November 2017 - AMSAT-BB - mailman.amsat.org

Upcoming ARISS contact with I.C. Villasanta, Villasanta Italy and College Pierre de Fermat, Toulouse, France
by n4csitwo＠bellsouth.net 21 Nov '17

21 Nov '17

An International Space Station school contact has been planned with participants at I.C. Villasanta, Villasanta Italy and College Pierre de Fermat, Toulouse, France on 22 Nov. The event is scheduled to begin at approximately 08:43 UTC. It is recommended that you start listening approximately 10 minutes before this time.The duration of the contact is approximately 9 minutes and 30 seconds. The contact will be a telebridge between NA1SS and K6DUE. The contact should be audible over the east coast of the U.S. Interested parties are invited to listen in on the 145.80 MHz downlink. The contact is expected to be conducted in Italian / English. I.C. Villasanta, Villasanta, Italy "Enrico Fermi" Middle School is located in the center of Villasanta a small town near Monza in the North of Italy, there are 450 students and 40 teachers. Since year 2014, our school and "Pierre de Fermat" Middle School have been involved in a twinning project based on online communication and exchange visits. Our Italian Middle School will be in charge of establishing the TELEBRIDGE contact; ARISS technical mentors in Villasanta will help us on logistics and equipment. The French and the Italian students will ask questions in Italian from their respectful schools. ARI "Erba" is the amateur radio school club cooperating with us (12-14). College Pierre de Fermat, Toulouse, France "Pierre de Fermat" Middle School is located in the centre of Toulouse in the South of France. There are 900 students and 40 teachers. Since year 2014 our French Middle School and the Italian "E. Fermi" have been involved in a twinning project based on online communication and exchange visits. The Italian Middle School will be in charge of establishing the TELEBRIDGE contact, ARISS technical mentors in Villasanta will help them on logistics and equipment. The French and the Italian students will ask questions in Italian from their respectful schools. ARI section Erba is the amateur radio school club cooperating with us (12-14). Participants will ask as many of the following questions as time allows: 1. In che cosa consiste la formazione di un astronauta? Che studi hai fatto? 2. C'e' stato un insegnante che ha avuto un ruolo importante nella tua vita? 3. Come si modificano il sonno e i sogni sulla ISS? 4. Quali sono gli effetti della vita nello Spazio sull'organismo? 5. Che sensazione si prova in orbita? Mi chiedo se hai mai pensato di paragonarti ad un diversamente abile in quelle condizioni? 6. Come riuscite a misurare lo scorrere del tempo se continuate a muovervi attorno alla Terra? 7. In che modo l'Italia e la Francia contribuiscono alle missioni sulla ISS? 8. Puoi raccontarci qualche curiosita' su una delle tue missioni sulla ISS? 9. Poiche' nello spazio tutto "galleggia", ricorrete ad un particolare tipo di cibo: ma e' buono? Che cosa mangerai oggi? 10. Che cosa sogna di scoprire un astronauta scienziato nello Spazio? 11. Le tue missioni nello Spazio hanno cambiato qualcosa della tua personalita' e del modo in cui vedi le cose? 12. Hai mai visto qualcosa di strano nello Spazio che ti ha fatto pensare ad altre forme di vita? 13. Com'e' una giornata tipo sulla ISS? 14. Dalla ISS hai la fortuna di osservare il nostro Pianeta Terra. Nel corso delle tue tre missioni hai potuto riscontrare dei cambiamenti evidenti? 15. Questa tua terza missione si chiama "VITA". Perché' e in cosa consiste? 16. In che cosa consiste l'esperimento "Perseo"? 17. Cosa si prova a lasciare la Terra e la propria famiglia per andare nello Spazio? E a tornare dopo tanto tempo? 18. Al rientro e' dura ricominciare la vita quotidiana? La riabilitazione è difficile? In che cosa consiste e quanto dura? 19. Che cosa o chi ti ha spinto a diventare astronauta? Era un tuo sogno da bambino? 20. Hai mai provato paura prima o durante una missione? Se si, come riesci a superarle? Translation: 1. What does training to be an astronaut consist in? What did you study at college and at university? 2. Was there a teacher that played an important part in your life? 3. How do sleep and dreams change on the ISS? 4. What are the effects of life in Space on the organism? 5. How does it feel to move around in the absence of gravity? Have you ever felt like comparing yourself to a disabled person, in those conditions? 6. How do you measure the passage of time as you are continuously traveling around the Earth? 7. In which way do Italy and France contribute to the missions on the ISS? 8. Can you tell us a curious episode about one of your missions on the ISS? 9. As in Space everything "floats", you have particular type of food, but is it good? What are you eating today? 10. What does a scientific astronaut dream of discovering in Space? 11. Have your missions in Space changed something in your personality or how you see things? 12. Have you ever seen something strange in Space that made you wonder that there might be other forms of life in the universe? 13. What is a typical day on the ISS like? 14. From the ISS you have the fortune of observing our Planet Earth. During your three missions did you notice any obvious changes? 15. This, your third mission is called "VITA". Why? What does it consist of? 16. What does the experiment "Perseo" consist of? 17. How does it feel to leave Earth and one's family to go into Space? And returning after a long period? 18. Once back on Earth, is it difficult going back to everyday life, do you have to do rehabilitation and how long does it take? 19. What or who made you want to become an astronaut? Was it your dream as a child? 20. Have you ever been afraid before or during a mission? If so how do you overcome your anxiety? PLEASE CHECK THE FOLLOWING FOR MORE INFORMATION ON ARISS UPDATES: Visit ARISS on Facebook. We can be found at Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS). To receive our Twitter updates, follow @ARISS_status Next planned event(s): TBD About ARISS: Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) is a cooperative venture of international amateur radio societies and the space agencies that support the International Space Station (ISS). In the United States, sponsors are the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT), the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The primary goal of ARISS is to promote exploration of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) topics by organizing scheduled contacts via amateur radio between crew members aboard the ISS and students in classrooms or informal education venues. With the help of experienced amateur radio volunteers, ISS crews speak directly with large audiences in a variety of public forums. Before and during these radio contacts, students, teachers, parents, and communities learn about space, space technologies, and amateur radio. For more information, see www.ariss.org, www.amsat.org, and www.arrl.org. Thank you & 73, David - AA4KN --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

