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ANS-189 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins
by E.Mike McCardel 08 Jul '18

08 Jul '18

AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-189 The AMSAT News Service bulletins are a free, weekly news and infor- mation service of AMSAT North America, The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation. ANS publishes news related to Amateur Radio in Space including 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. The news feed on http://www.amsat.org publishes news of Amateur Radio in Space as soon as our volunteers can post it. Please send any amateur satellite news or reports to: ans-editor at amsat.org. In this edition: * AMSAT Symposium Call For Papers - First Call * International Balloon Satellite Launch Challenge JULY 2018 * 145.825 MHz APRS Cubesats Enroute to ISS for August Deployment * China Microsatellite Symposium and International CubeSat and Mission Contest * "Moon Day" Volunteers Requested * University of Manitoba Wins the 4th CSDC! * AMSAT Field Day submissions are due Monday, July 9 * ISS SSTV Transmissions Continue * ARISS News * Satellite Shorts From All Over SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-189.01 ANS-189 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins AMSAT News Service Bulletin 189.01 >From AMSAT HQ KENSINGTON, MD. July 8, 2018 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-189.01 AMSAT Symposium Call For Papers - First Call This is the first call for papers for the 2018 AMSAT-NA Annual Meeting and Space Symposium to be held on the weekend of November 2 - 4 at the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Proposals for papers, symposium presentations, and poster presentations are invited on any topic of interest to the amateur satellite community. We request a tentative title of your presentation as soon as possible. The final copy must be submitted by October 15th for inclusion in the printed proceedings. Abstracts and papers should be sent to Dan Schultz at n8fgv(at)amsat.org [ANS thanks Dan N8FGV for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- International Balloon Satellite Launch Challenge JULY 2018 The 1st FREE OF COST International Balloon 'Satellite' Launch CHALLENGE is open across the Globe for participants below 21 years of age. Leveraging the power of technology, the State of Rajasthan in India has become the "Digitalization Hub of India". In the upcoming three- day technology carnival by the Government of Rajasthan- "Rajasthan Digifest 2018", held at Jaipur (known as the Pink city of the world) there will be a plethora of opportunities for everyone. From insightful workshops to varied exciting events, the fest would have a lot to offer. Taking a step further, Government of Rajasthan in collaboration with Space Kidz India, is organizing an "International Balloon Challenge" on the 25th & 26th July 2018. This challenge has been initiated to mark a tribute towards our former President and reputed Scientist Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam. Set with the motto- 'Dream. Imagine. Believe", it is an open competition for everyone aged below 21 years. The participant will have the opportunity to fly their payload 'near space' in a balloon FREE OF COST. Following are some notable points in respect to the challenge: • The payload must fit inside a 1U Cube3 and the weight should be 500 grams including the battery. • No hazardous chemicals are allowed. • Biological experiments containing living micro-organisms shall not be allowed. • Only Original Ideas will be entertained. • Any findings of plagiarisms can get the participant eliminated and permanently banned from participating in the future. • If approved by Space Kids India you can also come directly to the venue and fly your payload. • Accommodation and food facility for teams coming directly will be provided for two days. Payload should reach our Chennai Office (Add. given below) on or before the 18th of July 2018. Space Kidz India, No.1-B, Nutech Narayana Apartments, 48, Thirumalai Pillai Road, T.Nagar, Chennai 600 017, India Space Kidz India and Government of Rajasthan invites students for this exciting and adventurous 'International Balloon Challenge' to be held on 25th & 26th July 2018. The competition not only looks inspiring & challenging, but will help the participants to meet like- minded people from different nook and corner of the world uniting together with a strong competitive edge. It's time to help our younger generation to showcase their skills and let their dreams fly high! Our Contacts for further clarification: Mr. Rifath +919518535615 shaarookrsr(a)live.com Mr. Vijay +917708574647 vijaypp01(a)gmail.com Mr. Priyadharshan +918220333449 prabhupriyadharshan(a)gmail.com Mr. Tanishq +919940515800 forutanishq(a)gmail.com Mr. Yagna +919912752744 yagnasai7(a)gmail.com Dr. Srimathy +914448535376 spacekidzindia(a)gmail.com [ANS thanks SpaceKidz India Team for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- 145.825 MHz APRS Cubesats Enroute to ISS for August Deployment The June 29, 2018 SpaceX Falcon 9 launch of the Dragon cargo capsule included cubesats of the BIRDS-2 satellite constellation. All cubesats in the BIRDS-2 constellation MAYA-1, BHUTAN-1 and UiTMSAT-1 have identical designs and utilize the same radio frequencies. While independently made, the operation and control of the three cubesats will be shared by the three teams after they are released from the ISS early in August. They will be operational for six months. "The three will form a constellation, orbiting the earth from different places. This will provide the countries more opportun- ities to make measurements and run experiments, than just with using one cubesat," explained Joel Joseph Marciano Jr., manager of the PHL-Microsat program in the Philippines. The primary mission of BIRDS-2 CubeSat constellation is to provide digital message relay service to the amateur radio community by means of an APRS digipeater onboard. The APRS digipeater onboard BIRDS-2 CubeSats will use 145.825 MHz for both receive and transmit which isa standard configurations used by other satellites such as ARISS and LAPAN-A2. Another mission of the BIRDS-2 CubeSat constellation is to demonstrate a store-and-forward (S&F) system. In this mission, their goal is to investigate technical challenges through ex- periments on appropriate data format, multiple access scheme, file-handling protocol while complying with limited operational time and power constraints. The BIRDS-2 CubeSat S&F system will collect data from remote ground sensors, store them onboard and download them to the different BIRDS-2 ground stations network. Additional experiments will use the BIRDS-2 CubeSat constellation to enhance research and experiment in the fields of single latch-up event detection, magnetic field measurements using a COTS aniso- tropic magnetometer, and flight testing of a COTS GPS chip which can be used for future CubeSat missions if proven effective. Stu- dents will also explore a passive attitude stabilization mechanism consisting of magnets and hysteresis dampers for proper orientation of camera on a CubeSat. All measurements and image data will be shared with the public on BIRDS-2 project website. Moveover, BIRDS-2 CubeSat constellation will expand amateur radio communication experiment on the operation of CubeSat constellation via a network of UHF/VHF amateur radio ground stations (started in the BIRDS-1 CubeSat constellation project). BIRDS-2 hopes to promote awareness of amateur radio communication and amateur satellites among the general public and students, especially in the participating nations of BIRDS-2 Project: Bhutan, Malaysia, Philippines, and Japan. The IARU has coordinated 437.375 MHz CW beacon for a downlink and 145.825 MHz for the APRS experiment. Philippine news coverage of MAYA-1 can be accessed at: https://tinyurl.com/ANS189-MAYA-1 http://tinyurl.com/ANS-BIRDS2-cubesats Visit the BIRDS-2 website at: http://birds2.birds-project.com/ [ANS thanks the BIRDS-2 Project, Kyushu Institute of Technology and the IARU for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- China Microsatellite Symposium and International CubeSat and Mission Contest The China Microsatellite Symposium(CMS2018), (www.microsatsymp.com) will be held at Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an China on 