AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-353

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: [email protected]

In this edition:

* Straight Key Night * This month's satellite awards * XW-1 1 year anniversary * AMSAT-UK FUNcube Needs Help * ARISS Status December 13, 2010 * Satellite Shorts * Thanks for your support

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-353.01 Straight Key Night

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 353.01

From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.

December 19, 2010 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-353.01

STRAIGHT KEY NIGHT ON OSCAR 2011

You are cordially invited to participate in Straight Key Night on OSCAR 2011, conducted by AMSAT for radio amateurs throughout the world.

This year's event is dedicated to the memory of Dick Peacock, W2GFF, who died in 2010 aged 91. Dick was an active satellite operator in the 1970s and 1980s, mostly on CW and usually with a straight key. He was also active on 50 MHz and the HF bands, and could always be counted on for a kind word and a friendly QSO.

There are no rules, no scoring and no logs required. Just operate CW on any OSCAR satellite, using a straight hand key, from 0000 UTC to 2400 UTC on 1 January 2011, working as many SKN stations as you can.

In keeping with the friendly nature of this event, each participant is asked to nominate one of the operators worked for "Best Fist." It is not necessary that your nominee have the best fist of anyone you heard, just of those you worked. Please send your nomination to W2RS via email at [email protected].

Those nominated will be recognized in an ANS bulletin to be publish- ed in early February, and in The AMSAT Journal.

[ANS thanks Ray, W2RS for the above information]

/EX

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-353.02 This month's satellite awards

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 353.02

From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.

December 19, 2010 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-353.02

Here are the awards that I have processed over the last month. This will be the last posting for 2010.

The following have entered into the Satellite Communicators Club for making their first satellite QSO.

Alan Murray, Jr., N1ZWL Richard Lewis, KG6ZVC

The following have earned the AMSAT Communications Achievement Award.

Boris Lanca, 9A2GA #525 Paul Gagnon, N6MA #526 Rick Tejera, K7TEJ #527 Jim Bennett, KE4KOL #528 Tom Deeble, KA6SIP #529 Glenn Barr, WB0KFC #530

The following have earned the AMSAT Sexagesimal Award

Paul Gagnon, N6MA #158

The following have earned the South Africa Satellite Communications Achievement award

Nick Kucij, KB1RVT #US157 Boris Lanca, 9A2GA #US158 Rick Tejera, K7TEJ #US159 Jim Bennett, KE4KOL #US160 Tom Deeble, KA6SIP #US161 Glenn Barr, WB0KFC #US162

To see all the awards visit http://www.amsat.org or http://www.amsatnet.com

Bruce Paige, KK5DO

[ANS thanks Bruce, KK5DO, for the above information]

/EX

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-353.03 XW-1 1 year anniversary

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 353.03

From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.

December 19, 2010 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-353.03

HOPE-OSCAR 68 HO-68 Commemorates First Anniversary

This week AMSAT China noted the first anniversary of XW-1, also known as Hope-Oscar 68 HO-68 with an announcement from Michael Chen, BD5RV/4 at AMSAT-China.

AMSAT President Barry Baines, WD4ASW remarked that HO-68 was a significant milestone for both amateur radio and AMSAT-China. Barry wrote, "We are very excited to see that HO-68 continues to operate in good health and that a new member of the AMSAT Inter- national family has established itself. Again, congratulations on a placing HO-68 in service and best wishes for the New Year."

From India, Secretary of the Upagrah Amateur Radio Club at the

ISRO Satellite Centre, Mani, VU2WMY wrote, "Wishing XW 1 HO-68 'A Happy Birthday'. Our good wishes and greetings to HO-68 for a very long and healthy life to serve the Ham community World wide."

Rick, K7TEJ said, "Many thanks thanks to you and Allan and the rest of your team for your efforts to make this great bird available to us. May HO-68 have a long life!"

From Alaska, Dale KL7XJ commented, "A very Happy Birthday to XW1,

HO-68. A very good satellite to work!"

Roland, PY4ZBZ reported good signals from HO-68 as he worked PY1AT, PY5LF and UT1FG/MM on his sea voyage in grid FF36.

