explore alternatives. For many, such as those requiring single-channel bandwidth greater than approximately 12.5 kHz, the best answer will be found in the microwave bands. However, for those who can use it, the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) satellite frequency coordination process has now opened another alternative: 29 MHz uplinks. Read the EngineerIT article at http://www.ee.co.za/article/29-mhz-forgotten-frequency-amateur-radio- satellites.html IARU Satellite Frequency Coordination http://www.iaru.org/satellite.html [ANS thanks AMSAT-UK for the above information] /EX In addition to regular membership, AMSAT offers membership in the President's Club. Members of the President's Club, as sustaining donors to AMSAT Project Funds, will be eligible to receive addi- tional benefits. Application forms are available from the AMSAT Office. Primary and secondary school students are eligible for membership at one-half the standard yearly rate. Post-secondary school students enrolled in at least half time status shall be eligible for the stu- dent rate for a maximum of 6 post-secondary years in this status. Contact Martha at the AMSAT Office for additional student membership information. 73, This week's ANS Editor, Lee McLamb, KU4OS ku4os at amsat dot org

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PSAT PSK31 downlink & power requirements
by KO6TZ Bob 31 May '15

31 May '15

For the afternoon pass 21:17u @ 52 Deg, I used Dave's method and NOT try to match up signals. Use a program that decodes all of the signals and try to reply to as many as I could. With some practice, that should work out better. I don't know if Glenn copied me or not. He was the only satellite CQ I saw. As for power: I can barely see my signal using my di-pole. When I used 85 watts 70% ALC into a 1/2 wave vertical, (10m Ringo) I was able to turn on the FM transmitter and saw a good clean, 21 IMD, signal on the down-link. I have no idea what it looked like for the terrestrial users. I did not have to wait for the telemetry to turn on the FM transmitter, and I did not splatter across the waterfall of the down-link. More practice coming. BOB KO6TZ

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LightSail-A Reboot
by Gregory Beat 31 May '15

31 May '15

The Cal Poly ground station detected a reboot of the onboard computer. Cause of reboot unknown, but welcomed to resolve communication issue. https://t.co/XphRtq5hD4 The RTC shows 908,125 seconds (roughly 10.5 days). Software patch will be loaded by ground stations (Cal Poly or Georgia Tech), to prevent re-occurrence of this outage. Two-way communications will be attempted tomorrow. http://sail.planetary.org greg, w9gb -- Sent from iPad Air

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W1AW/0 MN Medallions
by Rolf Krogstad 30 May '15

30 May '15

Today I got a surprise in the mail. The ARRL sent me two commemorative medallions mounted in a plexiglass display which is engraved "NR0T was W1AW/MN" Very sharp looking addition to the shack. I worked only Satellite QSOs on both of the Minnesota weeks. It is a beautiful commemorative gift and caught me totally by surprised. Thank you ARRL! 73 Rolf NR0T grid = EN34it Memeber of the following organizations: ARRL Life Memeber Minnesota Wireless Association Twin Cities DX Association AMSAT AMSAT-UK

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Re: [amsat-bb] PSAT - power requirements
by Robert Bruninga 30 May '15

