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

Theseus Cores PFB Channelizer - update!
by Michelle Thompson 07 Aug '19

07 Aug '19

Good news. The Theseus Cores RFNoC polyphase filter bank channelizer is working. The channel 0 timeouts, which were a vexing problem, seem to be gone thanks to hard work from EJ Kreinar and Phillip Vallance. This particular part is vital for FDMA to TDM type payloads and groundsats. Having a fast, efficient, open source implementation that works in GNU Radio is a big step forward. We are taking the entire setup with us to DEFCON. We are using a linux computer and a USRP. Experiments so far have been on the VHF ham bands and FM broadcast. Next step, move it up to microwave and demonstrate Phase 4 Ground channelization. If you're at DEFCON, come by and see us in ham radio village! There's a license exam session, demonstrations, presentations, and lots of socializing. More soon! -Michelle W5NYV

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Next Rocketlab launch (number 8) due 16 August
by Wendy and Terry Osborne 06 Aug '19

06 Aug '19

Next Rocketlab launch is scheduled for 16 August 12:57 UTC. See: https://www.rocketlabusa.com/missions/next-mission/ 73, Terry Osborne ZL2BAC

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Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule as of 2019-08-07 02:30 UTC
by aj9n＠aol.com 06 Aug '19

06 Aug '19

Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule as of 2019-08-07 02:30 UTC Quick list of scheduled contacts and events: Kyoto Tachibana Junior & Senior High School, Kyoto, Japan, direct via 8N3KT The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be NA1SS The scheduled astronaut is Nick Hague KG5TMV Contact is go for: Thu 2019-08-08 10:36:37 UTC 56 deg Loreto College, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia, telebridge via IK1SLD The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be IRØISS The scheduled astronaut is Luca Parmitano KF5KDP Contact is go for: Thu 2019-08-15 09:17:06 UTC 53 deg Watch for live stream at www.ariotti.com starting about 15 min before AOS. (***) The ARISS webpage is at http://www.ariss.org/ Note that there are links to other ARISS websites from this site. The main page for Applying to Host a Scheduled Contact may be found at http://www.ariss.org/apply-to-host-an-ariss-contact.html ARISS Contact Applications (United States) For many years I have on purpose not given the actual hyperlinks; I assume the user would do a copy/paste into their favorite browser. I am now thinking that the browsers have all grown up and most should be able to handle the link. Please let me know you experience any issues. So now you should be able to directly click on the link. (***) 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 2019-08-07 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 http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/arissnews.txt The successful school list has been updated as of 2019-07-27 22:00 UTC. http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/Successful_ARISS_schools.rtf The ARISS webpage is at http://www.ariss.org/ Note that there are links to other ARISS websites from this site. The main page for Applying to Host a Scheduled Contact may be found at http://www.ariss.org/apply-to-host-an-ariss-contact.html ARISS Contact Applications (United States) The ARISS webpage is at http://www.ariss.org/ Note that there are links to other ARISS websites from this site. **************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** ARISS Contact Applications (Europe, Africa and the Middle East) Schools and Youth organizations in Europe, Africa and the Middle East interested in setting up an ARISS radio contact with an astronaut on board the International Space Station are invited to submit an application from September to October and from February to April. Please refer to details and the application form at www.ariss-eu.org/school-contacts. Applications should be addressed by email to: school.selection.manager(a)ariss-eu.org ARISS Contact Applications (Canada, Central and South America, Asia and Australia and Russia) Organizations outside the United States can apply for an ARISS contact by filling out an application. Please direct questions to the appropriate regional representative listed below. If your country is not specifically listed, send your questions to the nearest ARISS Region listed. If you are unsure which address to use, please send your question to the ARISS-Canada representative; they will forward your question to the appropriate coordinator. For the application, go to: http://www.ariss.org/ariss-application.html. ARISS-Canada and the Americas, except USA: Steve McFarlane, VE3TBD email to: ve3tbd(a)gmail.com ARISS-Japan, Asia, Pacific and Australia: Satoshi Yasuda, 7M3TJZ email to: ariss(a)iaru-r3.org, Japan Amateur Radio League (JARL) http://www.jarl.org/ ARISS-Russia: Soyuz Radioljubitelei Rossii (SRR) https://srr.ru/ ****************************************************************************** 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 Kenwood 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? Please note that the HamTV system has been brought back to earth for troubleshooting. Please monitor ARISS-EU or ARISS-ON for the very latest news on the troubleshooting efforts. 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 The HamTV webpage: https://www.amsat-on.be/hamtv-summary/ **************************************************************************** ARISS congratulations the following mentors who have now mentored over 100 schools: Satoshi 7M3TJZ with 135 Francesco IKØWGF with 132 Gaston ON4WF with 123 Sergey RV3DR with 120 **************************************************************************** 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. Total number of ARISS ISS to earth school events is 1325. Each school counts as 1 event. Total number of ARISS ISS to earth school contacts is 1268. 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: 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 **************************************************************************** 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_correctio… Check out the Zoho reports of the ARISS contacts https://reports.zoho.com/ZDBDataSheetView.cc?DBID=412218000000020415 **************************************************************************** Exp. 59 on orbit Christina Koch Aleksey Ovchinin Nick Hague KG5TMV Exp. 60 on orbit Luca Parmitano KF5KDP Alexander Skvortsov Drew Morgan KI5AAA **************************************************************************** 73, Charlie Sufana AJ9N One of the ARISS operation team mentors

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Upcoming ARISS contact with Kyoto Tachibana Junior & Senior High School, Kyoto, Japan
by n4csitwo＠bellsouth.net 06 Aug '19

