Thank you for sending this out Trevor. Below is a copy of what I sent out to the local club email list earlier in the month. PART is a very fun and welcoming club, anyone interested in attending is more than welcome. Meetings do tend to be well attended.

Bryce Salmi KB1LQC ------ Below is a decent collection of important links to the documentation of our project. I've also included a new link to our project being demonstrated outside. I'll also add onto this email that we were told we had 45 minutes to present so if you are interested in the projects technical details, *please feel free to email me before or after the meeting with any detailed technical questions! *We could easily fill in more than one meetings worth of time if we presenting most of the technical details of this project.

AMSAT has sponsored a senior design group at the Rochester Institute of Technology to design and build an engineering prototype *Maximum Power Point Tracker* (MPPT) for use on the Fox-2 spacecraft aimed to launch into Low Earth Orbit around 2015. A MPPT is used to maximize the power obtained from a solar panel by forcing the cells to operate at their most efficient voltage regardless of the voltage required by the payload. One can also think of this as an impedance match. This optimum voltage changes slightly with variations in solar irradiance but changes greatly due to variations in solar panel temperature. The MPPT also utilizes a Texas Instruments MSP430 microcontroller to communicate telemetry data with the Fox satellite Internal Housekeeping Unit (IHU) designed by AMSAT for transmission to Earth via ham radio. The senior design group consisting of Brenton Salmi (KB1LQD), Bryce Salmi (KB1LQC), Ian MacKenzie (KB3OCF), and Daniel Corriero successfully implemented an analog MPPT designed for use in orbit over the five year mission intended for Fox-2 providing the amateur radio community with a 3U CubeSat carrying amateur radio communications equipment. The 45 minute presentation will briefly overview the design and function of the MPPT. A working prototype will also be present at the meeting. -----

Here's some more information for those interested in learning more details about our project. There is absolutely no way that we will be able to cover the project with much detail within 45 minutes, but we'll take what we can get! (Thanks for the spot!) Our best efforts will be made to keep the presentation interesting to all in attendance, technical and non-technical alike. Maybe you could distribute some of the links of interest below as needed, I know the paragraph above is meant to concisely describe the project. The "detailed design" section of our EDGE website is where the heavy-hitting technical documentation is located. Those interested in the gritty details of the project should check out the documentation. We did our best to absolutely flood AMSAT with as much information as possible.

*Main Documentation:* http://edge.rit.edu/edge/P13271/public/Home

*Technical Document (8 pages of technical information HIGHLY recommended reading):* http://edge.rit.edu/edge/P13271/public/FinalDocuments/Build_Test_Document/P1...

*Theory of Operations (In-depth technical documentation):* http://edge.rit.edu/edge/P13271/public/FinalDocuments/Detailed_Design/Theory... * *

*PCB Picture:* http://edge.rit.edu/edge/P13271/public/Photo%20Gallery/MPPT_SN2_Final/MPPT_S... * *

*MPPT Testing Operational Walk-through: *http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN7gRVWHZM4&feature=youtu.be* *

*Schematics:* http://edge.rit.edu/edge/P13271/public/FinalDocuments/Detailed_Design/AMSAT_...

Thanks,

Bryce Salmi, KB1LQC

On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 5:09 PM, M5AKA [email protected] wrote:

The first trial High-Altitude Balloon launches have taken place from New Zealand.

Google plans to sending up 300 balloons transmitting on 2400 MHz and 5800 MHz around the world at the southern fortieth parallel that would provide coverage to New Zealand, Australia, Chile, and Argentina. The company hopes to eventually have thousands of balloons flying in the stratosphere at an altitude of 20 km.

See http://amsat-uk.org/2013/06/17/google-project-loon-using-2400-and-5800-mhz/

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73 Trevor M5AKA AMSAT-UK website http://amsat-uk.org/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/AMSAT-UK/208113275898396 Twitter https://twitter.com/AMSAT_UK

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