30 May '15

> > > WB4APR recommends no more than 25 watts. > That was the design goal, but until we get more experience, we wont know for sure. But since everyone can see their own downlink just like everyone else can see it, it should be no problem adjusting for minimum uplink power. But with any shared transponder it can also become an arms race. As one person increases power it drives the AGC down and everyone else goes down, so they also increase power and this just keeps going until the AGC is maximally tightened and everyone is transmitting max power and everyone is weak. What we really need (BEFORE this happens) is for everyone to give us feedback as to the minimum power they needed to maintain a minimum signal in the passband and of course, what kind of antenna they are using under those conditions. And this is best early on when there are only 1 or 2 usewrs at a time.. If you don't yet have PSK31, but want to get some data, team up with an HF friend in your area and ask him to just transmit for the next 10 minutes and you can then receie his downlink while commenting on his signal strength throughout the pass. >The prelaunch orbit estimate I saw was a 700 km x 350 km orbit with an expected orbital lifespan of 3 years. I'm not sure how close that is to the final orbit. We don't know yet either, but perigee is nearer the morning passes and apogee is nearer the later passes (THis is for the Northern Hemisphere.). Both apogee and perigee being near the equator. Bob, WB4aPR On family travel and with very spotty Email till next week. On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 2:58 PM, Red Willoughby <redski(a)bellsouth.net> wrote: > A couple of questions: > > How much power (to a dipole) is recommended for uplinking on 28.120 PSK31? > > Also, what is it's altitude? > > And, how long is its expected lifespan? > > Thanks in advance. > > Red > KC4LE > > _______________________________________________ > Sent via AMSAT-BB(a)amsat.org. AMSAT-NA makes this open forum available > to all interested persons worldwide without requiring membership. Opinions expressed > are solely those of the author, and do not reflect the official views of AMSAT-NA. > Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! > Subscription settings: http://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB(a)amsat.org. AMSAT-NA makes this open forum available to all interested persons worldwide without requiring membership. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author, and do not reflect the official views of AMSAT-NA. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb

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upcoming DM02 grid expedition, including satellites
by Patrick STODDARD (WD9EWK/VA7EWK) 30 May '15

30 May '15

Hi! I received this e-mail on the mail reflector for my local DX club, announcing an expedition to the waters near San Clemente Island off southern California in grid DM02. I just tweeted the text of the e-mail, but will also post it here for those not on Twitter: ********** Along with Jim, K6ZH and Phil, N0KE, I am going on a boat trip to activate the FFMA #1 most needed grid - DM02. We are leaving from San Diego on Wednesday, June 10 aboard a 49' sailboat and will be on the air sometime late Wednesday, through sometime on Sunday, June 14, including most of the VHF contest. Unfortunately, we have to leave before the end of the contest because the Navy has scheduled exercises in the area on Monday. We will be active on 6 M, 2 M, probably 432, 1296 and satellites. Phil is responsible for everything other than 6 M. The easiest way to work us from AZ is via meteor scatter and we will be on that mode every morning and perhaps the evenings, unless there is Es. We understand there is no cell service (even though we will be close to San Clemente Island), so we will be in contact with pilot stations on 2 M FM in order to announce ourselves on Ping Jockey. If you don't use meteor scatter, it's not too late to learn! Otherwise you will have to listen for a very short (distance) Es opening or backscatter or some other nearly impossible propagation mode. We will be running about 500 W and a 3 el yagi (due to constraints from having to mount the antenna on a sailboat). We will use the call K6ZH. Watch for packet spots announcing our transmit frequency. Good luck. 73, Bud N7CW ********** I have e-mailed N7CW, asking for details on which satellites they are looking to work during this grid expedition. Since K1N was able to have success working FO-29 recently, maybe these guys can follow K1N's lead and make a bunch of satellite operators (along with the 6m ops and those on the other bands) very happy. Good luck, and 73! Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK http://www.wd9ewk.net/ Twitter: @WD9EWK

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Still Waiting To Hear From Lightsail
by B J 30 May '15

30 May '15

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/2015/20150529-lightsail-waiting-… 73s Bernhard VA6BMJ @ DO33FL

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more PSAT W3ADO beacon rpts
by Bob KD7YZ 30 May '15

30 May '15

This morning, 30-may 0959Z W3ADO-5 beacon B Ø27 31 23 868 266 +2 ie e W3ADO-5 beacÉ¤{28 25 23 8Ø2 249 +6 nt F W3ADO-5 bedÆØ29 15 23 8Ø3 252 +7 a on r64 +7 MQ W3ADO-5 bedÆØ31 6 29 798 249 +1Ø , +t 253 +8 n ae t saw one other weak PSK trace I sent CQ a few times also 73, -- Bob KD7YZ http://www.qrz.com/db/kd7yz AMSAT LM#901

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BRICSat
by David L Warnberg 30 May '15

30 May '15

I'm not seeing BRICSAT on the Satellite Pass Predictions page any longer. Anyone know why? Thanks David, KK4QOE

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