18th – 20th November 2018. The symposium includes keynote presentations and several sessions which will focus on the design experience, scientific missions, launch opportunities and all new technologies about microsatellites. International CubeSat and Mission Contest will be held on 20th November 2018, after which a free launch opportunity of 3U CubeSat or 1U payload capacity (provided by Expace Technology Co., Ltd.) will be awarded to the winner of the first prize. Participants can get information and submit the works through the official website of our contest: www.cubesatcontest.org. The submission deadlines for the abstract of CMS2018 and work of CubeSat contest are both August 31, 2018. The papers accepted will be indexed by China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and the proceedings of the symposium will be submitted to IEEE Xplore, some of the excellent papers will be recommended for publication in the AEROSPACE CHINA. You could submit abstract and get information on the website www.microsatsymp.com Along with the symposium, there will also be a related exhibition, during which you can find the updated progress of CubeSat, launchers and other related technology. For exhibitors, you could also get information about booth on the website. The event is supported by China National Space Administration, International Astronautical Federation, Chinese Society of Astronautics and Chinese Institute of Command and Control. Please forward this information to your colleagues and anyone that may be interested in this symposium. You could also find the brochures in the attachment. On behalf of the organizing committee of the China Microsatellite Symposium, we sincerely invite you to attend the symposium. If you have any questions, please contact us! Dr. Yu Xiaozhou, Mr.Pang Weijian Email: service (at) microsatsymp.com: pangwj (at) mail.nwpu.edu.cn Tel: +86 18291419293 National United Engineering Laboratory of Microsatellite Technology and Application,Northwestern Polytechnical University 127 Youyi Xilu, Xi'an, ShaanXi Province, China Phone:008629 88492103 Fax:008629 88492103 Mobile:008615902909698 [ANS thanks Yuxiao Zhou (via cubesat.org) for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- "Moon Day" Volunteers Requested Tom Schuessler, N5HYP, is looking to recruit additional volunteers from the AMSAT community in North Texas, Central Texas or elsewhere, to help promote "Amateur Radio in Space" to a large public STEM event. "Moon Day" at the Frontiers of Flight Museum at Love Field in Dallas Texas on July 21, 2018 is the largest space themed STEM event in Texas. Last year saw 1500 people attend the 6 hour event. https://www.flightmuseum.com/moon-day/ Again this year, Tom Schuessler will be heading an exhibit and satellite demos for AMSAT. They will have a table inside the Museum, (Alongside the Dallas Amateur Radio Club Table), and a demonstration area outside. I will be setting up the outside activities and hope to work as many satellite passes as possible during the 10A-4P run of the show. I'm looking for AMSAT people to both help with the inside table and also with the outside demonstrations. Joe Spier has promised me that he will send me the FOX "Engineering Model" but I am looking for additional demonstration aids to illustrate satellite orbits and other aspects of space communications like various types of antennas. Being a STEM event, there will be many young people in attendance, (General public as well as Boy and Girl Scouts), and they get a chance to earn a STEM patch by answering questions from exhibitors like US. We really need people and content for Moon Day so please consider spending Saturday, July 21 with us. Contact Tom Schuessler for more information. N5hyp (at) arrl.net Tom also notes that next year, 2019, is the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. The Moon Day event is planning a big splash. Looking at moon phase predictions for next year indicates that conditions would be favorable for a portable EME station as part of the mix. We will be looking for volunteers to assist this lofty goal. Keep that in the back of your mind and I will bring it up next year. [ANS thanks Tom N5HYP for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- University of Manitoba Wins the 4th CSDC! Congratulations to the University of Manitoba team, which earned First Place in this fourth offering of the Canadian Satellite Design Challenge! The CSDC launch simulation testing took place at the Canadian Space Agency's David Florida Laboratory (DFL) in Ottawa this past week, concluding yesterday. In all, a total of nine teams had the opportunity to fully test all three axes of their cubesats - two more than previously achieved. As the competition drew to a close, the judges (and several of the DFL employees) were impressed by the level of design maturity and understanding, preparedness, and professionalism of the UofM team throughout the test campaign. This is the first CSDC win for the UofM, which has been a strong and enthusiastic participant in every CSDC since its inception. Not everything went perfectly, however: an accelerometer - a sensor which is attached to record the accelerations at a particular location - fell off during the vibration test, and may have shorted or damaged a circuit board that was underneath it. The judges' deliberations for second and third place were far more difficult, with five teams being considered. This is a testament to the high level of spacecraft engineering capability which has developed at Canadian universities over the course of these past four competitions - especially considering that, in the first CSDC, only three teams were able to complete their cubesats in time for testing. Second place honours were given to the University of Victoria, and Concordia University was third. The Educational Outreach Award was also presented, to the University of Alberta. Their team developed several modules of age-specific educational materials for the presentations which they gave to elementary and secondary schools. Honourable mentions went to: Simon Fraser University (participating for their first time in the CSDC) for their efforts which reached an estimated 3,500 people over the course of this offering; and, the University of Manitoba, whose educational outreach efforts have been admirable since the inception of the CSDC (and whose Educational Outreach efforts in the first CSDC prompted the creation of the award). The CSDC Management Society (CSCDMS), the not-for-profit organisation which organises the CSDC, would like to again thank the Canadian Space Agency's David Florida Laboratory for allowing us the use of the facility, and for being so accommodating to us over this past week. Additionally, as this concludes the fourth offering of the competition, the CSDCMS would also like to thank the many sponsors, judges, and companies which have all contributed to make the CSDC a success. Please see this article on our web page for more photos of the testing campaign. And, stay tuned for Selfie-Sat in CSDC-5, which will begin in September. About the CSDCMS: The Canadian Satellite Design Challenge Management Society is a federally-incorporated not-for-profit organisation co-registered in British Columbia and headquartered in Vancouver. It is managed and operated by a volunteer Board of Directors. For more information on the Canadian Satellite Design Challenge or the CSDCMS, please visit our website at www.csdcms.ca, or contact: Larry Reeves CSDCMS President LReeves (at) CSDCMS.ca Ph: +1 778-988-6343 [ANS thanks the CSDCMS for the above information] -------------------------------------------------------------------- AMSAT Field Day submissions are due Monday, July 9 A quick reminder. AMSAT Field Day submissions are due Monday, July 9, 2018 by 11:59 PM Central Time. This is earlier than the ARRL due date. You will get a reply email that your submission was received. email submissions to: kk5do (at) amsat.org or kk5do (at) arrl.net. The Satellite Summary Sheet should be used for submission of the AMSAT Field Day competition and be received by KK5DO by 11:59 P.M. CDT, Monday, July 9, 2018. Complete rules and criteria can be found at: https://www.amsat.org/field-day/ [ANS thanks Bruce KK5DO for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- ISS SSTV Transmissions Continue SSTV transmissions from the Russian Service module on the