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

JO-97 TLM Uploads?
by Hasan N0AN 16 Sep '20

16 Sep '20

My count hasn't changed in at least several days on the uk-site. Am I doing something wrong? I haven't knowingly changed any settings in the dashboard.. The dashboard is decoding and says it's uploading, but the count at http://data.amsat-uk.org/ranking Isn't changing for my callsign. Ideas? Maybe I missed something in a message on the list. Been very busy. AO-73 and EO-88 are showing up fine for my uploads. 73, N0AN Hasan

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AO-92
by Roy Dean 15 Sep '20

15 Sep '20

I can find no information about AO-92 going silent recently. Was it commanded into a silent state (as AO-85 was shortly before it went silent permanently)? --Roy K3RLD

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ARISS News Release No. 20-16
by David Jordan 15 Sep '20

15 Sep '20

ARISS News Release No. 20-16 Dave Jordan, AA4KN ARISS PR aa4kn(a)amsat.org FORIMMEDIATE RELEASE ARISS Contact Scheduled for Students at Avellaneda Ikastetxea, Sodupe, Spain September 15, 2020—AmateurRadio on the International Space Station (ARISS) has received scheduleconfirmation for an ARISS radio contact with astronauts. ARISS is the groupthat puts together special amateur radio contacts between students around theglobe and crew members with ham radio licenses on the International Space Station (ISS). This will be a telebridge contact via amateur radio and students will take turnsasking their questions of ISS Commander Chris Cassidy, amateur radio call sign KF5KDR. John Sygo, amateurradio call sign ZS6JON in Paardekraal, South Africa will serve as the ARISS relay amateur radio ground station. The ARISS radio contact isscheduled for September 18, 2020 at 2:56 pm CEST (Sodupe), (12:56UTC, 08:56 am EDT, 07:56 am CDT, 06:56 am MDT and 05:56 am PDT). The public is invited to watch the livestream at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMDcOZOF2FE&feature=youtu.be The school, Avellaneda Ikastetxea (with about 650students), is in the small town of Sodupe in northern Spain. The school coordinatedwith 15 other schools on STEM-based curriculum that includes a STEM mentoringprogram with Deusto University. First through sixth grade studentswill participate in the ARISS contact, and have and will prepare for thecontact during STEM sessions with learning objectives that include space,gravity, matter, energy and other related topics. _____________________________ Astime allows, students will ask these questions: 1. What did you wantto be when you were young? 2. What made youthink that you wanted to be an astronaut? Was it your dream? 3. How long does ittake from the Earth to Space? 4. How do you feelwhen you leave the Earth? 5. When you are inspace, what do you carry with you in the rocket? What things do you need? 6. How much time doyou spend in space before returning to Earth? 7. What is concretelythe objective of your mission? 8. If you are ill,who can help you? 9. Is the space suitcomfortable? 10. How do you cookin space? 11. What type of fooddo you eat? Do you like it? 12. What is the firstthing you'll do when you get back? 13. What do you do inyour free time? 14. Is therepollution in space? 15. How manyastronauts are there in your space-station? ARISS – Celebrating 20 Years of Amateur RadioContinuous Operations on the ISS About ARISS: Amateur Radio on the InternationalSpace Station (ARISS) is a cooperative venture of international amateur radiosocieties and the space agencies that support the International Space Station(ISS). In the United States, sponsorsare the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT), the American Radio RelayLeague (ARRL), the ISS National Lab-Space Station Explorers, and NASA’s SpaceCommunications and Navigation program. The primary goal of ARISS is to promoteexploration of science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematicstopics by organizing scheduled contacts via amateur radio between crew membersaboard the ISS and students. Before and during these radio contacts, students,educators, parents, and communities learn about space, space technologies, andamateur radio. For more information, see www.ariss.org MediaContact: DaveJordan, AA4KN ARISSPR Likeus on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter. Search on Amateur Radio on the ISS and@ARISS_status.

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AO-92
by kb2mjeff＠att.net 14 Sep '20

