October 2019 - AMSAT-BB - mailman.amsat.org

Nice Article VK5ZAI
by christy hunter 31 Oct '19

31 Oct '19

ALL, short article on Tony Hutchison's involvement with Nasa/MIR/ARISS https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-06/nasa-considers-amateur-radio-buff-pa… 73 Christy KB6LTY

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Re: [amsat-bb] LDPC for FPGAs to do DVB-S2/X on SDRs - so many letters! What does it mean?
by Red Willoughby 31 Oct '19

31 Oct '19

Thanks for the terrific explanation of DVB. I am a pedestrian Ham and I don’t work in the DVB industry, so the plain-language discussion was very helpful. Red KC4LE

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LOTW problems
by Rick Wyrwas 31 Oct '19

31 Oct '19

Is anyone having problem when a QSO is verified, no grid is shown in VUCC column Rick WA9JBQ -- Rick Wyrwas

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N4KGL's RaDAR Challenge Plans Saturday, Nov 2nd
by Greg Lane 31 Oct '19

31 Oct '19

Please listen for N4KGL from EM70 on SO-50 Saturday Nov 2nd 1300 UTC. I will be hand-held portable. Dennis WA6QKN and I will combine Rapid Deployment Radio (RaDAR), Parks On The Air (POTA), and Amateur Satellites along with a fun bike ride. All of this in Wakulla County, Florida. Rapid Deployment Amateur Radio combines the outdoors, amateur radio, and movement. You are welcome to try RaDAR in the field or chase us on the radio. Please check https://pota.us/ for our spots. We will use N4KGL as our callsign. In RaDAR we need at least five contacts to move to the next location. For bikes, we need to move at least two kilometers. Our bike rides will be longer to get from park to park. Our four-hour clock for the challenge will start at 1300 UTC, 9 AM EDT, with the SO-50 pass at the Wakulla Station Trailhead on the Tallahassee St Marks Historic Rail Trail (POTA K-3661). We will complete our five contacts on HF and ride our bikes to Wakulla State Forrest (POTA K-4643). Then continue the bike ride to Wakulla Springs State Park (POTA K-1862). Our HF contacts will be CW or SSB on 40, 20, or 17 meters. Please watch for our spots on https://pota.us/#/ Our rig will be the Elecraft KX2 with the Elecraft KXPA100 amp. I will use a bike cart to pull the rig and a 30 AH Bioenno battery. The antenna will be a SOTABeams Band Hopper Link Dipole. We may continue this pattern beyond four hours to qualify for one of the RaDAR Awards sponsored by Parks On The Air. Warthog Award: two RaDAR* transitions at or between entities during a 24 > hour period. > Rhino Award: three RaDAR* transitions at or between entities during a 24 > hour period. > Cheetah Award: five RaDAR* transitions at or between entities during a 24 > hour period > Ostrich Award: seven RaDAR* transitions at or between entities during a 24 > hour period. > Leopard Award: ten RaDAR* transitions at or between entities during a 24 > hour period. > Lion Award: twelve RaDAR* transitions at or between entities during a 24 > hour period RaDAR rules http://radarops.co.za/index.php/radar-rules/ RaDAR Group on MeWe https://mewe.com/group/5c1156b6a08bc414d0dd76dd RaDAR on Groups.io https://groups.io/g/RaDAR/topics Parks On The Air https://parksontheair.com/ Tallahassee St Marks Rail Trail https://www.floridastateparks.org/parks-and-trails/tallahassee-st-marks-his… N4KGL Blog https://www.n4kgl.info/ .

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IC-9700 & foxtelem 1.08p
by Kevin 30 Oct '19

30 Oct '19

Hi All, Any IC-9700 users out there that have switched to foxtelem 1.08p using USB and IQ mode? I see a good eye but get zero decodes, dropping back to 1.07y and it all starts working again. 73 Kevin WA7FWF

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Re: [amsat-bb] FOX Telemetry upgrade problem
by gw1fky＠aol.com 30 Oct '19

30 Oct '19

HiIt might mot be the answer but when I installed the upgrade I had the same problems.I noticed that the "FPSK" box was checked - I changed the setting to "FSK" and it now is working fine.Ken EatonGW1FKY

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LDPC for FPGAs to do DVB-S2/X on SDRs - so many letters! What does it mean?
by Michelle Thompson 30 Oct '19

