AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-214
The AMSAT News Service bulletins are a free, weekly news and infor- mation service of AMSAT North America, The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation. ANS publishes news related to Amateur Radio in Space including reports on the activities of a worldwide group of Amateur Radio operators who share an active interest in designing, building, launching and communicating through analog and digital Amateur Radio satellites.
The news feed on http://www.amsat.org publishes news of Amateur Radio in Space as soon as our volunteers can post it.
Please send any amateur satellite news or reports to: ans-editor at amsat.org.
In this edition:
* Fox-1A Mated to the Centaur for Launch * AMSAT 2015 Symposium Papers * PCSAT Default Beacon Transmissions on 144.390 MHz * 2015 AMSAT-UK Colloquim Videos Aavilable Online * FUNcube Certificate of Achievement and QSL Card * Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule
SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-214.01 ANS-214 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins
AMSAT News Service Bulletin 214.01 From AMSAT HQ Kensington, MD. August 2, 2015 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-214.01
Fox-1A Mated to the Centaur for Launch
AMSAT-NA's Fox-1A satellite which will launch on a NASA ELaNa flight from Vandenburg AFB has been mated to the Centaur upper stage which will carry it to orbit. A photo of the NPSCuL mated to the Centaur with the P-POD containing Fox-1A, BisonSat, ARC1 and 7 other P-PODs can be seen on the AMSAT website. http://www.amsat.org/?cat=21
[ANS thanks Jerry, N0JY, for the above information]
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AMSAT 2015 Symposium Papers
The 2015 AMSAT-NA Annual Meeting and Space Symposium to be held on the weekend of October 16-18, 2015. Proposals for papers, symposium presentations and poster presentations are invited on any topic of interest to the amateur satellite community. We request a tentative title of your presentation as soon as possible. The final copy must be submitted by September 15 for inclusion in the printed proceedings. Abstracts and papers should be sent to Dan Schultz at n8fgv at amsat.org
The 2015 AMSAT Space Symposium and Annual Meeting will be held October 16, 17, 18, 2015 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, 33 East 5th Street, in Downtown, Dayton, Ohio.
[ANS thanks the 2015 Symposium Committee for the above information]
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PCSAT Default Beacon Transmissions on 144.390 MHz
An FM APRS signal has been received in England causing interference to the MGM frequency and weak-signal Meteor Scatter (MS) operation which is just below 144.390 MHz. A MS DXpedition was disrupted by such activity earlier in the month and interference has been occurring at various times since.
Bob Bruninga, WB4APR, explains that the beacon was planned over 15 years ago for operation only when PCSAT is over North America based on published band plans at that time. Now, after 14 years on orbit, the ability to turn that backup beacon off has been lost.
PCSAT (now 14 years old) had a backup fail-safe beacon on 144.39 that would activate after any unknown spacecraft reset to give a backup comm link in case the primary 145.825 channel died. Being on the North American APRS frequency with hundreds of IGates there would always be at least one that would hear this "emergency call home" from PCSAT even though the channel is generally saturated. It worked.
The problem is, that now PCSAT resets on every orbit due to negative power budget and so, on every orbit that beacon comes back on. Even if we did get a command up to reset it, that setting would last only 15 minutes to the next eclipse.
We learned our lesson! That was our FIRST amateur satellite and we sure learned NOT to use a "connected-packet-command link" that needs ACKS and Retries and logon passwords just to LOGON before you can even send a SHUTUP command. All our satellites since, operate without the multiple Send, connect, ACK, retry, ACK, command, ACK overhead.... just to get one command understood. Now, only the receiver on the spacecraft has to be functional to command it to silence in a single packet. But too late for PCSAT.
We are sorry that we have no good answers. But we hope we can mitigate this instance of "friendly fire" collateral damage so that we don't cause an overall black-eye to amateur radio overall friendly operations?
What you may hear will be 2 one-second packets per minute, one at 1200 baud and one at 9600 baud, trying to "call home".
[ANS thanks Bob, WB4APR, for the above information]
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2015 AMSAT-UK Colloquim Videos Aavilable Online
Thanks to the cooperation between the BATC and AMSAT-UK, this years colloquium footage is becoming available online already.
The BATC and AMSAT-UK teams are working to upload all video material on to the AMSAT-UK YouTube account. (http://youtube.com/user/AMSATUK)
Video's will become available as soon as uploading is complete. Since the high-definition files are rather large, please allow for some time for editing and uploading.
For convenience, if you wish to watch the entire colloquium, go to the playlist at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTDI7lbh1cWq2av8hb6EzddopHERvDH0i
[ANS thanks Wouter, PA3WEG, for the above information]
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FUNcube Certificate of Achievement and QSL Card
As announced at the AMSAT-UK International Space Colloquium 2015, a ‘Certificate of Achievement’ and/or an amateur radio style ‘QSL’ card are now available online. Only those who have successfully received telemetry from FUNcube-1 and uploaded it to the Data Warehouse are able to download these documents. AO-73 (FUNcube-1)
The Certificate of Achievement is aimed at educational establishments such as schools, and the QSL card at radio amateurs who would like confirmation of their report. However, station operators are welcome to download both if they wish.
Each is personalised with the callsign/name which has been previously registered with the Warehouse, and the date and time of the first packet to be uploaded by the requesting station is also added.
Download your Certificate or QSL card from http://amsatuk.me.uk/on/funcube_qsl.php
FUNcube-1 (AO-73) Telemetry: • Dashboard App http://funcube.org.uk/working-documents/funcube-telemetry-dashboard/ • Data Warehouse Archive http://warehouse.funcube.org.uk/ • Whole orbit data http://warehouse.funcube.org.uk/wod.html?satelliteId=2
BBC News video about FUNcube-1 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25084547
FUNcube website http://www.FUNcube.org.uk/
FUNcube Yahoo Group http://amsat-uk.org/funcube/yahoo-group/
[ANS thanks AMSAT-UK for the above information]
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Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule as of 2015-07-31 23:30 UTC
ESA Space Camp, Külsheim, Gemany, via W6SRJ The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be NA1SS The scheduled astronaut is Kjell Lindgren KO5MOS Contact is a go for: Mon 2015-08-03 10:47:58 UTC 67 deg
Maroochydore State School, Maroochydore, Queensland, Australia, telebridge via W6SRJ The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be NA1SS The scheduled astronaut is Kjell Lindgren KO5MOS Contact is a go for: Thu 2015-08-06 10:10:15 UTC 59 deg via LU1CGB
Space Jam 9, Rantoul, IL, telebridge via IK1SLD The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be OR4ISS The scheduled astronaut is Kjell Lindgren KO5MOS Contact is a go for: Sat 2015-08-08 16:57:49 UTC 33 deg
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From 2015-12-20 to 2016-01-04, there will be no US Operational Segment
(USOS) hams on board ISS. So any schools contacts during this period will be conducted by the ARISS Russia team.
/EX
In addition to regular membership, AMSAT offers membership in the President's Club. Members of the President's Club, as sustaining donors to AMSAT Project Funds, will be eligible to receive addi- tional benefits. Application forms are available from the AMSAT Office.
Primary and secondary school students are eligible for membership at one-half the standard yearly rate. Post-secondary school students enrolled in at least half time status shall be eligible for the stu- dent rate for a maximum of 6 post-secondary years in this status. Contact Martha at the AMSAT Office for additional student membership information.
73, This week's ANS Editor, Lee McLamb, KU4OS ku4os at amsat dot org