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

Improved JY1Sat Scoring in FUNcube Data Warehouse
by David Johnson 18 Jun '20

18 Jun '20

In image mode, JY1Sat only uses two frame type IDs (32 & 33) during the during the transmission of an image within a sequence. This meant that the scoring mechanism was only scoring 2 out of 24 packets per sequence. I.e 1/12 of the number expected to be scored. We have now changed the scoring to better reflect the number of packets received. It now uses a unique key comprised of: Sequence Number Frame Type Md5Hash of the Hex String We hope that this will encorage you to upload more JY1Sat packets. 73 Dave, G4DPZ FUNcube Team Member

1 0

Re: [amsat-bb] AO-7 (~20:00z pass this afternoon)
by Roy Dean 18 Jun '20

18 Jun '20

> > You sounded great and I just logged you. The transponder was seriously > FMing and on the verge of flipping due to a high power CW station lower in > the passband. Thanks for the QSO! Jeff WE4B Thanks, Jeff. I've never experienced the "FMing" before (although I've certainly read about it) - so I wasn't sure exactly what was going on. I really think for whatever reason it was receiving exceptionally well today - because I've never had to turn my power down that much (and I was definitely part of the problem as I could see the rest of the pass band pulsating with each word I spoke - even when I was at the lowest power setting - the sat was directly overhead by then). After our qso ended I tuned around and listened to the other QSOs and the FMing continued. I was gunshy at that point so I didn't attempt any more QSOs. :D --Roy K3RLD

1 0

AO-7 (~20:00z pass this afternoon)
by Roy Dean 18 Jun '20

18 Jun '20

So I had a very long pass on AO-7 this afternoon, and I noticed two things that I have never seen before: I had to lower my MKIIG down to "L" so as to not blow out the transponder, and even that seemed too high (2W out, 50 ft of RG-8X, M2 Leo Pack). Everybody sounded weird and the CW qsos going on seemed to be suffering from a ton of drift. I had just listened in on CAS-4A previous to this pass and heard no problems there... so I don't think it's my station. Did anybody else experience this? Or is my $20 RTL dongle finally ready for the bin? --Roy K3RLD

1 0

SATPC32/IC9700/DX Labs Setup
by Richard Lawn 18 Jun '20

18 Jun '20

I've somehow gotten things completely screwed up as I once had this wonderful setup working, panadapter. DX Keeper logging and all. Now not only are things not working at all but when I close Commander and try to reopen it Windows tells me it's already open and Windows Task Manager says it isn't. I need to get this working if possible before field day so any help will be appreciated. Some days I year for the more simple world we once lived in hi hi! Rick, W2JAZ

1 0

Re: [amsat-bb] Need HEO
by Paul F. Merrill 18 Jun '20

18 Jun '20

Not to belabor the point, but I see satellites as a different animal from ionospheric DXing. I am a newbie to the operating and station-building skills required to fully appreciate the depth of this part of the hobby, but I would hesitate to let your experience with HF or VHF DXing taint your experience using a flying repeater. I’m very excited for both, but don’t judge one aspect of the hobby I enjoy against the other. Paul / W7IV

1 0

watering hole RS44
by 73 Bob W7LRD 18 Jun '20

18 Jun '20

Can we kind of establish a frequency range on RS44 for DX contacts? Hunting around in the pass band cuts into time on the sat when down to a few degrees. 73 Bob W7LRD

1 0

Starlink and Cubesats
by Mike Hoblinski 18 Jun '20

18 Jun '20

I was reading that Starlink may open public beta testing to a small group later this year. Still no word on the type of equipment the public would use to connect. But this got me wondering about the possibility of orbiting Cubsats being able to use a satellite network such as starlink. Just a hypothetical question I thought I would throw around. Mike N6IMF

3 2

Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule as of 2020-06-18 00:00 UTC
by aj9n＠aol.com 18 Jun '20

18 Jun '20

Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule as of 2020-06-18 00:00 UTC Quick list of scheduled contacts and events: ######################################################################################################################################## A multi-point telebridge contact means that each student will be on the telebridge from their own home. ************************************************* 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 2020-06-18 00:00 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

