Dear satellite radio friends,

With the end of the year approaching, I feel the need share how much I appreciate and enjoy all the fun we have on this amsat-bb. Where we discuss, help, ask, and challenge eachother with our shared love: amateur radio satellites. 2008 has again been a truly fantastic year; just to name a few things I recall (at the risk to overlook all those others);

Delfi-C3: 2008 brought us a new, well working satellite with a transponder! A brand new satellite where industry, university and radio-amateurs worked together in defining, building and operating a spacecraft. A big project where various objectives got successfully merged into a small Cubesat. Many aspects on the behaviour of the sat to observe and validate, at least it kept me very excited back in May: http://www.pa3guo.com/dc3_12may08_2045utc_pa3guo_spin_145.930.jpg Delfi-C3 also brought to my attention that my PC cannot share its line-input over more than one program at the time, something to fix in 2009 !

AO51 My favorite FM satellite to operate portable during the summer holidays. This year I operated as OK/PA3GUO and had despite all the QRM many fun contacts around Europe. Always a good exercise ! http://www.pa3guo.com/holiday_2008.html Its the 23cm up / 70 down modes were new for me, now I had the (from Rob, PE1ITR borrowed) 35 elements TONNA for 23cm. I made my first QSOs in L/U mode. For this I first needed to get 435.150 downlink working, and I built with good help of Domenico, I8CVS a polarization switch for the old Cushcraft 70 cm antenna. http://www.pa3guo.com/cushcraft_416tb.html Finally, the SSTV 'mode' as preparation for the ISS experiments was also new fun. Yes, often AO51 is a lot of chaos, but next to that it has very interesting modes to use and explore. Thanks to the AO51 team for keeping us busy !

Cute1.7+APD-II As I wanted to help the project team to collect as much as possible CW telemetry, I did set up my remote access using the www.logmein.com software. Now I could remotely gather & forward the telemetry, from QRL but also while enjoying the good summer evenings in my backyard: http://www.pa3guo.com/cute_ops_pa3guo.jpg. PE1ITR was so kind to loan me his 23cm beam, to prepare myself for the 23cm packet uplink of this new satellite.... it showed that while our Japanse friends can digipeat over it I can't (yet), so I need to review if my antenna cable is good enough ... some day in 2009.

SEEDS A new satellite, that provides an SSTV beacon in space, great for demonstration purposes. While I have a very clumsy set-up; holding a microphone in front of my loudspeaker, the picture is cool to receive. Also it transmits a 'secret' code in VOICE. I have listened to it a thousand times, but one character I still cannot really 'hear'. Has anyone gotten this confirmed from the project team ? Anyway: thanks for a new satellite to experiment with ! http://www.pa3guo.com/seeds.html

ISS Especially in the last months a lot of new things to experiment (and this is what amateur radio is all about right ?). SSTV operations brought the ISS crew very close to us, remarkable how appealing receiving pictures with this old technology still is. Also the voice operations by Richard were a through inspiration. I was there to hear him talking for the first time with his dad while he was flying over Europe, and his dad in Moscow ground control. Also new packet modes: 9k6 worked SO good. A good back-up communication system for Emergency Communication (or SSET as Bob would call this :-)) The last few days of the year also promise new tests with the repeater mode in 23cm uplink configuration: let's see how the D700 receives at 1.2GHz !

PCSAT The old lady is running out of batteries, but is today still the only APRS satellite that we have flying around 24/7 in this mode. Even though we slowly lose control due to the automatic resets, we still LEARN a lot regarding how to operate in bad conditions (looking at angle of the sun for optimum power, radio channel clearance etc). PCSAT is also still a good test vehicle for anyone to set-up a fully automated tracking station (read: have a receiver listening 24/7 to 145.825 and Igate all received traffic to the internet). Having this available NOW is a good way to be prepared for anything unexpected (eg. emergencies). On one hand very easy, on the other hand it looks simpler as it is (keep a PC running 24/7 un-attended and not to loose the internet link). Good stuff... ! http://www.pa3guo.com/pcsat_cmd_dec2008.jpg

AO7: Always fascinating to hear the 10mtr signals travelling all the way from space into my small wire antenna, amazing how clear CW sounds !

Yubileiny Haven't really figured out yet what its use for me will be, but it sure is another strong signal that can serve as a testvehicle for stuff like automated antenna tracking, doppler correction, telemetry decoding and storage. http://www.pa3guo.com/yubileiny_24may08_pa3guo_435.315_cw_short.jpg

Compass: Have seen great support from the amateur community: first of all Mike, DK3WN, who is clearly in the lead helping out the university controlling the satellite. Great that when Mike asked for help, many HAMs around the world stepped in and tried to 'save' Compass. For me: to be able to decode the MSK downlink of Compass I need to connect the radio's audio to my PC. Missing for that is a proper (optical) audio interface, this is now my holiday project in the next 2 weeks... will keep me busy for while :-)

AO27 ... you won't believe it, but only this year I made my first contact via AO-27. Folks QRV here you don't hear on the other FM sat's. Great bird !

AO16 After 18 years in space, I finally made my first QSO via this satellite. Fantastic idea of the AO16 team to have the satellite configured as FM/SSB transponder ! http://www.pa3guo.com/ao16.html

Looking back 2008 was a truly exciting year with many new satellites, as well as new modes of operations of existing satellites. Most important; a year of a lot of new satellite radio-friends via this AMSAT-BB !

HAM radio remains for me both a source of inspiration, as well as a hobby shared with many good friends around the world.

I wish all of you a Healthy & Happy New Year !

Warm regards, Henk, PA3GUO http://www.pa3guo.com