AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-209

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

*************************************************************** *** 2008 AMSAT Space Symposium and Annual General Meeting *** *** October 24-26 in Atlanta, Georgia *** *** http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/symposium/2008/index.php *** ***************************************************************

In this edition:

* AMSAT-UK Hosts Successful Space Colloquium * Delfi-C3 Amateur Radio Transponder Activated * AMSAT 2008 Field Day Summary * Cal Poly Requesting Beacon Capture Help * AMSAT Journal Update * Satellite Shorts From All Over * ARISS Status Report for the Week of July 21, 2008

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-209.01 AMSAT-UK Hosts Successful Space Colloquium

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 209.01

From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.

July 27, 2008 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-209.01

A successful 23rd AMSAT-UK International Space Colloquium was held at the University of Surrey, Guildford, England this weekend.

Prof Sir Martin Sweeting, G3YJO Chairman AMSAT-UK, opened the Colloquium on Friday. This was followed by the keynote speech given by Dr Rob Gowen, Department of Space & Climate Physics (Mullard Space Science Laboratory, University College London and Coordinator of the UK Lunar Penetrator Consortium) on "Science Penetrators for the UK MoonLITE mission".

On Saturday the Delfi-C3 team gave a presentation on their exciting new satellite. Its SSB/CW 435/145 linear transponder will activated soon and is sure to prove popular with satellite enthusiasts world- wide.

Saturday's Colloquium schedule also included presentations from AMSAT-DL on both the eagerly awaited P3E High Earth Orbiting satel- lite and the pioneering Mars Orbiter P5A. This will be the first private venture spacecraft to travel to the Red Planet providing Radio Amateurs with some true DX signals.

A complete listing of the Colloquium Technical program can be found at: http://www.uk.amsat.org/content/view/640/213/

The IARU Satellite Forum chaired by the IARU Satellite Adviser Hans van de Groenendaal ZS6AKV also met during the Colloquium weekend. The main topic included Band planning for satellite operations on frequencies in the Amateur Service.

The Colloquium included a live webcast of the proceedings via http://www.batc.tv/. There was a Live Chat page available to enable web viewers to post messages.

[ANS thanks Trevor, M5AKA and AMSAT-UK for the above information]

/EX

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-209.02 Delfi-C3 Amateur Radio Transponder Activated

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 209.02

From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.

July 27, 2008 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-209.02

The Delfi team activated the Amateur Radio 435 to 145 MHz linear transponder onboard the satellite activated just before they left the Netherlands to attend the AMSAT-UK Colloquium which was held July 25-27 at the University of Surrey in Guildford, England.

The Amateur Radio satellite Delfi-C3 (DO-64), built at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, was launched in April. Since then it has been collecting educational research data for use by the university students with the assistance of Radio Amateurs around the world.

Members of the Delfi-C3 team gave presentations during the Colloquium about their exciting new Amateur Radio satellite.

The transponder can be accessed with these frequencies: Transponder mode beacon: 145.870 MHz CW Linear transponder downlink: 145.880 - 145.920 MHz Linear transponder uplink: 435.570 - 435.530 MHz

All frequencies are +/- Doppler shift that can be up to 3 kHz at 145 MHz. As it's an inverting transponder a LSB signal on the uplink would be translated to a USB signal on the downlink.

The transponder mode was switched on during this weekend whenever it was within range of Europe and automatically switched back to science (telemetry) mode when it entered eclipse about 1 hour later.

Rob, PE1ITR reported from the Netherland on Saturday, July 26, "Today I made my first QSO around 10:53UTC and worked HA2RD with 5x7 signals. I also heard F5ETM."

Alan, ZL2BX said, "The transponder was on over ZL this morning 2036UT pass with weak signals from transponder downlink and beacon. It was active again on the 2212UT pass with very good signals from both trans- ponder downlink and beacon."

More information on this satellite can be found at: Delfi-C3: http://www.delfic3.nl/

Delfi-C3 Videos on YouTube can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/user/DelfiC3

[ANS thanks the Delfi-C3 Team and AMSAT-UK for the above information]

/EX

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-209.03 AMSAT 2008 Field Day Summary

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 209.03

From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.

July 27, 2008 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-209.03

AMSAT Director Contests and Awards Bruce Paige, KK5DO, provided an executive summary of participation in the 2008 AMSAT Field Day.

The results will be published in the July/August AMSAT Journal. This includes some really nice photos that were sent in. Detailed results will also be posted in an ANS bulletin.

This year, we had 8 satellites used. There was even one QSO on AO-16. A total of 120 QSO's were reported and we had 17 stations submit scores. The most contacts were done on VO-52 this year. Behind that was AO-7.

