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

Re: [amsat-bb] Please Read and Support the Passage of HR 1301 in the Senate
by James R. La Frieda 22 Sep '16

22 Sep '16

On 9/22/2016 8:20 AM, James R. La Frieda wrote: > > Please take two minutes of your time to send a letter to your two > Senators in support of HR 1301 which unanimously passed in the House of > Representatives. > > *The passage of this bill will enable all of us to have an antenna at > our residence, even though many of us now have CC&R's*. > > Simply click on the URL below and fill in your zipcode, name, address, > and e-mail address. > > That's all it takes, for the letter is already composed - and it will be > addressed to your Senators, courtesy of the ARRL. > > Many thanks in advance, for your help and support. > > All the Best, > > 73, Jim (N6MV) > > > Date: September 22, 2016 > Subject: HR 1301 - Amateur Radio Parity Act - Senate Letters > > > We have an opportunity to positively affect Amateur Radio for years to come. H.R. 1301, > the Amateur Radio Parity Act, has unanimously passed the House of Representatives and > moved on to the Senate for consideration. All you need to do is spend two minutes of your > time to send an email to your two Senators supporting the Bill. By doing so, you will have > helped the future of Amateur Radio by guaranteeing our ability to have an effective outdoor > antenna in a deed-restricted community. > > The number of people living in such communities grows exponentially each year. Often, a > ham homeowner has no choice but to live in a community restricted by covenants. There are > nearly 3/4 of a million licensed hams in the United States, more than ever before. But that > may change if we are forced to live in a community that refuses to allow an antenna. > > Help yourself and help your fellow hams. Go to this link: > > https://arrl.rallycongress.net/ctas/urge-senate-to-support-amateur-radio-pa… > > Enter your zip code and follow the prompts. The letters are there. > All you need to do is fill in the blanks, hit save, then send. > > That’s it. Under 2 minutes and you’re done. > > If you haven’t yet done so, please do so today. Your voice counts! > > > > >

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Review of HTs for sat use
by Richard Lawn 22 Sep '16

22 Sep '16

Do any of you recall where in the last 6 months or so there was an article by a ham who reviewed all of the current HTs, especially the cheap ones, for use for satellite communication? I know I'm not dreaming this and I'm soon to do a presentation for our local club and wanted to refer to this article and recommendations. Hopefully one of you can jog my ever fading memory. Rick, W2JAZ -- Sent from Gmail Mobile

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[Video] Bodie Island Lighthouse NPOTA Satellite Activation
by John Brier 21 Sep '16

21 Sep '16

https://youtu.be/5A23fPuv0cU I made ten contacts through satellite SO-50 to successfully activate this park for the National Parks on The Air (NPOTA) contest. Bodie Island (pronounced “body”) is on the Cape Hatteras National Seashore which is the actual national park (not the lighthouse, which is just in it). The park is on the Outer Banks barrier islands of North Carolina. There are several lighthouses on the Outer Banks and all of them are beautiful. Stations contacted: 01 KO4MA EL88 02 N8HM/W3ZM FM18 03 WA5KBH 04 W5CBF EM30 05 W4FS FM06 06 K5ND EM12 07 KC9ELU EM79 08 KI4RO EM88 09 N8RO EM00 10 CY9C FN97 I technically made 11 contacts as Paul, N8HM, also used the AMSAT-NA club call, W3ZM, at the end of our contact. (Go listen again, he’s sneaky with it ;-) ) 73, John Brier KG4AKV

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W5PFG/P NPOTA on Monday, September 26
by Clayton Coleman 21 Sep '16

21 Sep '16

I'll operate from the Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park (NPOTA HP49) on Monday, September 26 in grid FN42. All times given are in UTC SO-50 20:36 - 20:48 XW-2F 21:46 - 21:53 XW-2C 21:53 - 21:59 SO-50 22:19 - 22:28 (possibly) 73 Clayton W5PFG

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IARP for Symposium
by Jerry Buxton 21 Sep '16

21 Sep '16

I just prepared and mailed my IARP so I can operate from the ship at Symposium. Hey, did you know that you can use the U.S Department of State website to crop your own photo to use with the application? https://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/passports/photos/photos.html Look on the right side of the page under "Already Have a Photo?" It lets you pick a photo you have on your PC, and save it back to your PC. You can then print it to send with the application. (Of course, you'll have to figure out how to get it 1.5 x 1.5 inches, I used Word.) 73 -- Jerry Buxton, NØJY

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Off Topic but Interesting
by Gerald Payton 20 Sep '16

20 Sep '16

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2016/09/20/water-powered-cubesat-satellite-s… [http://a57.foxnews.com/images.foxnews.com/content/fox-news/science/2016/09/…]<http://www.foxnews.com/science/2016/09/20/water-powered-cubesat-satellite-s…> Water-powered Cubesat Satellite Shoots For The Moon<http://www.foxnews.com/science/2016/09/20/water-powered-cubesat-satellite-s…> www.foxnews.com A cereal box-size satellite, fueled by water power, is in the running for the first tiny satellite to orbit the moon.