International Space Station started June 29 on 145.800 MHz FM and they are still continuing There may well be further transmissions up until July 13 when the equipment being used for the SSTV will be required for a school contact. David Boult G7HCE in Exeter noted that some adjustments have been made by the cosmonauts and the images are now being sent uncropped. For the first week the edges of the pictures were missing. The images commemorate the various satellites that were hand- deployed from the ISS. These will include the first satellite deployment from ISS: Suitsat-1/Radioskaf-1 which was developed by ARISS and deployed in February 2006. The transmissions are being made on 145.800 MHz FM using the PD-120 SSTV mode. Note the ISS transmissions use the 5 kHz deviation FM standard rather than the narrow 2.5 kHz used in Europe. If your transceiver has selectable FM filters try using the wider filter. Handheld transceivers generally have a single wide filter fitted as standard and you should get good results outdoors using just a 1/4 wave whip antenna. The ISS Fan Club site will show you when the space station is in range http://www.issfanclub.com/ ISS SSTV information and links at https://amsat-uk.org/beginners/iss-sstv/ [ANS thanks Southgate ARN for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- ARISS News Recent Successful ARISS Contacts + 2018-06-27 10:32 UTC between Alexander Gerst KF5ONO using callsign DPØISS and Werner-Heisenberg-Gymnasium, Leverkusen, Germany. Contact was direct via DLØIL. ARISS Mentor was Peter IN3GHZ. + 2018-06-27 10:32 UTC between ASTRONAUT Alexander Gerst KF5ONO, using callsign DPØISS, and Schickhardt-Gymnasium, Herrenberg, Germany, contact was direct via DLØSGH ARISS Mentor was Peter IN3GHZ. + 2018-07-02 15:35 UTC between Serena Aunon-Chancellor KG5TMT, using ISS callsign NA1SS and Pearl Technology STEM Academy, Peoria Heights, IL, contact direct via W9DWJ. ARISS Mentor was Dave AA4KN. + 2018-07-03 08:32 UTC bewtween Alexander Gerst KF5ONO, using ISS callsign DPØISS and Kardinal-Frings-Gymnasium, Bonn, Germany, contact was direct via DLØIL. ARISS Mentor was Peter IN3GHZ. Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule Space Port Area Conference for Educators (SPACE), Kennedy Space Center, FL (CASIS#4). Contact is telebridge via W6SRJ. The ISS callsign is yet to be determined. The scheduled astronaut is Ricky Arnold KE5DAU. Contact is a go for: Fri 2018-07-13 14:00:22 UTC. [ANS thanks ARISS, Charlie AJ9N and David AA4KN for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Satellite Shorts From All Over + 6U CubeSat Design Specification Rev 1.0 - Released The 6U CubeSat Design Standard has now been fully reviewed and is available for download as Revision 1.0. Please visit cubesat.org to view and download the 6U CDS. [ANS thanks The CubeSat Team at Cal Poly, SLO for the above information] + Interview about ISS SSTV on local TV station James M0JFP of the Chertsey Radio Club was interviewed by That's Surrey TV, about the recent Slow Scan TV transmissions from the International Space Station The images transmitted commemorated the various satellites that had been hand-deployed from the ISS. Watch the video at https://tinyurl.com/ANS189-SurreyTV ISS SSTV https://amsat-uk.org/2018/06/27/receive-sstv-from-space/ That's TV Surrey http://www.thats.tv/surrey/ https://twitter.com/ThatsSurreyTV [ANS thanks Southgate ARN for the above information] + Software for STEM high altitude balloon flight projects is posted in the article at: https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/pytrack-skygate-hab-software/ [ANS thanks AMSAT-UK via twitter for the above information.] + CalPoly 2018 Cubesat Developers Workshop Presentations Available 2018 PRESENTATIONS ARE NOW AVAILABLE TO VIEW! YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCENz0fNHsDR8Kz3jM6C_VWw PDF Presentations: http://mstl.atl.calpoly.edu/~workshop/archive/2018/ [ANS thanks cubesat.org 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 addi- tional benefits. Application forms are available from the AMSAT Office. Primary and secondary school students are eligible for membership at one-half the standard yearly rate. Post-secondary school students enrolled in at least half time status shall be eligible for the stu- dent rate for a maximum of 6 post-secondary years in this status. Contact Martha at the AMSAT Office for additional student membership information. 73, This week's ANS Editor, EMike McCardel, AA8EM aa8em at amsat dot org

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ANS-185 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins
by Chris Bradley (AA0CB) 02 Jul '18

02 Jul '18

AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-182 The AMSAT News Service bulletins are a free, weekly news and infor- mation service of AMSAT North America, The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation. ANS publishes news related to Amateur Radio in Space including 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. The news feed on http://www.amsat.org publishes news of Amateur Radio in Space as soon as our volunteers can post it. Please send any amateur satellite news or reports to: ans-editor at amsat.org. In this edition: * Digital Communications Conference (DCC) Call for Papers * Invitation to the 2018 NASA AAQ Workshop - September 7, 2018 * China Microsatellite Symposium 2018 * K4R Dry Tortugas EL84 Roving Trip on Schedule for July 6 * Upcoming ARISS contacts * AMSAT Rover Award Updates * VUCC Awards-Endorsements for June 2018 * WMPLOTA 7/2 EN74 EN75 EN84 EN85 Rove * AMSAT-NA President to attend AMSAT-UK Colloquium 2018 * AMSAT BOD Nominees * Satellite Shorts SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-182.01 ANS-182 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins AMSAT News Service Bulletin 182.01 From AMSAT HQ KENSINGTON, MD. DATE JULY 1, 2018 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-185.01 Digital Communications Conference (DCC) Call for Papers Technical papers are solicited for presentation at the ARRL and TAPR Digital Communications Conference (DCC) and publication in the Conference Proceedings. Annual conference proceedings are published by the ARRL. Presentation at the conference is not required for publication. Submission of papers are due by July 31st, 2018 and should be submitted to Maty Weinberg, ARRL 225 Main Street Newington, CT 06111 or via the Internet to maty at arrl.org The ARRL and TAPR DCC is an international forum for radio amateurs to meet, publish their work, and present new ideas and techniques. This year, the DCC is in Albuquerque, New Mexico, September 14- 16. Presenters and attendees will have the opportunity to exchange ideas and learn about recent hardware and software advances, theories, experimental results, and practical applications. Topics include, but are not limited to: • Software Defined Radio (SDR) • Digital voice (D-Star, P25, WinDRM, FDMDV, DRMDV, G4GUO) • Digital satellite communications • Global position system • Precise Timing • Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS) • Short messaging (a mode of APRS) • Digital Signal Processing (DSP) • HF digital modes • Internet interoperability with Amateur Radio networks • Spread spectrum • IEEE 802.11 and other Part 15 license-exempt systems adaptable for A mateur Radio • Using TCP/IP networking over Amateur Radio • Mesh and peer to peer wireless networking • Emergency and Homeland Defense backup digital communications in Amateur Radio • Updates on AX.25 and other wireless networking protocols • Topics that advanced the Amateur Radio art Go to https://tinyurl.com/y7wgm6vh to view the guidelines for paper submissions [ANS thanks the TAPR PSR for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Invitation to the 2018 NASA AAQ Workshop - September 7, 2018 You are invited to participate in the 2018 NASA Academy of Aerospace Quality {AAQ) Workshop. This event will take place at Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio on Friday, September 7 from 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM. The event targets academics (faculty, researchers, students) involved with space related activities such as cube sat, small sat, high altitude balloon, rocket and more. It is also designed for those wishing to be involved with NASA space related projects. The event will feature speakers and a poster session. Travel stipends