The latest HO-68 information and operating schedule can be found on-line at: http://www.camsat.cn/

[ANS thanks BD5RV/4, WD4ASW, VU2WMY, K7TEJ, KL7XJ, and PY4ZBZ for the above information]

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SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-353.04 AMSAT-UK FUNcube Needs Help

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 353.04

From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.

December 19, 2010 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-353.04

AMSAT-UK FUNcube Help needed with educational outreach

AMSAT-UK is looking for people in the educational field to help develop the educational outreach part of the FUNcube satellite project.

AMSAT-UK's FUNcube is an educational satellite project with the goal of enthusing and educating young people about radio, space, physics and electronics. Additionally it features a 435 to 145 MHz Linear Transponder for SSB/CW operation for use outside school hours.

It will support the many existing educational Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) initiatives including GB4FUN.

The target audience consists of school pupils and young people gener- ally, FUNcube will feature a 145 MHz telemetry beacon that will pro- vide a strong signal for the pupils to receive.

A simple FUNcube dongle SDR receiver has also been developed. This will connect to the USB port of a laptop to display telemetry and messages in an interesting way.

The project commenced in October 2009 and it is anticipated that the satellite will be launched before the end of 2011. More information can be found at http://www.funcube.org.uk/

As the technical work on the satellite itself is now well underway, AMSAT-UK is now looking to develop the educational outreach part of the project. This will include the design and contents of the "ground station" laptop display, the best method of providing the information so that it relates to current curricula, and all the supporting infor- mation that will be needed by the teachers. As they have little current educational experience Amsat-UK need additional professional advice as to how to carry it forward.

The FUNcube website now has details of the planned educational aspects of the project. See http://www.funcube.org.uk (see the "education out- reach" link).

If you are in the educational field and have experience in curriculum matters then please consider helping AMSAT-UK with this.

In the first instance please contact Richard G3RWL for further infor- mation via e-mail: g3rwl at amsat.org

The latest FUNcube information can be found on-line at these pages:

FUNcube website http://www.FUNcube.org.uk/

FUNcube SDR Dongle http://www.FUNcubeDongle.com/

FUNcube Yahoo Group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FUNcube/

[ANS thanks AMSAT-UK for the above information]

/EX

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-353.05 ARISS Status December 13, 2010

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 353.05

From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.

December 19, 2010 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-353.05

Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) Status Report December 13, 2010

1. AMSAT Covers ARISS Anniversary

The AMSAT (Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation) News Service bulletin (ANS-346) included an article on the tenth anniversary of ARISS. See: http://amsat.org/pipermail/ans/2010/000468.html

2. Amateur Radio Newsline Reports on ARISS

On December 10, the Amateur Radio Newsline Report 1739 ran two ARISS news items under its heading Ham Radio in Space. Covering ten years of contacts is the story, "ARISS Celebrates its 10th Anniversary." "ARISSat One Enroute to Moscow" talks about the satellite on its way to Russia for testing and launch. See: ftp://ftp.arnewsline.org/quincy/News/news.txt

3. Astronaut Training Status

Astronaut Tom Marshburn, KE5HOC is scheduled for an ARISS introduction class on December 13. Marshburn is slated to fly with Expedition 34 in November 2012.

[ANS thanks Carol,KB3LKI, for the above information]

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SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-353.06 Satellite Shorts

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 353.06

From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.

December 19, 2010 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-353.06

Satellite Shorts From All Over

+ AMSAT's Keeper of the Keps, Ray Hoad WA5QGD advised that recent Cubesats launched from Kodiak have been added to the AMSAT KEP distribution: RAX - Cat # 37223 OOREOS - Cat # 37224 FASTSAT - Cat # 37225 FAST1 and FAST2 - Cat # 37227 (FAST1 and FAST2 have the same KEPs)

For some reason, yet unknown, Spacetrack is not publishing the KEPs for the above satellites. Special thanks to Drew Glasbrenner (KO4MA) for helping find the location of the KEPs for the above satellites.

+ Boris, UA0QJ (Asiatic Russia) in grid PP42TA has been reported to be active on AO7 mode B. He has been operating CW so far.