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VE3HLS EO80 Schedule for Wednesday
by k.alexander 20 Sep '16

20 Sep '16

To get to EO90 you drive across the top of a hydro dam at Abitibi Canyon, then it's about 25 km along a dirt road. Yesterday, I crossed the dam unmolested except for plenty of strange looks. Cars don't travel here. The road is quite good but very muddy for the first few km. Last night we had lots of rain and I was stopped at the dam and advised it would be unwise to go further because a few areas were washed out. So, I turned around, checked my map and GPS and headed for EO80, about 40 km away. Good move! My site in EO80 is a cleared area about 500m around. Perfect! I handed out EO80 QSOs to 25 lucky contestants. Wednesday looks like this:1206 XW-2C1312 AO-851327 XW-2A1341 XW-2C1426 FO-291609 FO-291755 FO-29 Busy schedule and the best part is I'll be back at the hotel in time for Happy Hour out on the Lido Deck. I was so encouraged by today's success that I'm going to make another attempt at EO90 on Thursday Morning. Schedule as follows: 1157 AO-851254 XW-2A1338 AO-851427 XW-2A1515 FO-291659 FO-29 Then it's off to Cochrane to catch the Polar Bear Express to Moosonee for 4 days in EO91. NOTE: I have never worked an XW-2x satellite before. Bear with me! 73, KenVE3HLS Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

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VE3HLS/p EO80 plans
by John Papay 20 Sep '16

20 Sep '16

Ken, VE3HLS, showed up on FO-29 this morning on the 1520z pass. I found him way up the band at 435882. He had a decent signal and went qrt at 1533z. If you called him on his frequency, he responded. Ken said that he would stay in EO80 today and tomorrow (Tuesday and Wednesday). The road to EO90 was washed out due to heavy rain so no EO90 operation is expected. He said he would concentrate on FO-29 and SO-50 passes today but it might pay to look on the other birds just in case. Good Luck! 73, John K8YSE --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

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Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule as of 2016-09-20 02:30 UTC
by AJ9N＠aol.com 20 Sep '16

20 Sep '16

Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule as of 2016-09-20 02:30 UTC Quick list of scheduled contacts and events: Yamanashi Gakuin J. H. School, Kofu, Japan, direct via 8J1YGJH (***) The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be NA1SS The scheduled astronaut is Takuya Onishi KF5LKS Contact is a go for: Sat 2016-10-01 08:11:36 UTC 31 deg (***) **************************************************************************** ** Call for Proposals Proposal Window September 1 – November 1, 2016 The Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) Program is seeking formal and informal education institutions and organizations, individually or working together, to host an Amateur Radio contact with a crew member on board the ISS. ARISS anticipates that the contact would be held between July 1, 2017 and December 31, 2017. Crew scheduling and ISS orbits will determine the exact contact dates. To maximize these radio contact opportunities, ARISS is looking for organizations that will draw large numbers of participants and integrate the contact into a well-developed education plan. The deadline to submit a proposal is November 1, 2016. Proposal information and documents can be found at www.arrl.org/hosting-an-ariss-contact. **************************************************************************** ** 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. Listen for the ISS on the downlink of 145.8Ø MHz. **************************************************************************** *** 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 121 Francesco IKØWGF with 118 **************************************************************************** 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 8601 date and time format YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS The complete schedule page has been updated as of 2016-09-20 02:30 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 1084. Each school counts as 1 event. Total number of ARISS ISS to earth school contacts is 1049. 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 2016-09-16 06:00 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. 47 on orbit Jeff Williams KD5TVQ Oleg Skripochka RN3FU Aleksey Ovchinin Exp. 48 on orbit Anatoly Ivanishin Kate Rubins KG5FYJ Takuya Onishi KF5LKS **************************************************************************** 73, Charlie Sufana AJ9N One of the ARISS operation team mentors

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tower placement input
by Kelly Keeton 20 Sep '16

20 Sep '16

I have a existing 50' HF tower with 40m on up. I am now trying to place a 33' tower for VHF on up. the tower will have a 10' VHF pair of antennas as well as a pair of UHF antennas on it (for satellite EME and other goofing around) how close is too close? running the higher quality coax needed will be harder the farther from the shack I get due to physical building issues. Also the closer I can have it to another building the more helpful it will be to my ongoing antenna work. this puts me at a location about 12' from the existing HF tower. what are the pro's and cons of locating a 30' VHF with a 10' array on it so close to the HF antenna array? where should I locate the tower ideally? I have a 1/4 acre lot so I dont have unlimited room .. otherwise its a no brainier...

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