from NASA are available to attendees on a limited basis and will favor those giving a presentation or poster. There is no registration charge for attending the event but registration in advance is required. Please register at the link below by July 31. http://spider2.eng.auburn.edu/AAQ/registration.html The NASA Academy of Aerospace Quality is an open access virtual academy of educational modules, lessons learned, standards, case studies and more related to quality assurance for space related projects, especially those from academic based teams. The website is: http://aaq.auburn.edu Links to the agenda and materials from previous NASA AAQ Workshops can be found at the link below: http://aaq.eng.auburn.edu/events [ANS thanks Alice Smith and Jeff Smith for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- China Microsatellite Symposium 2018 The China Microsatellite Symposium(CMS2018), (www.microsatsymp.com) will be held at Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an China on 18th - 20th November 2018. The symposium includes keynote presentations and several sessions which will focus on the design experience, scientific missions, launch opportunities and all new technologies about microsatellites. In addition, another import session, International CubeSat and Mission Contest will be held on 20th November 2018, after which a free launch opportunity of 3U CubeSat or 1U payload capacity will be awarded to the winner of the first prize. Participants can get information and submit the works through the official website of our contest: www.cubesatcontest.org. The submission deadlines for the abstract of CMS2018 and work of CubeSat contest are both August 31, 2018. You could submit abstract and get information on the website www.microsatsymp.com Along with the symposium, there will also be a related exhibition, during which you can find the updated progress of CubeSat, launchers and other related technology. For exhibitors, you could also get information about booth on the website. The event is supported by China National Space Administration, International Astronautical Federation, Chinese Society of Astronautics and Chinese Institute of Command and Control. If you have any questions, please contact service at microsatsymp.com. [ANS thanks Ray Nugent for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- K4R Dry Tortugas EL84 Roving Trip on Schedule for July 6 Robert KE4AL, Rich N4ESS, and Matthew, NJ4Y will be arriving on Garden Key, EL84np in the Dry Tortugas mid-day on Friday July 6, staying all day Saturday, and then leaving Sunday morning July 8. The team will be using the callsign K4R, and all logs will be uploaded to LOTW after the trip. Paper cards will be available on request via NJ4Y. They will also be able to tweet via a satellite messenger from the island, to our public twitter account at twitter.com/k4r_EL84 The K4R QRZ page is up to date with our info, as well as k4r2018.com. Their goal is to work anyone within ~7500km who needs EL84 on satel- lites. Check out the pass listing link at the above web pages and let them know if you have a special schedule request from the outer reaches of our range, especially in EU and South America. [ANS thanks Matthew, NJ4Y for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- UPCOMING ARISS CONTACTS Pearl Technology STEM Academy, Peoria Heights, IL, direct via W9DWJ The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be NA1SS The scheduled astronaut is Serena Aunon-Chancellor KG5TMT Contact is a go for: Mon 2018-07-02 15:35:42 UTC Kardinal-Frings-Gymnasium, Bonn, Germany, direct via DLØIL The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be DPØISS The scheduled astronaut is Alexander Gerst KF5ONO Contact is a go for: Tue 2018-07-03 08:32:16 UTC ARISS is always glad to receive listener reports for the above contacts. ARISS thanks everyone in advance for their assistance. Feel free to send your reports to aj9n(a)amsat.org or aj9n(a)aol.com. Listen for the ISS on the downlink of 145.8Ø MHz. All ARISS contacts are made via the Kenwood radio unless otherwise noted. Several of you have sent me emails asking about the RAC ARISS website and not being able to get in. That has now been changed to http://www.ariss.org/ Note that there are links to other ARISS websites from this site. Looking for something new to do? How about receiving DATV from the ISS? If interested, then please go to the ARISS-EU website for complete details. Look for the buttons indicating Ham Video. http://www.ariss-eu.org/ If you need some assistance, ARISS mentor Kerry N6IZW, might be able to provide some insight. Contact Kerry at kbanke(a)sbcglobal.net ARISS congratulations the following mentors who have now mentored over 100 schools: Francesco IKØWGF with 132 Satoshi 7M3TJZ with 129 Gaston ON4WF with 123 Sergey RV3DR with 103 The webpages listed below were all reviewed for accuracy. Out of date webpages were removed and new ones have been added. If there are additional ARISS websites I need to know about, please let me know. Note, all times are approximate. It is recommended that you do your own orbital prediction or start listening about 10 minutes before the listed time. All dates and times listed follow International Standard ISO 8601 date and time format YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS The complete schedule page has been updated as of 2018-06-28 19:30 UTC. Here you will find a listing of all scheduled school contacts, and questions, other ISS related websites, IRLP and Echolink websites, and instructions for any contact that may be streamed live. http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/arissnews.rtf http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/arissnews.txt Total number of ARISS ISS to earth school events is 1234. Each school counts as 1 event. Total number of ARISS ISS to earth school contacts is 11821. Each contact may have multiple schools sharing the same time slot. Total number of ARISS supported terrestrial contacts is 47. A complete year by year breakdown of the contacts may be found in the file. http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/arissnews.rtf Please feel free to contact me if more detailed statistics are needed. The following US states and entities have never had an ARISS contact: Delaware, South Dakota, Wyoming, American Samoa, Guam, Northern Marianas Islands, and the Virgin Islands. QSL information may be found at: http://www.ariss.org/qsl-cards.html ISS callsigns: DPØISS, IRØISS, NA1SS, OR4ISS, RSØISS The successful school list has been updated as of 2018-06-28 19:30 UTC. http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/Successful_ARISS_schools.rtf Frequency chart for packet, voice, and crossband repeater modes showing Doppler correction as of 2005-07-29 04:00 UTC http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/ISS_frequencies_and_Doppler_cor rection .rtf Listing of ARISS related magazine articles as of 2006-07-10 03:30 UTC. http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/ARISS_magazine_articles.rtf Check out the Zoho reports of the ARISS contacts https://reports.zoho.com/ZDBDataSheetView.cc?DBID=412218000000020415 Exp. 55 on orbit Drew Feustel Oleg Artemyev Ricky Arnold KE5DAU Exp. 56 on orbit Serena Aunon-Chancellor KG5TMT Alexander Gerst KF5ONO Sergei Propopev [ANS thanks Charlie Sufana, AJ9N for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- AMSAT Rover Award Updates AMSAT Director of Contests and Awards, Bruce Paige, KK5DO, says that congratulations are in order for the newest Rover Award operators, Chris, AA8CH, for earning award #024; and, Robert, WY7AA for earning Award #025. The AMSAT Rover award is granted to stations who achieve a combined 25 points using any combination of a list of achievements during their roving operations via amateur radio satellites. All of these combinations, including instructions of how to apply are posted at: https://www.amsat.org/amsat-rover-award/ - or from the main page - www.amsat.org --> Services --> Awards --> AMSAT Rover Award Examples of the point scoring include (access the Awards web page for details of multiplier points, etc.): + 1 point for each grid square activated outside your home grid square using a single-channel FM satellite transponder + 2 points for each grid square activated outside your home grid square using a linear (SSB/CW) satellite transponder. + 3 points for each