Here are some statistics from this year and previous years:

2005 2006 2007 2008 Satellites 8 7 5 8 QSO's 120 258 207 220 Stations 11 21 13 17

Watch your mailbox for your copy of the AMSAT Journal and standby for more Field Day news via ANS.

[ANS thanks Bruce, KK5DO for the above information]

/EX

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-209.04 Cal Poly Requesting Beacon Capture Help

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 209.04

From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.

July 27, 2008 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-209.04

Jason Anderson, KI6GIV, at California Polytechnic State University is requesting amateur radio operators worldwide to assist with capturing the telemetry of the Cal Poly CP4 satellite.

Jason wrote, "We have seen some unpredictable behavior on our satellite, CP4. Since we only have contact with the satellite once every 12 hours, it would be extremely helpful if we could get some global support with collecting beacons to get a more complete picture of the the satellite's health."

Please send any collected data (audio or decoded binary) via email to:, jander06@calpoly.edu

Satellite Link Information ------------------------------ Frequency: 437.325Mz Modulation: FSK (but uses LSB cheat to make AFSK) Radio Mode: LSB (neccesary for LSB cheat) Baud Rate: 1200 Beacon rate: 1 beacon/minute (maybe change to 5 minutes if satellite changes mode)

[ANS thanks Jason, KI6GIV for the above information]

/EX

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-209.05 AMSAT Journal Update

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 209.05

From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.

July 27, 2008 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-209.05

AMSAT Journal Editor, Ed Long, WA4SWJ reported that the next issue of the Journal has been delivered to the printer and will be on its way to your mailbox soon.

Ed reminds members to get busy, "I am PAST DUE for articles for the next issue. If you have an article you would like to submit to the Journal please send it as soon as you can to: journal at amsat dot org."

[ANS thanks Ed, WA4SWJ for the above information]

/EX

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-209.06 Satellite Shorts From All Over

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 209.06

From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.

July 27, 2008 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-209.06

+ The European Space Agency has announced the commencement of payload selection for VERTA-1, the Vega second flight. The primary objective of the VERTA-1 mission is to demonstrate the multiple-payload capa- bility of the Vega launch system into a low-Earth, Sun-synchronous orbit in the 500-800 km altitude range. Payload opportunities are open to any private or public entity, without restriction as to nationality. For more information see: http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Launchers_Home/SEM3MKXIPIF_0.html

+ FO-29 has been only turned on over Japan for several months as the ground controllers worked on battery power managment to conserve this satellite for as long as possible. This past week several reports have been received that FO-29 has been heard over most of its orbit in other parts of the world. Frank, VK5MFW reported contacts with ZL2BX and ZL1BVA. Mak, SV1BSX reported a contact with SW1JGW and DL6HP. Users are encouraged to continue to be careful with this satellite's power budget and cease operation if the downlink signal weakens or experiences FM shifting.

[ANS thanks everyone for the above information]

/EX

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-209.07 ARISS Status Report for the Week of July 21, 2008

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 209.07

From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.

July 27, 2008 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-209.07

1. School Contacts

European Space Camp 2008 held at the Zanka Children and Youth Centre in Zanka, Hungary for the children of ESA employees. had an ARISS contact on Thursday, July 24. The Hungarian Astronautical Society (HAS) organized the event. The Radio Club of the Puskas Polytechnic (HA5KHC) provided equipment and support the contact.

United Space School in Seabrook, Texas is slated for an ARISS contact on Wednesday, July 30 via the telebridge station ON4ISS in Belgium. These students come from around the world for a two week session, during which they stay with local host families while being mentored by astronauts, engineers, and scientists to design a mission to Mars as their team project. Class sessions are held at the University of Houston at Clear Lake.

2. Kuwait Science Club Contact Successful

On Monday, July 14, youth attending the Kuwait Science Club participated in an ARISS contact via the telebridge station WH6PN in Hawaii. Greg Chamitoff, KD5PKZ, answered 16 questions posed to him by 12 children and was answering the 17th question when the signal faded out. The audio from this event was fed into the EchoLink AMSAT (101 377) con- ference room server which received 11 connections from 3 countries. It was also fed into the EchoLink JK1ZRW (277 208) server and into the IRLP Discovery Reflector 9010. More information and the audio file may be found on the ARISS-Europe Web site. See: http://www.ariss-eu.org/2008_07_15.htm

3. ARISS TIM

The ARISS team is meeting in Moscow this week for a Technical Interchange Meeting (TIM). The conference will be held July 21-23.

[ANS thanks Carol, KB3LKI 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.

73, This week's ANS Editor, JoAnne Maenpaa, K9JKM K9JKM at amsat dot org