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

More reliable source than SatNOGS DB?
by Martin Cooper 15 Jun '19

15 Jun '19

I'd been contemplating using the SatNOGS database to do automated lookups of transmitter info for satellites (from code), but frankly the database seems to be a bit of a mess. For example, in the 'satellites' database, there are cases of the same satellite name mapping to multiple NORAD catalog ids, the 'names' field being used inconsistently (and even containing an essay about the satellite in one case), and so forth. Similarly, the 'transmitters' database also has issues. Is there a more reliable source that can be queried through an API? I know N2YO has an API, but it's focused on real-time tracking, and doesn't appear to include transmitter info (though the site's satellite pages do). Thanks! Martin. KD6YAM

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Upcoming ARISS contact with Smithsonian Air and Space - Udvar-Hazy, Chantilly, VA
by n4csitwo＠bellsouth.net 14 Jun '19

14 Jun '19

An International Space Station school contact has been planned with participants at Smithsonian Air and Space - Udvar-Hazy, Chantilly, VA on 15 June. The event is scheduled to begin at approximately 18:11 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 W6SRJ. 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 English. National Air and Space Museum - Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center Innovations in Flight Family Day The theme of this program is to give museum visitors the opportunity to learn about the innovations in aircraft design and what it takes to become a pilot by talking with pilots about how they learned to fly, what they fly, and how they use their aircraft. The day is designed to inform visitors of the opportunities in both military and civilian aviation. Visitors have the opportunity to talk with a diversified group of pilots to see different types of aircraft. This year we are celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo Program. Participants will ask as many of the following questions as time allows: 1. What is your favorite thing to do in microgravity? 2. How important are the people in mission control? 3. What is a normal day look like? 4. What was the launch like? 5. What is your least favorite part of being in space? 6. Are there any animals on station? 7. Did you know you wanted to be an astronaut when you were a kid? 8. There is a NASA T-38 at this event, what was your biggest challenge in learning to fly? 9. Where are you now? 10. What is your favorite space food? 11. What happens if someone gets sick? 12. What is around you? 13. Do you have a degree in science? 14. What kind of exercise do you do? 15. Do you have ice cream? 16. Do you ever get bored? 17. What did you take up with you that is special? 18. What do you miss? 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): 1. Rowan Preparatory School, Claygate, United Kingdom, direct via GB4RPS The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be NA1SS The scheduled astronaut is Nick Hague KG5TMV Contact is go for: Thu 2019-06-20 12:48:55 UTC Watch for live stream at https://live.ariss.org/ 2. King Island District High School, Currie, TAS, Australia, telebridge via IK1SLD The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be OR4ISS The scheduled astronaut is David St-Jacques KG5FYI Contact is go for: Wed 2019-06-19 08:49:20 UTC 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 (STEM) 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. 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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XW-2D /-vs-/ ISS (... and everyone else)
by Scott 14 Jun '19

14 Jun '19

Hey everybody. Just walked in this evening (14-June-2019) & happened to catch the ISS at decent elevation around 2230 UTC. The packet digipeater sounded great and I had a quick exchange of digipeated 'Message' packets with W4TBD who happens to be just on the other side of town. As the ISS tracked NW to SE, I stood by to see who else might be around. I keep the FM radio's squelch open & volume up a little to judge how the downlink packets are sounding. All of a sudden, there was a dead carrier on (or at least near) the 145.825 ISS packet downlink. Sounded like a neighbor keying up to mess with me - except for the fact that I don't have any neighbors. I quickly spun another radio to the area of 145.825 and set it to USB to see if I could recognize what that jamming carrier was. Turns out it wasn't a dead carrier at all, but a tone sweeping back and forth. Someone else needs to check me (since you can't ever be sure from a single observation), but from the SUBJECT line of this post you know that the offending tone appeared to be from XW-2D which was passing directly overhead at the same time. Here is a link to a screen shot of their orbits when this happened: https://www.qsl.net/k/k4kdr//images/iss-xw2d.png ... so, if this VERY strong 2-meter signal was in fact from XW-2D, you might want to keep track of where that satellite is located just as a point of reference. There have been previous posts about XW-2D's transponder not working correctly. If you have uplink or downlink trouble with anything that operates in the 145.800 - 145.900 range, this might be the cause if I'm guessing correctly. 73, -Scott, K4KDR

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PO-101?
by skristof＠etczone.com 14 Jun '19

14 Jun '19

I'm curious about satellite PO-101. The IARU coordination page says the uplink is 437.5 MHz but the Microsat-Diwata webpage says the uplink is 437.7 MHz. Which one is correct? I don't see a lot of reports on the AMSAT Current Status page for PO-101. Is it working? Steve AI9IN

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space junk article _EOS
by christy hunter 14 Jun '19

14 Jun '19

FYI info on space junk and a report link. https://eos.org/articles/space-is-polluted-by-junk-and-its-getting-worse?ut… 73 Christy KB6LTY