grid square activated outside your home grid square using a digital mode satellite transponder. + 1 additional point for added to each grid square score for activating a state, province, or DX entity outside your home entities + 5 points for for advertising your grid operation using an open and public social media account, tagging @amsat or #amsat at least 24 hours in advance of the activation. + 5 points for photographing your grid operation and posting them afterwards using an open and public social media account, tagging @amsat or #amsat. + 10 points for activating a grid square while operating Maritime Mobile. + 15 points for 15 points for documenting your grid activation in an article published in the AMSAT Journal. AMSAT Rover Award winners to date include the following stations: Rover Call Date Issued ===== ============ =========== 001 AC0RA 02 Jan 2018 002 WD9EWK 05 Jan 2018 003 NJ4Y 08 Jan 2018 004 M0IDA 09 Jan 2018 005 KG5GJT 12 Jan 2018 006 EB1AO 18 Jan 2018 007 N7AGF 22 Jan 2018 008 N4YHC 29 Jan 2018 009 W0S 07 Feb 2018 010 KE0PBR 08 Feb 2018 011 K5IX 18 Feb 2018 012 AK4WQ 23 Feb 2018 013 WI7P 25 Feb 2018 014 K5ND 09 Mar 2018 015 N6UA 12 Mar 2018 016 N9IP 16 Mar 2018 017 N4UFO 04 Apr 2018 018 K7TAB 27 Apr 2018 019 K8BL 10 May 2018 020 AD0DX 16 May 2018 021 HB9WDF 28 May 2018 022 KE4AL 28 May 2018 023 KE9AJ 30 May 2018 024 AA8CH 27 Jun 2018 025 WY7AA 29 Jun 2018 [ANS thanks AMSAT Director of Contests and Awards, Bruce Paige, KK5DO for the above information] -------------------------------------------------------------------- WMPLOTA 7/2 EN74 EN75 EN84 EN85 Rove 7/2/18 Objects AOS (U) LOS Period 1. EN74 WM1432 Cadillac XW-2D 00:01 00:09 XW-2F 00:05 00:13 SO-50 00:12 00:25 2. EN74 WM2014 Houghton Lake SO-50 01:54 02:03 (*Low Pass Attempt) AO-92 02:03 02:13 AO-73 02:32 02:38 (*Low Pass Attempt) Falconsat-3 02:43 02:53 FO-29 02:45 02:55 (*Low Pass Attempt) AO-85 02:59 03:06 (*Low Pass Attempt) AO-92 03:37 03:46 3. EN74 WM5159 West Branch XW-2B 11:57 12:07 AO-07 12:06 12:22 4. EN84 WM5376 Tawas XW-2B 13:33 13:39 (*Low Pass Attempt) AO-07 14:01 14:04 (*Low Pass Attempt) XW-2A 14:13 14:22 AO-73 14:15 14:26 SO-50 14:27 14:38 AO-92 15:05 15:14 5. EN85 WM2358 Alpena AO-92 16:39 16:47 AO-91 17:16 17:30 6. EN75 WM1542 Gaylord AO-91 18:52 19:06 AO-07 19:19 19:39 7. EN75 WM2417 Petosky XW-2C 21:49 21:58 XW-2D 22:12 22:22 XW-2F 22:15 22:25 AO-85 22:15 22:28 8. EN75 WM2100 Cheboygan XW-2C 23:22 23:32 AO-73 23:35 23:45 XW-2D 23:47 23:56 XW-2F 23:50 23:59 AO-85 23:57 00:08 7/3/18 EN75 Holiday Style Maybe Wish me luck on my first real rove, all stops are in a new VUCC circle, please work me if there is room. Manual tuning on linear birds, please be patient. [ANS thanks Andrew, KE8FZT for the above information] -------------------------------------------------------------------- VUCC Awards-Endorsements for June 2018 Here are the endorsements and new VUCC Satellite Awards issued by the ARRL for the period June 1, 2018 through July 1, 2018. Congratulations to all those who made the list this month! CALL 01 Jun 01 Jul N8HM 1054 1068 AA5PK 1011 1042 N9IP 609 618 XE1AO 584 598 WD9EWK 441 450 AA9LC 299 416 AF5CC 314 338 VA3NNA 179 300 KC9ELU 220 229 W7JSD 189 215 G0ABI 200 206 KE8FZT 175 200 PT2AP 172 200 PS8ET 157 180 KE0PBR New 122 W3ARD New 119 N3ROY New 102 AD0DX New 101 W5PFG (DM95) New 100 W5PFG (EM12) New 100 If you find errors or omissions. please contact me off-list at <mycall>@<mycall>.com and I'll revise the announcement. This list was developed by comparing the ARRL .pdf listings for June 1, 2018 and July 1, 2018. It's a visual comparison so omissions are possible. Apologies if your call was not mentioned. Thanks to all those who are roving to grids that are rarely on the birds. They are doing most of the work! [ANS thanks Ron, W5RKN for the above information] -------------------------------------------------------------------- AMSAT-NA President to attend AMSAT-UK Colloquium 2018 AMSAT-UK is very happy to announce that the dates of the next AMSAT-UK Colloquium will be October 13-14, 2018. The AMSAT-UK Colloquium, incorporated into the RSGB Convention, will take place at the Kents Hill Park Conference Centre, Timbold Drive, Milton Keynes, MK7 6BZ. The AMSAT-UK Committee are pleased to announce that Joe Spier, K6WAO will be presenting a paper entitled '50 Years of AMSAT and Beyond' AMSAT-UK invites speakers, to cover topics about Amateur satellites, CubeSats, Nanosats, Space, High Altitude Balloons and associated activities, for this event. Those wishing to speak should contact Dave, G4DPZ, dave at g4dpz dot me dot uk AMSAT-UK Colloquium web page: https://amsat-uk.org/colloquium/ The schedule will be at http://rsgb.org/main/about-us/rsgb-convention/rsgb-convention- programme/ [ANS thanks AMSAT-UK for the above information] -------------------------------------------------------------------- FP/KV1J 3 - 17 July 2018 GN17 Includes Satellite Operation Eric, KV1J will be active on the Sats from the French island of Miquelon from 3 July through 17 July as FP/KV1J. This will be his 12th trip to the island. He mostly operate the low bands and 6 meters. When the WX is good, he will try to get outside and work the linear birds. Occasionally, he plans to also be on the FM birds using a pair of FT-817s and an Arrow antenna. Most of the time he will be grid GN17. If he is on the main island of St Pierre or if he can borrow a car a drive to Langlade, he will be GN16. The island has limited internet. His email is kv1j (at) arrl.net More information at: http://www.kv1j.com/fp/July18.html [ANS thanks Eric KV1J / FP/KV1J for the above information and wishes him success on his trip] -------------------------------------------------------------------- AMSAT BOD Nominees The 2018 candidates, in alphabetical order by last name are: Tom Clark, K3IO Mark Hammond, N8MH Scott Harvey, KA7FVV Bruce Paige, KK5DO Peter Portanova, W2JV This year AMSAT-NA will be electing three voting members of the Board of Directors. These will go to the three candidates receiving the highest number of votes. In addition, there will be two alternates chosen, based on the next highest number of votes received. Ballots will be mailed to the AMSAT-NA membership by July 15, 2018 and must be received at the AMSAT office by September 15, 2018 in order to be counted. Those sent outside North America will go by air mail. If you have not received your ballot package in a reasonable time for your location, please contact the AMSAT office. Completed ballots should be returned as promptly as possible, and those from outside North America preferably by air mail. Election of Board members is both an obligation as well as an opportunity by our membership to help shape the future direction of AMSAT. Please take the time to review the candidate statements that will accompany the ballot and determine who you wish to see on the Board. You have the option to vote for up to three candidates. [ANS thanks Clayton, W5PFG for the above information and wishes him success on his trip] -------------------------------------------------------------------- Satellite Shorts + Stations in the USA mid-west and Canada will have the opportunity to hear the ISS on 145.800 MHz for a school contact with the Pearl Technology STEM Academy, Peoria Heights, IL. This will be a direct contact between NA1SS and W9DWJ. The scheduled astronaut is Serena Aunon-Chancellor KG5TMT. The contact is planned for: Mon 2018-07-02 at 15:35:42 UTC. (via ARISS) + AMSAT has discovered a pagination problem from printer error in the May/June issue of the AMSAT Journal. Please take a look at the issue you just received and, if you see any missing or duplicate pages, let Martha know ASAP at the AMSAT office at martha(a)amsat.org. + Congrats to Sean Kutzko, KX9X, on winning the June QST Cover Plaque for his article "Get on the Satellites for ARRL Field Day." The article has been reprinted on the AMSAT website with the ARRL's permission. Although Field Day is over for an another Year Sean's article gives good operating tips for every pass. Check it out! https://www.amsat.org/get-on-the-satellites-for-field-day/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- /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 addi- tional benefits. Application forms are available from the AMSAT Office. Primary and secondary school students are eligible for membership at one-half the standard yearly rate. Post-secondary school students enrolled in at least half time status shall be eligible for the stu- dent rate for a maximum of 6 post-secondary years in this status. Contact Martha at the AMSAT Office for additional student membership information. 73, This week's ANS Editor, Chris Bradley, AA0CB aa0cb at amsat dot org