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SKCUBE digi?
by Jim White 21 Nov '17

21 Nov '17

Anyone digipeating through SKCUBE? While we have been using it to test pointing at a ground station in Fairbanks we noted some occasional 9k6 packets in the 'quite' period between CW and telemetry downlink sequences. Jim

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Re: [amsat-bb] AO-91
by Alex Weimer 20 Nov '17

20 Nov '17

On Monday, November 20, 2017 11:22 AM, Alex Weimer <kc7mg(a)yahoo.com> wrote: Heard AO-91 voice announcement at 1815Z when it was over the east coast. I received it while I had only 2 degrees elevation at my qth in grid DM42 Arizona. 73 JACK KC7MG

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Using Funcuble Dongle Pro+ for Fox Telemetry
by Scott Harvey 20 Nov '17

20 Nov '17

Is anyone successfully using the Funcube Dongle Pro+ to capture Fox telemetry? Just started working with it and don't seem to be having much luck. I can select the dongle and the program seems to be seeing data but not getting any real time decode. Any pointers would be much appreciated. 73, Scott, KA7FVV President - KBARA www.kbara.org Co-Owner WA7DRE 443.525 System Fusion Repeater http://www.ka7fvv.net

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AO-91
by Alex Weimer 20 Nov '17

20 Nov '17

Heard AO-91 voice announcement at 1815Z when it was over the east coast. I received it while I had only 2 degrees elevation at my qth in grid DM42 Arizona. 73 JACK KC7MG

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Thanks to KE4AL
by Carlos Cardon 20 Nov '17

20 Nov '17

Thanks to Robert, KE4AL, for the roving expedition to MS! My only remaining state for satellite WAS is now Delaware. Anyone have a recommendation for DE operators? 73, Carlos W7QL

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AO-91 - Safe Mode Annoucement
by Paul Andrews 20 Nov '17

20 Nov '17

Satellite Fans, I pointed my 2 x XP28 moonbounce antenna at AO-91 today. The AO-91 pass was nearly directly overhead in FN20. The FM signal quality was so high - you can hear the room acoustics in the recording of the child's voice. Very cool. Here is a YouTube link - https://youtu.be/gepcNt2sW2g 73 - Paul - W2HRO

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Foxtelem and Kenwood TM-V71 signal to noise ratio
by John Brier 20 Nov '17

20 Nov '17

I made a cable to tap the 9600 data pin off my Kenwood and I'm trying to decode telemetry from AO-91. I am having trouble getting a continuously clean reception, so I don't expect frames, which I'm not getting, but parts of the reception are fine and yet FoxTelem still shows a low S/R of 1.2, 1.5 at best. I am wondering if there is still some filtering going on. I notice the peaks of the "bits" are not flat like they are supposed to be according to the manual: https://imgur.com/pfX7cSK I am recording the audio off the radio into a Zoom H1 at 48,000 KHz 16bit wav. Maybe I should try hooking the radio directly up to a computer into FoxTelem. Here is my recording: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ineqhoprz50ljl3/2017-11-19_-_1743_UTC_-_AO-91_-_F… Ideas? 73, John Brier KG4AKV

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AO 91 identification
by Nico Janssen 20 Nov '17

20 Nov '17

All, Currently only three TLE sets have been published for the five Cubesats that were launched with JPSS 1. Now 18SPCS claims that JPSS 1 (soon to be called NOAA 20) is object 43013, that MiRaTa is object 43014 and that Buccaneer RRM is object 43015. Detailed doppler measurements show that AO 91 almost certainly is object 43016 (2017-073D). But since two TLE sets are still missing, we shall have to wait to be absolutely sure. 73, Nico PA0DLO

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New Satellite ADIF Logging Tool
by Jeremy Turner 20 Nov '17

20 Nov '17

Hello all, One of the challenges that I've had since starting to work satellites is my logging workflow. I don't always get back to my logging app to log QSOs immediately, I have found it challenging to get all the right settings to get LOTW to match, and some logging apps don't even allow me to type all the right settings in. I hated having to fill in 10 fields per QSO, that always seemed to reset to the wrong values with every QSO! I wrote myself a little Python console app to improve my workflow, and I want to share Python Satellite ADIF or pysatadif with you. For instance, if there is an SO-50 pass where I make several QSOs, I would type: pysatadif --satname SO-50 --timeon 1450 --qsodate 20171119 --qso KO6RM,DN70 --qso N0CALL,EL99 I can add as many QSOs per pass as I need. I can leave off the date if the QSO was on the current UTC day. The software pulls my station defaults including rig, power, and my grid square from a defaults file (automatically generated for you on first run), and pulls frequency, band, and mode from a directory of satellite info. These can be overridden for you rovers and special event ops out there. The resulting ADIF output can be imported into your favorite logging app, TQSL or whatever else you'd like. If this sounds interesting, you can install pysatadif on Windows, Mac or Linux using Python 2.7 or 3.6 by running 'pip install pysatadif'. For more information, check out: https://github.com/jeremymturner/pysatadif https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pysatadif If you have questions, feel free to contact me off-list. 73, Jeremy / KO6RM jeremy(a)jeremymturner.com

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