AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-165
ANS is a free, weekly, news and information service of AMSAT North America, The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation. ANS 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.
Please send any amateur satellite news or reports to: ans-editor@amsat.org
********************************************************************** * 2009 AMSAT Space Symposium and Annual General Meeting October 9-11 * * Four Points Sheraton Hotel at the Baltimore Washington Airport * * Details - http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/symposium/2009/index.php * **********************************************************************
In this edition:
* AO-51 Special Event: Kid's Day June 20 * AO-51 Field Day Configuration * Treat Yourself to an Amateur Radio Conference * 7000 KM Contact Via AO-7 Mode B - Brazil to Belgium * Satellite Shorts From All Over
SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-165.01 AO-51 Special Event: Kid's Day June 20
AMSAT News Service Bulletin 165.01
From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
June 14, 2009 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-165.01
Amateur Radio Kids Day will be held on Saturday, June 20, 2009, between 1800 UTC - 2400 UTC. This on-air event encourages young people (licensed or not) to have fun with Amateur Radio, hopefully interesting them get a ham radio license of their own. It also gives us "older hams" [ahem!] a chance to share our love for amateur radio with the kids.
AMSAT VP Operations, Drew KO4MA announced that one of AO-51's repeaters will be dedicated to Kid's Day stations during this period. During the event please limit QSOs to those with youth participants on the satellite. The frequencies for this event will be:
AO-51 FM Repeater, V/U Uplink: 145.880 Mhz FM Downlink: 435.300 Mhz FM
The suggested exchange includes name, age, location and favorite color. To draw attention mention "Kids Day" when you call on the satellite.
All participants are eligible to receive a colorful certificate. You can download this certificate for free, customized with the youngster's names, after filling out the Kids Day Survey on the ARRL Web Site.
Alternatively, you can send a 9" x 12" SASE to Boring Amateur Radio Club, PO Box 1357, Boring, OR 97009. An email reflector for Kids Day has been set up. More info about this list can be found at: http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/kids
[ANS thanks the AO-51 Operations Team and the ARRL for the above information]
/EX
SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-165.02 AO-51 Field Day Configuration
AMSAT News Service Bulletin 165.02
From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
June 14, 2009 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-165.02
AMSAT's Satellite Field Day is held concurrently with the annual ARRL Field Day emergency preparedness exercise. This year the event will take place between 1800 UTC on Saturday June 27, 2009 through 2100 UTC on Sunday June 28, 2009.
AMSAT encourages stations to prepare for operations on all of the satellite modes - analog, FM, and digital. The congestion on FM LEO satellites has become so intense based on experience in prior years that we request to limit your use to one-QSO-per-FM-satellite. The ARRL rules only allow one contact per FM satellite to count. AMSAT Field Day rules allow one contact per FM repeater to count. This includes the International Space Station, if operational.
AO-51 will be configured to support Field Day operations. The Field Day configuration on AO-51 begins on June 21 to allow stations to test their equipment and antennas at home prior to the event. The satellite will remain in this mode through June 28.
AO-51 June 21 - June 28 Field Day Configuration FM Repeater, V/U Uplink: 145.920 Mhz FM Downlink: 435.300 Mhz FM
FM Repeater, L/U (Subject to interuption for telemetry collection) Uplink: 1268.700 Mhz FM Downlink: 435.150 Mhz FM
The full text of the AMSAT Satellite Field Day Rules can be found on-line at: http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/awards/amsatfd.php
The Satellite Summary Sheet can be found on this web page also. This format should be used for submission of the AMSAT Field Day competition and be received by KK5DO (email or postal mail) by 11:59 P.M. CDT, Monday, July 13, 2009. The preferred method for submitting your log is via e-mail to kk5do@amsat.org or kk5do@arrl.net.
You may also use the postal service but give plenty of time for your results to arrive by the submission date. Add photographs or other interesting information so that can be used an article for the Journal.
If mailing your submission, the address is:
Bruce Paige, KK5DO Director of Awards and Contests PO Box 310 Alief, TX 77411-0310.
Certificates will be awarded to the first-place, second, and third place emergency power/portable stations at the AMSAT General Meeting and Space Symposium in October, 2009.
[ANS thanks the AO-51 Operations Team and Bruce, KK5DO for the above information]
/EX
SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-165.03 Treat Yourself to an Amateur Radio Conference
AMSAT News Service Bulletin 165.03
From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
June 14, 2009 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-165.03
AMSAT 2009 SPACE SYMPOSIUM AND ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
Now is the time for you to prepare your papers and presentations for the 2009 AMSAT Annual Meeting and Space Symposium to be held October 9 - 11 at the Four Points Sheraton Hotel at the Baltimore Washington Airport.
Proposals for papers, symposium presentations and poster presenta- tions are invited on any topic of interest to the amateur satellite community. We request a tentative title of your presentation as soon as possible, with final copy submitted by September 1, 2009 for inclusion in the printed proceedings.