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ANS-175 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins
by E.Mike McCardel 23 Jun '18

23 Jun '18

AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-175 The AMSAT News Service bulletins are a free, weekly news and infor- mation service of AMSAT North America, The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation. ANS publishes news related to Amateur Radio in Space including 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. The news feed on http://www.amsat.org publishes news of Amateur Radio in Space as soon as our volunteers can post it. Please send any amateur satellite news or reports to: ans-editor at amsat.org. In this edition: * AMSAT-NA President to attend AMSAT-UK Colloquium 2018 * AMSAT-UK Colloquium 2018 Second call for Speakers * AMSAT-UK Colloquium 2018 Speakers (to date) * K4R EL84 Grid Expedition - July 6-8 * South Africa Symposium Papers Posted * Call for Field Day Stories, Pictures * Call for Volunteers, ANS Seeks Rotating Editors * ARISS News * Satellite Shorts From All Over SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-175.01 ANS-175 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins AMSAT News Service Bulletin 175.01 >From AMSAT HQ KENSINGTON, MD. June 24, 2018 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-175.01 AMSAT-NA President to attend AMSAT-UK Colloquium 2018 AMSAT-UK is very happy to announce that the dates of the next AMSAT-UK Colloquium will be October 13-14, 2018. The AMSAT-UK Colloquium, incorporated into the RSGB Convention, will take place at the Kents Hill Park Conference Centre, Timbold Drive, Milton Keynes, MK7 6BZ. The AMSAT-UK Committee are pleased to announce that Joe Spier, K6WAO will be presenting a paper entitled '50 Years of AMSAT and Beyond' AMSAT-UK invites speakers, to cover topics about Amateur satellites, CubeSats, Nanosats, Space, High Altitude Balloons and associated activities, for this event. Those wishing to speak should contact Dave, G4DPZ, dave at g4dpz dot me dot uk AMSAT-UK Colloquium web page: https://amsat-uk.org/colloquium/ [ANS thanks AMSAT-UK for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- AMSAT-UK Colloquium 2018 Second call for Speakers This is the second call for speakers for the AMSAT-UK International Space Colloquium 2018 which will be held on Saturday and Sunday, October 13-14 at the Kents Hill Park Conference Centre, Timbold Drive, Milton Keynes, MK7 6BZ, United Kingdom. AMSAT-UK invites speakers, to cover topics about Amateur satellites, CubeSats, Nanosats, Space, High Altitude Balloons and associated activities, for this event. Those wishing to speak should contact Dave, G4DPZ: dave at g4dpz dot me dot uk Further information https://amsat-uk.org/colloquium [ANS thanks Dave G4DPZ for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- AMSAT-UK Colloquium 2018 Speakers (to date) On behalf of the AMSAT-UK Committee I am pleased to announce the list of speakers who have volunteered to present papers at the event (https://amsat-uk.org/colloquium/ <https://amsat-uk.org/colloquium/>) Dr, Chris Bridges, M0IEB (and students), Surrey Space Centre: "ESA ESEO Payloads" Matthew Cosby, Chief Scientist, Goonhilly Earth Station Ltd: "Goonhilly : Developing a global deep space communications network" The FUNcube Team: "JY1Sat , FUNcube Next" Peter Guelzow, DB2OS, AMSAT-DL: "Es'hail-2 and it's amateur radio payload" David Johnson, G4DPZ & Carlos Eavis, G3VHF: "An introduction to Amateur Satellites" Naomi Kurahara, Chief Exec, Infostellar JP: "Distributed Grounstations (StellarStation)" Ciaran Morgan, M0XTD, ARISS-UK (and school pupil): ARISS / STEM Outreach Prof. David Southwood, Imperial College London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_College_London: "Cassini- Huygens: Odyssey to Saturn and Titan" Joe Spier, K6WAO, President, AMSAT-NA: "50 Years of AMSAT and Beyond" Iain Young, G7III: "Automated reception of FUNcube and Fox Telemetry" Details of when they will be presenting during the event will be published in the near future. (We still have 3 slots available if you want to volunteer a presentation. See above announcement) In addition to the presentations, the ARISS-UK team will be assembling a demonstration ground station with the same configuration as that used in schools contacts. [ANS thanks Dave, G4DPZ for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- K4R EL84 Grid Expedition - July 6-8 Between July 6-8, 2018, NJ4Y, N4ESS, and KE4AL will venture to Fort Jefferson on Garden Key, in the Dry Tortugas island chain. Their main purpose for the trip is to activate EL84, one of the maidenhead grids with the least land area of any in the CONUS, on satellites and 6m. The team wrote, "We are scheduled to arrive around 11am (1500z) on July 6th, and stay through 3pm (1900z) on the 8th. "Two complete satellite stations are planned, with capabilities on all current amateur satellites. Emphasis will be especially on the larger footprints of AO-7 and FO-29, but we will work as many passes as possible during our time on the island. With two experienced satellite operators who have activating nearly 80 combined grids on satellites in 15 different states, we think we've got a pretty good chance of success in getting EL84 in the logs of anyone who needs it! This includes Europe and South America - if you are in the outer reaches of the footprint between EL84np and your location, let them know ahead of the trip so they can plan some possible low elevation pass skeds! "The 6m station will consist of a 2 element 6m beam at ~20 feet, an FT-857 100w transmitter, and capabilities on SSB, CW, and digi modes, emphasizing the JT suite - FT8, JT65, and possibly some MSK144 if conditions allow. We will be there in peak E skip season, so keep your fingers crossed for some great band openings! "We will also operate on HF as time, band conditions, and battery power allow. This is secondary to the 6m and satellite ops, with no hard planned schedule, so keep your eye on the dx cluster for K4R if you need EL84 for the ARRL international grid chase. As on 6m, we will have capabilities on CW, SSB, and digi. "We will be communicating largely via twitter.com/K4R_EL84 while on the island, using a Garmin InReach messenger to post informa- tion about frequencies, modes, and pass schedules. This is an open, public twitter page, so you can view it even if you don't have a twitter account. If you do have an account, be sure and follow us before the trip so you can stay up to date! We are also working out details on a pilot station who can relay sked requests and information to us via the satellite messenger - stay tuned here for more details on that as the trip approaches. "All logs will be uploaded to LOTW as soon as possible after the trip. Cards will also be available upon request." Visit the team's web page http://k4r2018.com/ for their latest information. [ANS thanks the K4R Dry Tortugas Expedition for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- South Africa Symposium Papers Posted Papers from the South Africa AMSAT Symposium have been posted at: http://www.amsatsa.org.za/Space%20Symp2018.htm Find more news about AMSAT South Africa news on their homepage at: http://www.amsatsa.org.za/ [ANS thanks AMSAT SA for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Call for Field Day Stories, Pictures The AMSAT Journal is looking to publish interesting, unusual or humorous stories about the upcoming AMSAT Field Day event. Please send your experience with photos, if applicable, to journal at amsat dot org. [ANS thanks Joe KB6IGK for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Call for Volunteers, ANS Seeks Rotating Editors The AMSAT News Service (ANS) is seeking volunteers to serve as rotating editors for its weekly newsletter. Editors work on a rotating schedule, each taking a different turn editing a specific week's newsletter as scheduled by the ANS Editor in Chief. Editors support each other by seeking and reporting to the Editor of the week, information and resources of interest to the AMSAT community. The