30 Oct '19

LDPC for FPGAs to do DVB-S2/X on SDRs - so many letters! What does it mean? Greetings all! Plenty going on in the open source amateur satellite scene! Here's where Open Research Institute is going next with advanced forward error correcting codes. We are doing our best to get them into as many FPGAs as possible. This will amplify the capabilities of all those SDRs out there. Open Research Institute is a 501(c)(3) dedicated to open source R&D for amateur radio. We are particularly interested in technology that enables modern digital microwave-band amateur satellite ground stations and payloads. All of the work directly benefits all AMSAT organizations. LDPC stands for low density parity check coding. It is a powerful forward error correcting code, meaning it provides a huge amount of durability and error correction for digital signals. LDPC is one of two error correcting codes in DVB-S2 and DVB-S2X. The other is called BCH. DVB-S2 is the most widely used satellite downlink standard and has become widely adopted in amateur satellite work. DVB stands for digital video broadcast. The S is satellite and the 2 is second edition. We replace the MPEG layer, which is appropriate for commercial video broadcast, with a generic data layer, which is more useful for hams. This switch boosts bandwidth. MPEG has a lot of overhead. This "generic stream encapsulation" protocol is called GSE. It comes from the same organization that makes DVB standards. It's an open standard, like DVB-S2, and is already available in GNU Radio and Wireshark due to some excellent volunteer work. GSE is a drop-in replacement for MPEG in DVB-S2/X. DVB-S2 will be heavily used on Gateway, is used by ARISS, and is a strong contender for a wide variety of payloads currently being designed, developed, integrated, and tested. It's also used terrestrially by a lot of DATV enthusiasts. The DVB-S2X (X means extension) codes work down to an SNR of -10dB on the low signal strength end. The extension also adds more codes to the higher-end. This allows for very powerful signals that are used by high-throughput satellites. For amateur radio, we are generally more interested in the very low SNR capabilities of DVB-S2X, but don't overlook the available codes at the high SNR end! Why is LDPC so great? It approaches the physical limits of what error correcting codes can do. The only better code out there right now are Polar codes, used in 5G. They're slightly better, but heavily encumbered by licensing. Becoming familiar with LDPC gives you knowledge of a code with cutting edge performance. I gave a talk on coding theory and how LDPC works at TAPR DCC in 2018. Here's a link to the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoEBps_J988&list=PLs_Ab58w9LI-p-j9C3uN8TjKh… We have supported several types of LDPC work. Charles Brain's Nvidia implementation (graphical processing unit) was demonstrated at Reno Symposium in 2017. A copy of this work is in the Phase 4 Ground repository. Ahmet Inan's general purpose processor implementation has been incorporated into GNU Radio and leandvb and more. His original work can be found here: https://github.com/xdsopl/LDPC This is all open source work that is needed for projects like Phase 4 Ground and Space. It's freely available for anyone to use, and people are using it. Now, we're working on getting LDPC decode into field programmable gate arrays, or FPGAs. Why? Because it's the best architectural fit for the very parallel algorithms in LDPC codes. Another huge benefit is that decode can be moved from a general purpose processor to an FPGA co-processor. This frees up resources in any off the shelf software defined radio (SDR) and makes for much more powerful receivers for amateur satellites that use DVB-S2/X. Getting to this stage took three years of hard work from a long list of amazing volunteers and enthusiasts and donors. Many of them are on this list. Thank you so much for the support. There is no way that this could happen without you. The beginning of the VHDL implementation is here: https://github.com/aicodix/cnp What do we need? Review and feedback, awareness and support. Advice on formal verification would be helpful. Documentation is a must. What's the next major milestone? We hope to demonstrate a complete Lunar Gateway style station that uses this FPGA work next year at the Tokyo Ham Fair. We aim to have this be part of our Openrotor project. Openrotor is a heavy-duty open source rotator and controller project. If you are interested in that, let me know - it's off to a good start with volunteers on three continents, but there's some expertise gaps that still need filling. It must support a 2m dish at 10 GHz and not be so loud the neighbors complain. It will speak MQTT and use other common interfaces (hamlib, N1MM). More soon! -Michelle W5NYV

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ARISS News Release No. 19-17
by n4csitwo＠bellsouth.net 30 Oct '19

