June 2016 - AMSAT-BB - mailman.amsat.org

Anybody know LOTW valid Satellite Name for UKUBE-1/FUNcube-2
by Bob 18 Jun '16

18 Jun '16

The LOTW online FAQ doesn't have a satellite name listed for UKUBE-1/FUNcube-2 yet. Nor does it appear in the config.xml file for the latest TQSL release (2.2.2). Does anybody know if there is a LOTW acceptable name yet? I have submitted a LOTW support ticket, but perhaps such requests need to come from official sources? 73, Bob, WB4SON

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CQ CQ ZS, V51, East Africa via AO-7
by Eduardo PY2RN 18 Jun '16

18 Jun '16

Any station available for a QSO via AO-7? AOS here will be at 17:04UTC I will calling around 145.950 (If AO-7 available in mode B) Tks & 73 Eduardo PY2RN

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Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule as of 2016-06-18 07:00 UTC
by AJ9N＠aol.com 18 Jun '16

18 Jun '16

Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule as of 2016-06-18 07:00 UTC Quick list of scheduled contacts and events: Chuvash Republic, Russia, direct via TBD (***) The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be RSØISS (***) The scheduled astronaut is Oleg Skripochka RN3FU (***) Contact is a go for Sun 2016-06-19 09:30 UTC (***) **************************************************************************** ** ARISS is always glad to receive listener reports for the above contacts. ARISS thanks everyone in advance for their assistance. Feel free to send your reports to aj9n(a)amsat.org or aj9n(a)aol.com. **************************************************************************** *** All ARISS contacts are made via the Ericsson radio unless otherwise noted. **************************************************************************** *** Several of you have sent me emails asking about the RAC ARISS website and not being able to get in. That has now been changed to http://www.ariss.org/ Note that there are links to other ARISS websites from this site. **************************************************************************** Looking for something new to do? How about receiving DATV from the ISS? If interested, then please go to the ARISS-EU website for complete details. Look for the buttons indicating Ham Video. http://www.ariss-eu.org/ If you need some assistance, ARISS mentor Kerry N6IZW, might be able to provide some insight. Contact Kerry at kbanke(a)sbcglobal.net **************************************************************************** ARISS congratulations the following mentors who have now mentored over 100 schools: Gaston ON4WF with 121 Satoshi 7M3TJZ with 119 Francesco IKØWGF with 116 **************************************************************************** The webpages listed below were all reviewed for accuracy. Out of date webpages were removed and new ones have been added. If there are additional ARISS websites I need to know about, please let me know. Note, all times are approximate. It is recommended that you do your own orbital prediction or start listening about 10 minutes before the listed time. All dates and times listed follow International Standard ISO 8061 date and time format YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS The complete schedule page has been updated as of 2016-06-18 07:00 UTC. (***) Here you will find a listing of all scheduled school contacts, and questions, other ISS related websites, IRLP and Echolink websites, and instructions for any contact that may be streamed live. http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/arissnews.rtf Total number of ARISS ISS to earth school events is 1063. Each school counts as 1 event. Total number of ARISS ISS to earth school contacts is 1028. Each contact may have multiple schools sharing the same time slot. Total number of ARISS supported terrestrial contacts is 47. A complete year by year breakdown of the contacts may be found in the file. http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/arissnews.rtf Please feel free to contact me if more detailed statistics are needed. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ The following US states and entities have never had an ARISS contact: Arkansas, Delaware,South Dakota,Wyoming, American Samoa, Guam, Northern Marianas Islands, and the Virgin Islands. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ QSL information may be found at: http://www.ariss.org/qsl-cards.html ISS callsigns: DPØISS, IRØISS, NA1SS, OR4ISS, RSØISS **************************************************************************** The successful school list has been updated as of 2016-06-14 04:30 UTC. http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/Successful_ARISS_schools.rtf Frequency chart for packet, voice, and crossband repeater modes showing Doppler correction as of 2005-07-29 04:00 UTC http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/ISS_frequencies_and_Doppler_correction .rtf Listing of ARISS related magazine articles as of 2006-07-10 03:30 UTC. http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/ARISS_magazine_articles.rtf Check out the Zoho reports of the ARISS contacts https://reports.zoho.com/ZDBDataSheetView.cc?DBID=412218000000020415 **************************************************************************** Exp. 46 on orbit Tim Kopra KE5UDN Timothy Peake KG5BVI Yuri Malenchenko RK3DUP Exp. 47 on orbit Jeff Williams KD5TVQ Oleg Skripochka RN3FU Aleksey Ovchinin **************************************************************************** 73, Charlie Sufana AJ9N One of the ARISS operation team mentors

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DL99 on Monday, 20 June
by Glenn Miller - AA5PK 18 Jun '16

18 Jun '16

I plan to operate from Amistad National Recreation Area (RCØ1) in DL99 on Monday, 20 June. Two FO-29 passes -- First at my AOS of ~1720Z and a second at ~1903Z. Monday promises to be the coolest day for the rest of the month with a high of just 96 predicted. I'll upload to LoTW (as "AA5PK") and hardcopy QSL to anyone by email request. 73 Glenn / AA5PK

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RTL-SDR downlink
by bruisedreed＠juno.com 17 Jun '16