14 Sep '20

I second this. L/V mode would certainly beat the batteries up much less due to the lighter traffic load. I agree with Dave, there are plenty of U/V passes... 73 Jeff kb2m -----Original Message----- From: AMSAT-BB <amsat-bb-bounces(a)amsat.org> On Behalf Of Andrew Glasbrenner via AMSAT-BB Sent: Monday, September 14, 2020 7:08 PM To: 'David Worboys' <kg4zlb(a)icloud.com> Cc: 'AMSAT BB' <amsat-bb(a)amsat.org> Subject: Re: [amsat-bb] AO-92 Certainly to be considered... 73, Drew KO4MA -----Original Message----- From: David Worboys <kg4zlb(a)icloud.com> Sent: Monday, September 14, 2020 6:40 PM To: Andrew Glasbrenner <glasbrenner(a)mindspring.com> Cc: AMSAT BB <amsat-bb(a)amsat.org> Subject: Re: [amsat-bb] AO-92 Drew, would it be possible that if you are able command it back on an ad-hoc basis it could be commanded into L/V mode for those sessions? There are plenty of U/V opportunities up there for anyone already. Thanks David KG4ZLB On Sep 14, 2020, at 6:12 PM, Andrew Glasbrenner via AMSAT-BB <amsat-bb(a)amsat.org> wrote: I've mostly been posting about it on Twitter. AO-92 has a cell that's failing, and towards the end of many eclipses it goes into auto-safe mode at 3.6v. If the battery drops low enough the IHU resets, and it comes back up in normal safe mode. Mark and I have been commanding to repeater mode on the first available pass after the resets, but it's not a long term sustainable answer. Last night Mark commanded the transmitter completely off while we consider a plan of action. Leaving autosafe on and the tx off, we may be able to turn the repeater on ad-hoc for weekends or such, completely dependent on command station availability. Turning autosafe and the IHU off like we did with AO-85 will kill the satellite pretty quickly, so that's not a good response either. So, we'll look at resets and battery states before this weekend and see where we stand. 73, Drew KO4MA AMSAT VP Operations

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FS: Pac-Comm PSK-1 Packer Controller
by Paul F. Merrill 14 Sep '20

14 Sep '20

Any interest from anyone here before I put this out to the larger World? TNX, Paul / W7IV

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Route 66 On The Air
by Scott Davis 14 Sep '20

14 Sep '20

I will be on the air as W6H occasionally until this Sunday, 20-Sep, as New Mexico’s satellite representative in the "Route 66 On The Air" special event. For general info visit http://w6jbt.org/?page_id=19 . QSL via K8TE. Our coordinator is working on getting a certificate for LoTW, but it's not up yet. Besides, the paper cards are nice-looking. Christy, KB6LTY, is also on sats as W6D from San Bernardino County -- you remember the old song "...Kingman, Barstow, San Bernardino!" We worked each other this afternoon on PO-101. -Scott K5TA DM65 Albuquerque.

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Re: [amsat-bb] Amazon donations
by jim＠k6ccc.org 14 Sep '20

14 Sep '20

Bruce said: > If you use the app, you can set it up for smile. If you use a web browser be sure to always goto smile.amazon.com I normally use a browser, but I do have the Amazon app on my phone. Note that it is rather hidden on the app. On the app, press the three horizontal bars in the upper left corner for the main menu. Then under "Programs and Features", select "See All Programs". Then scroll down to "AmazonSmile" (not in alphabetical order). 73 ----- Jim Walls - K6CCC jim(a)k6ccc.org

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Amazon donations
by Francis Geraci 14 Sep '20

14 Sep '20

I just got an Email from AmazonSmile. $5,660.00 was donated to Amsat. All you Amazon buyers, use "Amazonsmile" when buying, and donate to Amsat. IMHO W1FXX

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New LOTW ADIF File Generator
by Wes Baden 14 Sep '20

14 Sep '20

I didn't mean for my original post to kick up any dust. In hindsight, it was a classic "Who Moved My Cheese?" moment. Train a mouse to move through a maze to find cheese, then move the position of the cheese, and the mouse will become disoriented and panic at first. In my case, I should have played with the new system for a while before posting. Many thanks to those who passed on information about navigating the ADIF file generator now. Using TAB rather than ENTER, as I did previously, gets me down from one entry line to another (ENTER no longer does, at least on my PC). Also, the elimination of "Phone," replaced by a number of voice modes, really does make a lot of sense. I miss what are probably the most common linear satellite modes, CW and now SSB, being at the top of the Mode list, but as someone pointed out, they are findable fairly quickly by typing in "C" or "S" first. I have no trouble using LOTW at this point (I really need to get a logging program, though!), and my CW and SSB contacts are matching on LOTW just as they should be. I appreciate the coders' ongoing efforts to tweak LOTW and made it better over time. In the future, I just need to remember not to panic when the cheese gets moved once again. 73, Wes NA1ME

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New version of LOTW
by Wes Baden 13 Sep '20

13 Sep '20

Anyone else not pleased with the new version "improving" LOTW, at least as it involves SAT contacts? Can we get ARRL to undo some things? At least on my computer, you no longer can press the Enter key to go down entry fields one after another. It's a much slower process now. Also, the two most common modes that we've been using on LOTW, CW and VOICE, are no longer first in line, where an expanded list of modes is alphabetized. This also slows down entries. Worse yet, VOICE is no longer a listed mode at all. It's been replaced by SSB, LSB and USB. I could be wrong, but isn't this in particular going to make QSO matching more difficult? Should SAT ops simply enter SSB, or should it be USB (the output of satellites) or LSB (our input to them)? In sum, the whole process is now slower with multiple opportunities for matching errors and contacts not being confirmed. Ugh. Wes NA1ME

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