number of newsletters assigned will be dependent upon the number of available editors at any given time. The average editor can expect to spend, on average, 4-5 hours for each newsletter, dependent on available material. Prospective editors are required to be AMSAT members in good standing and have a genuine interest in satellite operation and an understanding of AMSAT's mission. Former editing experience is a plus but not required. If interested, please submit an inquiry, including your contact information to ans-editor(a)amsat.com. [ANS thanks the ANS editors for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- ARISS News Recent Successful ARISS Contacts + 2018-06-19 14:20 UTC between Ricky Arnold KE5DAU (Exp 55), using ISS callsign OR4ISS, and Tehnicka škola Zajecar, Zajecar, Serbia. Contact was direct via YU1ACR. ARISS Mentor was Marko 9A8MM. Quick list of scheduled contacts and events: Werner-Heisenberg-Gymnasium, Leverkusen, Germany, direct via DLØIL and Schickhardt-Gymnasium, Herrenberg, Germany, direct via DLØSGH The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be DPØISS The scheduled astronaut is Alexander Gerst KF5ONO Contact is a go for: Wed 2018-06-27 10:32:19 UTC [ANS thanks ARISS, Charlie AJ9N and David AA4KN for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Satellite Shorts From All Over + EN84 activation Monday June 25 Look for ops AA8CH and WW8W to be active from EN84 on Monday June 25th. Tentative plans include XWs in the 1300 hour, and the morning (our time) AO92s and the CAS4 passes. We might try AO07 and FO29 as well. Transmission on linears will be fixed frequency and tuning for callers. Bring your SAT gear to work with you if you need this grid. Email to AA8CH: aa8ch at aol dot com with any questions. QSOs uploaded to LOTW as always. [ANS thanks Chris AA8CH for the above information] + The next SSTV image downlinks are planned for June 29-July 1. These images will commemorate the various satellites that the ARISS team has developed and hand-deployed from the ISS. These will include the first satellite deployment from ISS: SuitSat-1/Radioskaf-1 which was deployed in February 2006. More details on this will be forthcoming as the date draws near. [ANS thanks Sergey Samburov, RV3DR for the above information] + The ANS Editors would like to thank and congratulate Lee McLamb KT4TZ for editing his 200th AMSAT News Service Bulletin when he published ANS 119 on April 19, 2018. He has subsequently published two more since then. [ANS thanks EMike AA8EM 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 addi- tional benefits. Application forms are available from the AMSAT Office. Primary and secondary school students are eligible for membership at one-half the standard yearly rate. Post-secondary school students enrolled in at least half time status shall be eligible for the stu- dent rate for a maximum of 6 post-secondary years in this status. Contact Martha at the AMSAT Office for additional student membership information. 73, This week's ANS Editor, EMike McCardel, AA8EM aa8em at amsat dot org

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ANS-168 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins
by Lee McLamb 17 Jun '18

17 Jun '18

AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-168 The AMSAT News Service bulletins are a free, weekly news and infor- mation service of AMSAT North America, The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation. ANS publishes news related to Amateur Radio in Space including 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. The news feed on http://www.amsat.org publishes news of Amateur Radio in Space as soon as our volunteers can post it. Please send any amateur satellite news or reports to: ans-editor at amsat.org. In this edition: * AMSAT Field Day on the Satellites * CAMSAT Details on Three Satellites and an HF Transponder * 3A Monaco Activation on FM Satellites in July * ARISS Ham Video Transmitter Aboard ISS Defective * Call for Volunteers, ANS Seeks Rotating Editors SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-168.01 ANS-168 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins AMSAT News Service Bulletin 168.01 From AMSAT HQ KENSINGTON, MD. DATE June 17, 2018 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-168.01 AMSAT Field Day on the Satellites It’s that time of year again; summer and Field Day! Each year the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) sponsors Field Day as a “picnic, a campout, practice for emergencies, an informal contest and, most of all, FUN!” The event takes place during a 23-hour period on the fourth weekend of June. For 2018 the event takes place during a 27-hour period from 1800 UTC on Saturday, June 23, 2018 through 2100 UTC on Sunday, June 24, 2018. Those who set up prior to 1800 UTC on June 23 can operate only 24 hours. The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT) promotes its own version of Field Day for operation via the amateur sat- ellites, held concurrently with the ARRL event. This year should be easier than many years since we have more than 10 transponders and repeaters available. Users should check the AMSAT status page at http://www.amsat.org/status/ and the pages at http://www.amsat.org/?page_id=177 for what is available in the weeks leading up to field day. To reduce the amount of time to research each satellite, see the current FM satellite table at http://www.amsat.org/?page_id=5012 and the current linear satellite table at http://www.amsat.org/?page_id=5033 If you are considering ONLY the FM voice satellites, there are SO-50, AO-85, AO-91, and AO-92. It might be easier this year to make that one FM contact for the ARRL bonus points with so many FM birds. The congestion on FM LEO satellites is always so intense that we must continue to limit their use to one-QSO-per-FM-satellite. This includes the International Space Station. You will be allowed one QSO if the ISS is operating Voice. AO-92 may be in L/v for the first part of the event, depending on command station availability. Keep an eye on @AMSAT on Twitter for expected L/v mode change times. The full set of rules are posted at: https://www.amsat.org/field-day/ [ANS thanks AMSAT Director Contests and Awards, Bruce Paige, KK5DO, for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- CAMSAT Details on Three Satellites and an HF Transponder CAMSAT, China’s Amateur Radio Satellite organization, has offered additional details about the three Amateur Radio satellites it plans to launch later this year. Two of the satellites, designated CAS-5A and CAS-6, will carry transponders, and one of them will offer HF capability. CAMSAT’s Alan Kung, BA1DU, told ARRL that the 6U CAS-5A will carry two HF transponders and two V/UHF trans- ponders. The plentiful equipment package includes an H/T (21/29 MHz) mode linear transponder, an H/U (21/435 MHz) mode linear transponder, an HF CW telemetry beacon, a V/U linear transponder, a V/U FM trans- ponder, a UHF CW telemetry beacon, and UHF AX.25 4.8k/9.6k baud GMSK telemetry. + The H/T mode linear transponder will have a 30 kHz wide uplink centered on 21.400 MHz, and a downlink centered on 29.490 MHz. RF output is 0.5 W. + An HF CW telemetry beacon will transmit on 29.465 MHz with 0.1 W. + The H/U mode linear transponder will have a 15 kHz wide uplink centered on 21.435 MHz, and a downlink centered on 435.505 MHz. The RF output is 0.5 W. + The V/U mode linear transponder will have a 30 kHz wide uplink at 145.820 MHz, and a downlink at 435.540 MHz. The RF output is 0.5 W. + The V/U mode FM transponder will uplink at 145.925 MHz, and downlink at 435.600 MHz. The transponder passband is 15 kHz, and the RF output is 0.5 W. + The UHF CW telemetry beacon will transmit on 435.570 MHz, with an RF output of 0.1 W. + UHF AX.25 4.8k/9.6k baud GMSK telemetry will transmit on 435.650 MHz at 0.5 W. Kung told ARRL that the HF, VHF, and UHF antennas are quarter-wave monopoles. A satellite within a satellite, the tiny CAS-5B, weighing 0.5 kilogram, will be deployed from CAS-5A in orbit. It will carry a UHF CW beacon on an Amateur Radio frequency. Both CAS-5A and CAS-5B will be placed into 539 × 533 kilometer, 97.5° orbits. They will launch from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in late September. The 50-kilogram CAS-6 microsat will include a VHF CW telemetry beacon, a U/V mode 20 kHz linear Amateur Radio