Abstracts and papers should be sent to Dan Schultz, N8FGV, at n8fgv@amsat.org.
CENTRAL STATES VHF SOCIETY ANNUAL CONFERENCE
The Central States VHF Society (CSVHFS) is soliciting presentations and poster displays for their 43rd Annual Conference this summer, July 23-26 at the Holiday Inn in Elk Grove Village, Illinois. Find more information on-line at: http://www.csvhfs.org/conference/index.html.
Possible presentation topics on all aspects of weak-signal VHF and above include, but are not limited to, antennas (modeling, design, arrays and control), equipment construction, propagation, test gear, regulatory issues, operating, digital signal processing and software defined radio.
AMSAT-UK 2009 SPACE COLLOQIUM
The AMSAT-UK Colloquium will be held July 25 and July 26 at the the Holiday Inn Hotel in Guildford. This new site is very close to the Surrey University where the event has been held previously. The 2009 AMSAT Colloquium will now commence at 10am on Saturday July 25th and close at approximately 4.30 pm on Sunday.
ARRL AND TAPR DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS CONFERENCE
Technical papers are solicited for presentation at the 28th Annual ARRL and TAPR Digital Communications Conference to be held September 25-27, 2009 in Chicago, Illinois. These papers will also be published in the Conference Proceedings (you do NOT need to attend the confer- ence to have your paper included in the Proceedings). The submission deadline is July 31, 2009. Please send papers to: Maty Weinberg, ARRL, 225 Main St., Newington, CT 06111 - or you can make your sub- mission via e-mail to: maty@arrl.org
MUD - MICROWAVE UPDATE 2009
Microwave Update 2009 will be held on Friday, October 23 through Satur- day, October 24 in Dallas, Texas. Technical papers are currently being solicited for publication in the ARRL's Microwave Update 2009 Conference Proceedings. You do not need to attend the conference nor present your paper to have it published.
Strong preference will be given to original work and to those papers that are written and formatted specifically for publication rather than as a visual presentation aid. As this is a microwave conference papers must be on topics for frequencies above 900 MHz. Examples of such topics include microwave theory, construction, communication, deployment, propagation, antennas, activity, transmitters, receivers, components, amplifiers, communication modes, LASER, software design tools, and practical experiences.
If you are interested in submitting a paper please contact Kent Britain, at wa5vjb (at) flash (dot) net for additional information. The deadline for papers is Monday, August 31, 2008. More information is available on-line at: http://www.microwaveupdate.org/
[ANS thanks AMSAT-NA, AMSAT-UK, ARRL, CSVHFS, and MUD for the above information]
/EX
SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-165.04 7000 KM Contact Via AO-7 Mode B - Brazil to Belgium
AMSAT News Service Bulletin 165.04
From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
June 14, 2009 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-165.04
ANS-158 carried a brief report of a successful AO-7 Mode B contact between Piraja, PS8RF in Brazil and Jean-Jacques, ON7EQ in Belgium. Since last week's report, additional information has been received on how they accomplished their 4736 mile (7622 KM) contact.
Jean-Jacques wrote, "As the theoretical window between both stations only lasts about 1 minute, 30 seconds, careful preparation was required for selection of the optimal window and calculation of doppler shifts both ways. The effective contact was only possible during about 20 sec- onds, just enough to exchange reports, while both stations met on the transponder within an offset of 500 Hz of calculated frequencies."
Well done and congratulations, gents! PS8RF has posted a video of the Satellite DX event at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggNmQqxARWY.
[ANS thanks Jean-Jacques, ON7EQ and Piraja, PS8RF for the above information.]
/EX
SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-165.05 Satellite Shorts From All Over
AMSAT News Service Bulletin 165.05
From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
June 14, 2009 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-165.05
+ AMSAT received the sad news that Robert Kohli, VU2MKP, well known to many AO-40 operators and AMSAT-India life member has become a silent key. Ham radio has lost a great operator who guided many hams and was a source of inspiration to many of us.
+ The total number of ARISS ISS to earth school contacts has now reached 443. The complete listing of all scheduled school con- tacts, and questions, other ISS related websites, IRLP and Echo- link websites can be found on-line at: http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/arissnews.rtf
+ Franco, HB9OAB will activate CN2AB on VO-52 from Morocco between June 27 through July 20, 2009. Info at: http://www.qrz.com/cn2ab
+ Hams like science ... a BBC produced video of the Four Seasons of Titan: Weather & Climate Change on Saturn's Largest Moon can be viewed on-line at: http://tinyurl.com/mroemf
[ANS thanks everyone for the above information]
/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 additional benefits. Application forms are available from the AMSAT Office. And with that please keep in mind in ancient Rome, deli workers were told that they could eat anything they wanted during the lunch hour. Anything, that is except the smoked salmon. Thus were created the world's first anti-lox breaks.
73, This week's ANS Editor, JoAnne Maenpaa, K9JKM K9JKM at amsat dot org