30 Oct '19

ARISS News Release No. 19-17 Dave Jordan, AA4KN ARISS PR Oct. 30, 2019 Message to US Educators Amateur Radio on the International Space Station Contact Opportunity Call for Proposals Current Proposal Window is October 1, 2019 to November 30, 2019 Upcoming Proposal Window is February 1, 2020 to March 31, 2020 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 for proposals submitted in the proposal window now open would be held between July 1, 2020 and December 31, 2020. ARISS is happy to announce a second proposal window will open February 1, 2020 for contacts that would be held between January 1, 2021 and June 30, 2021. 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 proposals for contacts between July 1, 2020 and December 31, 2020 is November 30, 2019. The proposal window for contacts between January 1, 2021 and June 30, 2021 will open on February 1, 2020 and close on March 31, 2020. Proposal information and documents can be found at www.ariss.org. Two ARISS Introductory Webinar sessions will be held on November 7, 2019. The first is at 6:00 PM ET and the second is at 9:00 PM ET. The same material will be covered during both sessions, so choose the session that best fits your schedule. The Eventbrite link to sign up is https://ariss-introductory-webinar-fall-2019.eventbrite.com . The Opportunity Crew members aboard the International Space Station will participate in scheduled Amateur Radio contacts. These radio contacts are approximately 10 minutes in length and allow students to interact with the astronauts through a question-and-answer session. An ARISS contact is a voice-only communication opportunity via Amateur Radio between astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the space station and classrooms and communities. ARISS contacts afford education audiences the opportunity to learn firsthand from astronauts what it is like to live and work in space and to learn about space research conducted on the ISS. Students also will have an opportunity to learn about satellite communication, wireless technology, and radio science. Because of the nature of human spaceflight and the complexity of scheduling activities aboard the ISS, organizations must demonstrate flexibility to accommodate changes in dates and times of the radio contact. Amateur Radio organizations around the world with the support of NASA and space agencies in Russia, Canada, Japan and Europe present educational organizations with this opportunity. The ham radio organizations' volunteer efforts provide the equipment and operational support to enable communication between crew on the ISS and students around the world using Amateur Radio. More Information For proposal information and more details such as expectations, proposal guidelines and proposal form, and dates and times of Information Webinars, go to www.ariss.org. Please direct any questions to ariss.us.education(a)gmail.com . 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 ISS National Lab and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The primary goal of ARISS is to promote exploration of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEAM) topics by organizing scheduled contacts via amateur radio between crew members aboard the ISS and students in classrooms or public forms. Before and during these radio contacts, students, educators, parents, and communities learn about space, space technologies, and amateur radio. For more information, see www.ariss.org. Media Contact: Dave Jordan, AA4KN ARISS PR aa4kn(a)amsat.org --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

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Re: [amsat-bb] IC-9700 & FoxTelem 1.08p
by Alan 30 Oct '19

30 Oct '19

Hmmm. This trick has worked for some people, but apparently there is another variable we are not aware of. 73, Alan WA4SCA <-----Original Message----- <From: AMSAT-BB [mailto:amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org] On Behalf Of jeff <griffin via AMSAT-BB <Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2019 07:43 AM <To: amsat-bb(a)AMSAT.Org <Subject: Re: [amsat-bb] IC-9700 & foxtelem 1.08p < <I tried that yesterday and it didn't work.... < < <73 Jeff kb2m < <-----Original Message----- <From: AMSAT-BB [mailto:amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org] On Behalf Of Alan <via AMSAT-BB <Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2019 2:21 AM <To: Kevin; amsat-bb(a)amsat.org <Subject: Re: [amsat-bb] IC-9700 & foxtelem 1.08p < <I you are using the Raised Cosine decoder, try the Windows Sinc instead. < <73, < <Alan <WA4SCA < < <From: Kevin via AMSAT-BB <Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2019 12:21 AM <To: amsat-bb(a)amsat.org <Subject: [amsat-bb] IC-9700 & foxtelem 1.08p < <Hi All, < Any IC-9700 users out there that have switched to foxtelem 1.08p <using USB and IQ mode? I see a good eye but get zero decodes, dropping <back to 1.07y and it all starts working again. < <73 <Kevin WA7FWF < <_______________________________________________ <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: https://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb

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AO-92 L Band
by Robert Bankston 29 Oct '19

29 Oct '19

AO-92 was switched to Mode L/v at 02:12 UTC and will remain in that mode for 24 hours. Uplink is 1267.359 MHz, downlink is 145.880 MHz. 73, Robert, KE4AL

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