+ Listen for Duane, K5VGU operating portable on the satellites from Kentucky grid EM67 mostly and possibly the Kentucky piece of EM68. Duane will be in the area December 22 through December 29.

+ Listen for Daniel, VO1DZX operating portable VO2 from Labrador (FO62) until December 31. Daniel reports that bad operating conditions and lack of transportation will probably keep him from working any addi- tional grids. The best time to find him will be on the late afternoon/ early evening AO51 passes as long as he can get on. Weekends will be a good time to catch him as well.

+ Congratulations to AMSAT's Samudra N3RDX on his selection to present a technical paper at the AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting in January 2011 in Orlando, Florida. His paper is: "A Broadband Multi-hop Network for Earth-Mars Communication using Multi-purpose Interplanetary Relay Satellites and Linear-Circular Commutating Chain Topology".

+ The next Hudson Valley Satcom Net will be on Thursday, December 23 at 8:00PM EST (UTC - 5). The net meets on the Mt. Beacon 146.970 MHZ re- peater and also on Echolink N2EYH-L node. More information is on-line at http://www.hvsatcom.org.

+ The December 10 edition of the UK Metro newspaper carried an article titled 'Celebrating great British science' which featured the AMSAT-UK FUNcube satellite. Read the article on page 25 of the Online edition of the Metro newspaper at http://e-edition.metro.co.uk/2010/12/10/?p=25

+ Video of the spectacular night launch of the Soyuz TMA-20 spacecraft with Expedition 26 crew members NASA astronaut Cady Coleman, Russian cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratyev, and European Space Agency astronaut Paolo Nespoli can be watched at: http://tinyurl.com/2be6w6k (UniverseToday.com)

+ More images, details on SpaceX's Dragon Flight are posted on-line at: http://tinyurl.com/34dj7gt (UniverseToday.com)

+ Northern winter is beginning in a special way. On December 21, the win- ter solstice, a lunar eclipse will be visible across all of North America. Full story at: http://tinyurl.com/285grxy (nasa.gov)

[ANS thanks everyone for the above information]

/EX

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-353.07 Thanks for your support

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 353.07

From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.

December 19, 2010 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-353.07

Thank-You For Your Support - ARISSat-1 and FOX PayPal Widget Fundraising

AMSAT-NA VP Operations, Drew Glasbrenner, KO4MA noted this week that, "We are just about to cross the $1000 mark on our PayPal fundraiser, and along with the $710 raised from the Facebook campaign, we are making a dent in recovering the funds spent on ARISSat-1 and those funds that will be spent on FOX."

Drew continued, "I want to thank those that donated, and those that took the time to add the widget to their webpages and QRZ profiles, and especially recognize two members who have excelled in creating exposure for our campaign. John Papay, K8YSE and Clint Bradford, K6LCS have pulled away from the pack in the number and amount of donations resulting from their copies of the widget, with $290 dollars raised between them. Gentlemen, thank you!"

Beginning with the $1250 mark, we will be randomly picking a donor from every $250 increment to receive an item from the AMSAT store. We currently have two different hats, a nice luggage tag, or a desktop thermometer/clock set to choose from, all bearing the AMSAT name and logo. Drew hopes to announce our first recipient soon!

In conclusion, Drew writes, "Thanks again, and if you'd like to donate to the campaign or share the widget to your own website, please visit http://www.amsat.org. The widget is on the front page below the ARISSat-1 news, and you can click on "Give" to donate, or "add to site" to receive the HTML code, or "supporters" to scroll through the statistics. I hope to soon see more familiar names scrolling across the widget soon, showing your support for AMSAT's next two satellites."

Donations, memberships, and store purchases may also be made through the AMSAT store on the website, or by calling Martha at 1 888 322 6728.

[ANS thanks AMSAT-NA VP Operations, Drew Glasbrenner, KO4MA 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. Remember to track Santa bringing you all the Happy Christmas Wishes from all the AMSAT volunteers giving their Time so willingly.

73, This week's ANS Editor, Dee Interdonato, NB2F nb2f at amsat dot org