17 Jun '16

Hello all! Been lurking a while here and just wanted to say hi and thanks to everyone. Just started working the birds. VERY limited success so far on the linear transponders. Limited budget leads me to either have to run in half duplex (obviously not preferred) or come up with another low cost receiving option. I bought an RTL-SDR to see if it could be any help. I have to say I really like this little receiver. It’s a little buggy figuring things out but it receives really pretty well…UNTIL I try to receive CW and SSB on the transponders. I have no problem receiving FM repeaters and simplex and have monitored a few SO50 passes with it no problem, but for some reason I’m not hearing the same signals I can hear on the receiver of my FT100 with the EXACT same antenna. I A/B them and have nothing on the SDR. Is anyone using one of these? I am probably missing something simple. When I started receiving HF I couldn’t make it work until I figured out I had to change the sampeling in the setup to direct from quadrature…only learned that through a forum and I assume something like that will make the thing come to life. Lack of documentation on some of these things is kind of a pain. Thanks in advance for any help you can offer and my apologies to anyone I have frustrated working half duplex! I will figure out what I’m doing! ____________________________________________________________ Los Angeles Post This Father and Son Took the Same Photo 28 Years in a Row, Last One is ... http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5762b832d809e38323b6ast03vuc

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FUNcube-1 weekend operations
by Graham Shirville 17 Jun '16

17 Jun '16

Hi all, Just report that FUNcube-1 now has the transponder continuously operational for the weekend. 73 Graham G3VZV

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"Only Half of the CubeSats Deployed into Space Work"
by M5AKA 17 Jun '16

17 Jun '16

ARRL story quotes NASA engineer Joe Pellegrino as saying "Only Half of the CubeSats Deployed into Space Work" - is the failure rate really that high?http://www.arrl.org/news/view/stmsat-1-youngsters-told-only-half-of-th… I've certainly noticed that a number of ISS deployed CubeSats using amateur frequencies which were subject to delays in the initial launch and then more delays before actual deployment have failed but it certainly didn't seem to be as high as 50% But most ISS CubeSat deployments are not on amateur frequencies e.g. over 100 Planet Labs Dove CubeSats have been deployed. Was the NASA engineer saying that half of Planet Labs satellites failed to work? 73 Trevor M5AKA

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Re: [amsat-bb] Only Half of the CubeSats Deployed into Space Work
by Daniel Schultz 17 Jun '16

17 Jun '16

I just attended a talk on Tuesday by professor Michael Swartwout of Saint Louis University. He maintains a database of all known Cubesats at: https://sites.google.com/a/slu.edu/swartwout/home/cubesat-database According to his most recent data, about 25% of recent Cubesats are dead on arrival in orbit, and another 12% fail early in the mission. 50% of Cubesats are classified as fully or partially successful. He attributes this mostly to inexperienced organizations building their first satellite with little understanding of the space environment and little or no environmental testing before launch. A certain amount of first timer "we know everything" arrogance also factors into that statistic. Satellites in space definitely don't work the same as satellites on the workbench. Many of these "one and done" organizations quit building satellites after their first failure, those organizations that launch multiple Cubesats have much better success rates. Experience does count for something. Even for tiny little Cubesats, there is a set of "best practices" that you need to pay attention to when building your satellite. If it is your organization's first satellite, you need to be mindful of what you don't know and try to learn from the experience of others. Slides from an earlier presentation by Professor Swartwout are at: http://nepp.nasa.gov/workshops/eeesmallmissions/talks/11%20-%20THU/1300%20-… I expect that this year's presentation will be posted online in a few days. Dan Schultz N8FGV ------------Original Message------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2016 18:54:05 +0000 (UTC) From: M5AKA <m5aka(a)yahoo.co.uk> To: AMSAT BB <amsat-bb(a)amsat.org> Subject: [amsat-bb] "Only Half of the CubeSats Deployed into Space Work" Message-ID: <528856269.7643560.1466103245274.JavaMail.yahoo(a)mail.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 ARRL story quotes NASA engineer Joe Pellegrino as saying "Only Half of the CubeSats Deployed into Space Work" - is the failure rate really that high?http://www.arrl.org/news/view/stmsat-1-youngsters-told-only-half-of-th… esats-deployed-into-space-work I've certainly noticed that a number of ISS deployed CubeSats using amateur frequencies which were subject to delays in the initial launch and then more delays before actual deployment have failed but it certainly didn't seem to be as high as 50% But most ISS CubeSat deployments are not on amateur frequencies e.g. over 100 Planet Labs Dove CubeSats have been deployed. Was the NASA engineer saying that half of Planet Labs satellites failed to work? 73 Trevor M5AKA

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Re: [amsat-bb] RTL-SDR downlink
by Greg Van Scott 17 Jun '16

17 Jun '16

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. I figured a bunch had to have tried the same thing as me! I have noted pretty much all of the drawbacks already mentioned (poor supression of strong signals…uplink wiping out downlink receiver etc.) Thankfully I am not in an RF rich environment, so I am going to continue to mess around and try some options. I have to say, for a modest investment there are a lot of really good applications for this little receiver. Nice way to experiment anyway. Mine has the upconverter in it so I have HF/VHF/UHF. Really handy little tool. If nothing else I can have a visual on where the signals are during a satellite pass or can decode telemetry. Thanks for all the input. This is what I love about amateur radio! Lots of really smart people out there that are willing to lend a hand. Greg WZ2N

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[Video] Seven SO-50 Contacts in 90 Seconds
by John Brier 16 Jun '16

16 Jun '16

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcTbx-4IwV0 73, John Brier KG4AKV

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