June 2020 - AMSAT-BB - mailman.amsat.org

Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule as of 2020-06-16 16:00 UTC
by aj9n＠aol.com 16 Jun '20

16 Jun '20

Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule as of 2020-06-16 16:00 UTC Quick list of scheduled contacts and events: ARISS sends Happy Birthday Greetings to Lou McFadin W5DID. Lou turned 80 years young yesterday. Lou has been very involved with ARISS, especially on the hardware side of things. (***) I.E.S. Pedro de Valdivia, Villanueva de la Serena, Spain, Multi-point telebridge via ON4ISS The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be OR4ISS The scheduled astronaut is Chris Cassidy KF5KDR Contact was successful: Tue 2020-06-16 12:25:27 UTC 84 deg (***) Watch for live stream at: https://youtu.be/PyNqsTMqAoQ ######################################################################################################################################## ARISS would like to announce that Tony VK5ZAI has received a special award (also thanks to ARISS mentor and telebridge operator Shane VK4KHZ for letting us know): Congratulations to Tony Hutchison VK5ZAI in being recognised and awarded the Order of Australia medal (AM) in the June 8th Queens Birthday honours list. Well done Tony! Mr James Anthony HUTCHISON Kingston SE SA 5275 For significant service to amateur radio, particularly to satellite and space communication. For those that don't know what Tony has done, here a few stats. He has mentored 65 ARISS schools and been the telebridge station for 58 ARISS contacts. Plus he was very involved with SAREX. For even more info on Tony, check out these webpages (there are many more): http://www.electric-web.org/amateur_index.htm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chcgLwFy1v0 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-06/nasa-considers-amateur-radio-buff-pa… The actual announcement can be found on page 7 of 28 at: https://www.gg.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-06/QB2020%20Gazette%20-%20O%… ######################################################################################################################################## A multi-point telebridge contact means that each student will be on the telebridge from their own home. ************************************************* Looking for some stay at home activities related to science and for when you are not playing on your radio? Check out these links: >From ARISS Vice Chair Oliver Amend DG6BCE: ESA Astronauts to offer inspiration during isolation in #SpaceConnectsUs https://www.esa.int/Newsroom/Astronauts_to_offer_inspiration_during_isolati… Celestron, the telescope, microscope, and sports optics folks, now has something called #STEMINYOURBACKYARD that you can find on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter. By the way, I don't work for Celestron or have any business dealings with them and this is just something I saw. Apparently there are 10 free STEM activities covering Astronomy, Nature and Wildlife, and The Microscopic World. Check out: https://www.celestron.com/blogs/news/discover-stem-in-your-backyard NASA has a STEM page with fun activities to do at home. Check out https://www.nasa.gov/stem ************************************************* ARISS is very aware of the impact that COVID-19 is having on schools and the public in general. As such, we may have last minute cancellations or postponements of school contacts. As always, I will try to provide everyone with near-real-time updates. The following schools have now been postponed or cancelled due to COVID-19: Postponed: No additional schools Cancelled: No additional schools The ARISS webpage is at https://www.ariss.org/ Watch for future COVID-19 related announcements here also. 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 https://www.ariss.org/apply-to-host-an-ariss-contact.html ARISS Contact Applications (United States) 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 2020-06-16 16:00 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. https://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/arissnews.rtf https://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/arissnews.txt The successful school list has been updated as of 2020-06-16 16:00 UTC. (***) https://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/Successful_ARISS_schools.rtf The ARISS webpage is at https://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 https://www.ariss.org/apply-to-host-an-ariss-contact.html ARISS Contact Applications (United States) The ARISS webpage is at https://www.ariss.org/ Note that there are links to other ARISS websites from this site. Message to US Educators ARISS Contact Applications (United States) The Proposal Window of February 1, 2020 to March 31, 2020 has now closed. For future 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. ******************************************************************************** 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: https://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) https://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 https://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: Francesco IKØWGF with 140 Satoshi 7M3TJZ with 138 Sergey RV3DR with 133 Gaston ON4WF with 123 **************************************************************************** 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 1390. (***) Each school counts as 1 event. Total number of ARISS ISS to earth school contacts is 1323. (***) Each contact may have multiple schools sharing the same time slot. Total number of ARISS supported terrestrial contacts is 48. A complete year by year breakdown of the contacts may be found in the file. https://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: https://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 https://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/ISS_frequencies_and_Doppler_correcti… Check out the Zoho reports of the ARISS contacts https://reports.zoho.com/ZDBDataSheetView.cc?DBID=412218000000020415 **************************************************************************** Exp. 62 now on orbit Chris Cassidy KF5KDR Anatoli Ivanishin Ivan Vagner SpaceX-Demo2 now on orbit Bob Behnken KE5GGX Doug Hurley **************************************************************************** 73, Charlie Sufana AJ9N One of the ARISS operation team mentors

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Estonia's TTU100 X band satellite questions - reply from POC
by k.swaggart＠charter.net 16 Jun '20

16 Jun '20

Received a reply from the TTU100 point of contact: <snip> Thank you for good wishes! Unfortunately the control software of X-band transmitter is still not ready, so the transmitter will be silent in the near future. Hopefully we manage to activate the X-band transmitter in beacon mode first. Most probably it will take several months. I will let you know when you could try to receive X-band signals. 73, Eerik ES1JX, ES8JX (KO28LM) <unsnip> So, it looks like we have a while before there will be X-band signals. 73, Ken, W7KKE _____