06 Aug '19

An International Space Station school contact has been planned with participants at Kyoto Tachibana Junior & Senior High School, Kyoto, Japan on 08 Aug. The event is scheduled to begin at approximately 10:36 UTC. The duration of the contact is approximately 9 minutes and 30 seconds. The contact will be direct between NA1SS and 8N3KT. The contact should be audible over the country of Japan and adjacent areas. Interested parties are invited to listen in on the 145.80 MHz downlink. The contact is expected to be conducted in English. It is Kyoto Tachibana junior & senior high school opened to the "Fushimi Kyoto". The 115th anniversary of foundation was celebrated two years ago. We have about 1100 students. We have many activities and experience to realize "Independent and Community Life". Participants will ask as many of the following questions as time allows: 1. When is the most exciting time in space? 2. What does space smell like? 3. What impressed you most in space? 4. When did you start to think you wanted to go to space? 5. There are a lot of unmanned satellite in space, but why don't you hit them? 6. Have you ever seen the UFO? 7. Which tastes better, the food we usually eat on earth, or space food? 8. How many personal items are astronauts allowed to take into space? 9. How would you describe the space in one word? 10. Please tell me about the differences in temperature between sun lit and shaded areas outside of the space station? 11. What would you do if you encountered aliens? 12. Where would you prefer to live, in space or on the earth, if you were to live in one place for your entire life? 13. What is the best thing about being an astronaut? 14. When you see the earth from space, is there any difference between day and night? 15. Do you believe in aliens? 16. What is the thing you want to do the most after you get back to the earth? 17. What made you want to be an astronaut? 18. Can you take away your stress get your energy back after you sleep in space? 19. What is earth like when it is night in Japan? 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. Loreto College, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia, telebridge via IK1SLD The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be IRØISS The scheduled astronaut is Luca Parmitano KF5KDP Contact is go for: Thu 2019-08-15 09:17:06 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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Budget approach
by Michael 06 Aug '19

06 Aug '19

Ahh geez, here goes someone making sense again! Don't you hate it when they do that?! Michael, W4HIJ It dawned on me that the present culture at AMSAT (and elsewhere) may not support a transparent "resources of the crowd" collaborative approach. (Duh, right? Lol). Here's an entirely different pathway to success: With the goal of getting the AMSAT-DL Phase 3E bird into orbit (as an example), publish the required money and start actively fund raising. To be clear, the required money can't be "millions of dollars" it has to be unambiguous; like $9,242,200. Then, hire a grant writer and a fund-raising organization with the existing AMSAT budget (a small amount of money leverages much more money). If the present AMSAT budget is not sufficient, then determine how much money it will take to hire them and fund-raise for that from friends and family (AMSAT members and enthusiastic non-members). Post a fund raising "thermometer" on AMSAT.org and the world can watch the success grow before their eyes! Ev, W2EV PS: maybe a hybrid approach?? I'd bet that there's someone on this list who's 6-degrees of separation can get to Bezos or Musk to help to reduce even that budget. PPS: I have an idea that could provide incentive to either of these guys, if they could be reached...but "what are the chances, really"?

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Help with Spid rotor setup on Satpc32
by Richard Gussow 06 Aug '19

06 Aug '19

Hi everyone, I was wondering if someone can help me with an issue I am having with setting up Satpc32 and my Spid Ras rotor. SatPC32 asks for a parallel port of 1-4 in the set up menu, while the Spid Ras controller set up a serial port (com port 8 in my case). How do I reconcile the two? Thanks, Rich4Z1JJ

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Is there any interest...
by Ev Tupis 06 Aug '19

06 Aug '19

... in pursuing a more open project plan that would make it easier for those with personal skill, resources or contacts to more directly contribute to a launch? Even a private note to say, "yes, I think we'll be looking into that" would be nice. I'm unsure how to digest the silence. :-) Ev, W2EV

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Lunar-OSCAR 94 SK
by Nico Janssen 06 Aug '19

06 Aug '19

Lunar-OSCAR 94 (a.k.a. LongJiang 2 and DSLWP-B) crashed onto the far side of the Moon on July 31 around 14:08 UTC, ending its very successful amateur radio mission around the Moon. http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2019/longjiang-2-impacts-moon.ht… 73, Nico PA0DLO

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TLEdoctor program to check for preliminary TLE data
by Jarda 06 Aug '19

06 Aug '19

The program can easily detect and fix the TLE preliminary data errors for working in satellite programs after launching the satellite in orbit The original version of the program released before launching Fox-1D works in Windows-7 and higher. Version that works in Windows XP is now added. The program name for Win-XP changes to TLEdoctor. Both programs can be downloaded at http://oscar.ok2gz.eu/fox1d.php 73 Jarda ok2gz --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

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FUNcube-1/AO73 Operations - Satellite entering continous sunlight mode
by Jim Heck 06 Aug '19

06 Aug '19

Hi Folks, FUNCube-1/AO-73 is due to enter continuous sunlight in a few days time and the operations team have decided to set the satellite to full time education mode (full power beacon with NO transponder, no eclipse auto switching). One of the effects of this is that the temperature of the satellite will increase. This will allow us to follow the effects of continuous sunlight more easily, and also in theory should keep the satellite cooler (more energy radiated from the structure as RF) We predict that the satellite will start experiencing eclipses again on approximately 7 May 2020. We may put the satellite back into transponder mode while it is in continuous sunlight, and if we plan to do this we will make an announcement here 73 Jim G3WGM and the FUNcube team

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