1 0

Re: [amsat-bb] eShail Qatar-OSCAR 100
by Matthias Bopp 17 Jun '20

17 Jun '20

Hi Paul, with all due respect: QO-100 is not using one of the spare transponders on Es'Hail-2. QO-100 has actually 2 transponders: one for narrowband and one for wideband communications (incl. DATV) which were specified by AMSAT-DL and were especially built by a commercial company to fly on Es'Hail-2. It is correct that we were very fortunate that the Qataris have given us such an excellent opportunity to ride on their satellite and that they funded the Ham Radio "payload". A big credit goes to the president of AMSAT-DL Peter DB2OS who personally initiated / arranged this opportunity and to him and his team for guiding the development of the payload and building the groundsegment with multiple groundstations in Qatar and Germany. Kind regards Matthias www.dd1us.de -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- Von: AMSAT-BB [mailto:[email protected]] Im Auftrag von Paul Stoetzer via AMSAT-BB Gesendet: Mittwoch, 17. Juni 2020 22:27 An: Zach Metzinger <zmetzing(a)pobox.com> Cc: AMSAT BB <amsat-bb(a)amsat.org> Betreff: Re: [amsat-bb] eShail Qatar-OSCAR 100 Zach is correct. The primary barrier is money. It's difficult to understate the value of the service that the Qataris are providing to the amateur community. It's easily worth millions of dollars. There are many political and economic factors that made the partnership with AMSAT-DL possible. For background, QO-100 is a commercial communications satellite owned by a Qatari state-owned firm, Es'HailSat. One of the spare transponders on board is used for amateur communications. Additionally, the Qatar Amateur Radio Society's president is the former Deputy Prime Minister of Qatar, Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiya. al-Attiya was also the head of the Emir's court and the Minister of Industry and Technology. As you can guess, a state-owned company helps with the economic aspects and there is obviously a very significant pro-amateur radio political influence. Compare that to the political influence amateur radio has in the United States - the most senior political official we've had who was active in amateur radio was Sen. Barry Goldwater. Currently, Rep. Greg Walden is the only amateur radio operator I'm aware of in high levels of government and he's retiring when his term ends in January. AMSAT has made multiple attempts at a geostationary satellite, but they have all failed to materialize, primarily due to a lack of funding. We continue to have conversations with various people about possible opportunities in geostationary and other high orbits. However, getting to geostationary orbit means finding a willing host to carry us there, and all of them want lots and lots of money to do so. While a replica of QO-100 over North America is unlikely, we do have active projects to provide long-range amateur communications. Our primary satellite project is GOLF, and the first satellite in the series, GOLF-TEE, destined for LEO, but carrying technologies that we need to test for high orbits such as an SDR-based microwave transponder and active attitude control is under development for a planned launch as soon as next year. More information about GOLF can be found at https://www.amsat.org/greater-orbit-larger-footprint-an-introduction-to-the… Our other active project to support long-range communications is our work on AREx, or Amateur Radio Exploration. We are working with our ARISS partners worldwide on developing an amateur communications system aboard Gateway in Lunar orbit. This includes two-way amateur communications as well as the traditional ARISS educational opportunities. So while we might not see a replica of QO-100, lots of work is ongoing to return long-distance satellite communications to amateur radio. In fact, the opportunities we're working on go beyond what a GEO over North America can do and would enable worldwide communications. But as has been said, it all depends on raising the necessary money to make it happen. Please consider a donation today at https://www.amsat.org/donate/. If everyone subscribed to this list chipped in just $5-$10 a month, it'd make a huge difference! 73, Paul Stoetzer, N8HM Executive Vice President AMSAT On Wed, Jun 17, 2020 at 4:04 PM Zach Metzinger via AMSAT-BB <amsat-bb(a)amsat.org> wrote: > > On 06/17/20 11:59, Joe Leikhim via AMSAT-BB wrote: > > Great to tune in the downlink via web server. 10 GHz and No Doppler! > > > > https://eshail.batc.org.uk/nb/ > > > > Why don't we have a Geo-stationary satellite like this? > > Donate early, donate often. > > --- Zach > N0ZGO > _______________________________________________ > 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 _______________________________________________ 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

1 0

Re: [amsat-bb] eShail Qatar-OSCAR 100
by Zach Metzinger 17 Jun '20

17 Jun '20

On 06/17/20 15:54, Matthias Bopp wrote: > A big credit goes to the president of AMSAT-DL Peter DB2OS who personally initiated / arranged this opportunity > and to him and his team for guiding the development of the payload and building the groundsegment with multiple > groundstations in Qatar and Germany. This is no small feat, to be sure, but here's why it doesn't "blow my skirt up": 1) No tracking, store-and-forward, or Doppler correction -- Might as well be a repeater on a very tall tower. Plus, RF doesn't propogate through the planet very well. :-) 2) No amateur-built hardware on the satellite -- Yes, specifying and overseeing development takes a LOT of work. I do this for my day job, not satellites, but just as complex. However, designing, building, testing, and deploying amateur-built hardware is what I feel AMSAT is all about. 3) No management of the satellite by control stations, with all the planning and problems-to-be-solved that brings. I find that the journey is the part I like, with the destination being a fleeting moment at the end. This is my $0.02 and I speak only for myself. --- Zach N0ZGO (Now where did I put the rest of those parts for my rotator ...)

2 1