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Estonia's TTU100 X band satellite questions
by k.swaggart＠charter.net 16 Jun '20

16 Jun '20

In a tweet from AMSAT-UK I saw that an Estonian university will launch their TTU100 cubesat on Friday with a X-band downlink on 10465 MHz. Thought it would be an interesting challenge to aim my X-band dish with a sat TV LNB at closest point of approach and see if I can see anything on the SDR waterfall. My LNB output would be at 715 MHz and the Doppler at AOS would be approximately +533 KHz! A couple of questions before I start configuring the equipment: * Will the 10465 MHz downlink be on during North America passes or only when in range of the Estonian ground station? * What is the modulation? It's an imaging satellite so I expect it will be high data rate. 73, Ken, W7KKE

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Next Rocket Lab launch
by Wendy and Terry Osborne 16 Jun '20

16 Jun '20

Hi Folks, Next Rocket Lab launch is scheduled for 3rd July. See: https://www.rocketlabusa.com/missions/completed-missions/pics-or-it-didnt-h… No, I don't know why it's in "completed-missions".......... Time yet to be announced. 73, Terry Osborne ZL2BAC

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Funcube Dongle site
by Mike Hoblinski 16 Jun '20

16 Jun '20

I went to the site for information and it appears to be gone and up for sale. http://www.funcubedongle.com/ Did the supplier go out of business or discontinue sale of the product. Mike N6IMF

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Break-down of APRS digipeats & ARISS.net
by Scott 15 Jun '20

15 Jun '20

As I was replying to a question about the ISS digipeater, and in particular the ARRIS.net website, I thought maybe the explanation might benefit others new to making APRS contacts via satellite. Kit (W3KIT) was kind enough to give me the ok to use my reply to him as a way to share with others that might be interested in this kind of thing. I've uploaded the 1-page explanation with an annotated screen shot to: https://www.qsl.net/k/k4kdr//how-to/ariss-aprs-explained.pdf 73! -Scott, K4KDR

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Raspberry Pi FUNcube satellite telemetry decoder
by M5AKA 15 Jun '20

15 Jun '20

The FUNcube Team has announced the availability of FUNcube CubeSat satellite telemetry decoder software for the popular Raspberry Pi computer board https://amsat-uk.org/2020/06/15/raspberry-pi-funcube-satellite-telemetry-de… Indian radio amateur starts petition for licence change https://amsat-uk.org/2020/06/13/indian-radio-amateur-starts-petition-for-li… 15 Canadian CubeSats to launch from 2021 https://amsat-uk.org/2020/06/10/15-canadian-cubesats/ Tony Hutchison VK5ZAI in Queen’s Birthday honours list https://amsat-uk.org/2020/06/09/vk5zai-in-queens-birthday-honours/ Longjiang-2 / LO-94: Journey to the Moon https://amsat-uk.org/2020/06/06/longjiang-2-lo-94-journey-to-the-moon/ Trevor M5AKA---- AMSAT-UK http://amsat-uk.org/ Twitter https://twitter.com/AmsatUK Facebook https://facebook.com/AmsatUK YouTube https://youtube.com/AmsatUK ----

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Re: [amsat-bb] Alpha Spid Rotator
by Edward R Cole 15 Jun '20

15 Jun '20

Note: I am using the Alpha-Spid RAK as azimuth rotator on eme for 50 and 144 MHz. No experience with RAS. Only have the RAK installed for my 144-eme array of four XP yagis at this point. I have about 150-foot cable run and using 8-conductor standard rotator cable (only four needed by the Spid) I had excessive voltage loss on the motor lines (dropped to 8vdc). Even paralleling some of the unused wires did not solve. I finally use a pair of No. 10 wires to get 12v to the rotator. I run 18vac into the controller (which has a bridge rectifier) to obtain 24vdc unloaded on output. Loaded the voltage sags to about 18vdc at the controller, but runs the rotator fine. Use the No. 20 control wires in the original rotor cable for indication with no issues. I have the 1-degree resolution rotator (good enough for 50 or 144-MHz). Previously, I ran a Ham-IV which only provides 5-degree movement due to the brake system. Ham-IV was challenged for torque by the eme array. Spid seems to handle that FB. 73, Ed - KL7UW http://www.kl7uw.com Dubus-NA Business mail: dubususa(a)gmail.com

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FUNCube Dongle Pro+
by Jim Sanford 14 Jun '20

14 Jun '20

All: I've been seeking to buy one of these. Any site that comes up in Google directs me to a site which cites names.co.uk and tries to sell me this domain. Has the FUNCube dongle disappeared, or am I being spoofed? Anybody have a direct link to purchase and get support? Thanks & 73, Jim wb4gcs(a)amsat.org -- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

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WTB: SSB-electronic SP70
by Joseph Trombino, Jr 14 Jun '20

14 Jun '20

Howdy Gang. Want to buy an SSB-Electronic SP70 preamp for 432Mhz. Unit should be in good shape and working FB. Will pay with PayPal. Many thanks. 73, Joe W2KJ

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