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Antenna SWR question
by skristof＠etczone.com 13 Jun '19

13 Jun '19

I've been having trouble getting into the FM satellites lately. It's the same rig I've been using for a couple of years and I have not had problems before. I bought a digital meter to measure power out from the handhelds and to measure SWR on the antennas. According to the meter I'm getting 4.9 W out of the handhelds, which is expected. For SWR I've got values of 1.7 at 70 cm and 2.0 at 2 m. The antenna is an Arrow. Are those acceptable SWR values? Should I try to get them lower? Can you even adjust the tuning on an Arrow antenna? Steve AI9IN

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Re: [amsat-bb] OUTERnet becomes OTHERnet (APRS geo feed)
by Matthew J Wolf 13 Jun '19

13 Jun '19

I gota Dreamcatcher Data Radiowhen they where on sale for $49. I can confirm that you can replace the supplied USB WiFi NIC with the TP-Link TL-UE3000 USB Ethernet NIC. I have to use a Pringles can on the LNB to get a marginalsignal, SNR -12.5 to -14 dB. Every time it rains I have to readjustthe LNB. I have senta few test ARPS messages from N4MTT-2 via rf to a local i-gate. The messages then were seen on the down link via a text file. The Skylark operating system has a "Messages" application that displays the text file. APRS Link can display the history of the messages sent to OUTNET, https://aprs.link/app/aprs/stations/messages-OUTNET I noticed the messages I sent to OUTNET did not receive a REPLY ACK. There where duplicate messages on the down link from another SSID. I wanted to avoid sending duplicate messages. In Xastir I canceled the messages after the first message transmission. I agreethatit "is a powerful capability" . -Matt, N4MTT > Since about 2 years ago, the APRS satellite ground station captures have > been made available worldwide via three GEO satellites for reception > anywhere on earth. > > But I recently found that the OUTERnet system has changed to a new GEO > satellite constellation and no longer uses INMARSAT L band satellites but > is now using a KA band downlink over the USA. And that they are now > selling a new receiver kit for this satellite. > Has anyone kept up with them? > Here is my original WEB page but with the links changed from OUTnet to > OTHERnet: > http://aprs.org/othernet.html > > If anyone has one of their receivers or is receiving the downlink and/or > wants to help me get my web page all cleaned up to what has changed over > the last two years, let me know. > > This is a powerful capability. I hope we can keep it working. > > Bob, Wb4APR

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AO-85 is still kicking...
by Andrew Glasbrenner 13 Jun '19

13 Jun '19

Mark, N8MH and I did some testing tonight on AO-85 as it is almost back in full sun. The transmitter and COR repeater came on, but not the telemetry/IHU. Repeater sounded good but stayed keyed without an uplink signal. We shut the transmitter back off since that was an unexpected state. We'll do some more testing tomorrow. 73, Drew KO4MA AMSAT VP Operations

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DopplerPSK - No 1 kHz-autotracking radio
by Nicholas Mahr KE8AKW 13 Jun '19

13 Jun '19

Yes what Tom and Scott said is what I do and is the correct way of working NO-84. You cannot just tune the 10m uplink like you would a linear transponder with SatPc32. It will make the PSK31 signal on the transponder undecodeable. The only real way to work it is with Doppler PSK. My setup consists of a FT-847 on the 70cm downlink, with SatPC32 correcting the doppler on the downlink which by the way I have no issues with. Then I have my FT-950 doing the uplinking on 10m (I use the FT-847 for VHF/UHF/Sat Only and FT-950 for HF only). I use a homebrew dipole that is actually for 40/80m but it tunes up on 10 meters just fine and works well for the uplink on NO-84. I then use FLdigi to decode the PSK31 signals as FLDigi allows multi-decoding for PSK31 which allows me to decode multiple signals in the passband at once. And of course I use DopplerPSK for the generation and correction of the PSK31 signal. Hope this helps. Unfortunately there is not a lot of activity on the PSK31 transponder but I hope that changes with the upcoming launch with Psat-2. - Nick KE8AKW

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Re: [amsat-bb] DopplerPSK - No 1 kHz-autotracking radio
by tjschuessler＠verizon.net 13 Jun '19

13 Jun '19

DopplerPSK is a great program for dealing with doppler shift on the 10 meter uplink. The point being made that Yes, all mode rigs can do very small tuning steps in VFO mode as can my FT847. If I were going to use that one rig for NO-84, even with SatPC32, I would turn the doppler correction for uplink "OFF" and only track the 435 downlink FM so I could hear the FM carrier throughout, but let doppler PSK adjust audio tone for doppler and that will nicely keep the PSK signal stable AT the Satellite, inside the 28.120 + 3Khz receive passband. The cool thing is that you can still use just an FM mobile rig to receive the FM downlink, and 5Khz steps will still work pretty much just fine. Tom Schuessler, N5HYP EM12ms 2713 Lake Gardens Drive Irving, TX 75060 972-986-7456 214-403-1464 (Mobile) N5hyp(a)arrl.net

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