transponder, and AX.25 4.8k baud GMSK telemetry. It will also carry an atmospheric wind detector and other systems that will operate on non-amateur frequencies. A launch at sea on an as-yet undetermined date is planned for CAS-6 from the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology. The microsat will be placed into a 579 × 579 kilometer, 45° orbit. [ANS thanks ARRL for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- 3A Monaco Activation on FM Satellites in July F4DXV plans FM satellite operation from 3A Monaco (JN33) on Monday 02 July ~08:30z to 13z only during a quick break from his trip to Italy. Jerome says, "Due to a bad horizon (mountains, buildings), I could be only QRV for EU on high FM orbits." [ANS thanks Daily DX for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- ARISS Ham Video Transmitter Aboard ISS Defective Gaston Bertels, ON4WF has provided an update regarding the condition of the ARISS HamTV system aboard the ISS. In mid-April, the Ham Video transmitter on board the Columbus module of the ISS stopped working. Extensive testing was performed by the crew on June 1, 2018 which comprised connecting the transmitter to the second ARISS L/S-band patch antenna on the nadir of Columbus. The test was negative. Ground stations did not receive any signal from Ham Video. Since on-board repair is impossible ARISS is planning to return the transmitter to Earth. Bertels wrote, "We hope this plan will be accepted by the space agencies and the cost of operations funded by sponsors. Schools and crew members performing educational ARISS school contacts are delighted to use Ham Video. We will do the best we can to restart this service as soon as possible. We will keep you informed on progress." Additional information about the HamTV project can be found on-line at: https://www.amsat-on.be/ [ANS thanks Gaston Bertels, ON4WF and ARISS HamTV for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Call for Volunteers, ANS Seeks Rotating Editors The AMSAT News Service (ANS) is seeking volunteers to serve as rotating editors for its weekly newsletter. Editors work on a rotating schedule, each taking a different turn editing a specific week's newsletter as scheduled by the ANS Editor in Chief. Editors support each other by seeking and reporting to the Editor of the week, information and resources of interest to the AMSAT community. The number of newsletters assigned will be dependent upon the number of available editors at any given time. The average editor can expect to spend, on average, 4-5 hours for each newsletter, dependent on available material. Prospective editors are required to be AMSAT members in good standing and have a genuine interest in satellite operation and an understanding of AMSAT's mission. Former editing experience is a plus but not required. If interested, please submit an inquiry, including your contact information to ans-editor(a)amsat.com. [ANS thanks the ANS editors 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 addi- tional benefits. Application forms are available from the AMSAT Office. Primary and secondary school students are eligible for membership at one-half the standard yearly rate. Post-secondary school students enrolled in at least half time status shall be eligible for the stu- dent rate for a maximum of 6 post-secondary years in this status. Contact Martha at the AMSAT Office for additional student membership information. 73, This week's ANS Editor, Lee McLamb, KT4TZ kt4tz at amsat dot org

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ANS-161 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins
by E.Mike McCardel 10 Jun '18

10 Jun '18

AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-161 The AMSAT News Service bulletins are a free, weekly news and infor- mation service of AMSAT North America, The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation. ANS publishes news related to Amateur Radio in Space including 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. The news feed on http://www.amsat.org publishes news of Amateur Radio in Space as soon as our volunteers can post it. Please send any amateur satellite news or reports to: ans-editor at amsat.org. ******************************************************************** * * * Deadline For AMSAT Board of Directors Nominations is June 15 * * See More Information Below * * * ******************************************************************** In this edition: * AMSAT-NA Facebook Group moves to New Group Page * Deadline For AMSAT Board of Directors Nominations is June 15 * New Items in AMSAT Store * First Amateur Radio Transmissions from Lunar Orbit and Subsequent Test Plan * US Schools/Groups Move Into Phase 2 of ARISS Selections * Call for Volunteers, ANS Seeks Rotating Editors * ARISS News * Satellite Shorts From All Over SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-161.01 ANS-161 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins AMSAT News Service Bulletin 161.01 >From AMSAT HQ KENSINGTON, MD. June 10, 2018 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-161.01 AMSAT Facebook Group Moves to New Facebook Group Page The AMSAT-NA group that has existed for over a decade, no longer serves as the official Facebook group of AMSAT. Please join us at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/752128438309103/ Shortly, the AMSAT logo and name will be removed from this group's pages in accordance with Facebook's Intellectual Property Policy. AMSAT officers and board members no longer hold any role on that particular group and Facebook's policy is, the creator of the group, owns that group's resources. For the most current information and discussion about AMSAT's activities, please join us on our new group. This new group has been placed under corporate ownership under legal advice and to insure the latest information and discussion from AMSAT. [ANS thanks AMSAT-NA for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Deadline For AMSAT Board of Directors Nominations is June 15 It's time to submit nominations for the upcoming AMSAT-NA Board of Directors election. Three directors' terms expire this year: Tom Clark, K3IO, Mark Hammond, N8MH, and Bruce Paige, KK5DO. In addition, up to two Alternates may be elected for one-year terms. A valid nomination requires either one Member Society or five current individual members in good standing to nominate an AMSAT-NA member for Director. Written nominations, consisting of the nominee's name and call, and the nominating individual's names, calls and individual signatures should be mailed to: AMSAT-NA, 10605 Concord St, #304 Kensington, MD 20895-2526. In addition to traditional submissions of written nominations, which is the preferred method, the intent to nominate someone may be made by electronic means. These include e-mail, fax, or electronic image of a petition. Electronic petitions should be sent to martha(a)amsat.org or faxed to (301)822-4371. No matter what means is used, petitions MUST arrive no later than June 15th at the AMSAT-NA office. If the nomination is a traditional written nomination, no other action is required. If it is other than this, i.e. electronic, a verifying traditional written petition MUST be received at the AMSAT-NA office at the above address within 7 days following the close of nominations on June 15th. ELECTRONIC SUBMISSIONS WITHOUT THIS SECOND, WRITTEN VERIFICATION ARE NOT VALID UNDER THE EXISTING AMSAT-NA BYLAWS. (Editor's Note: Nominating and electing your Board of Directors is your most important benefit of being an AMSAT member.) [ANS thanks AMSAT Office for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- New Items in AMSAT Store The AMSAT Store has three new items. New for 2018 is the AMSAT Hat. Now available in sizes Small (which fits small/medium sized heads) and Large (which fits large/xlarge size heads). We also have the new for 2018 T-Shirts in multiple sizes and the 2018 Golf Shirt in multiple sizes. Only small amount of each has been inventoried, as such the AMSAT office is still unpacking boxes. As soon as an accurate count for each size and item is acquired, an appropriate update to the site will be made. (Editor's Note: Also available is the 2018 "Getting Started" Guide) [ANS thanks Bruce KK5DO for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- First Amateur Radio Transmissions from Lunar Orbit and Subsequent Test Plan On 2 Jun and 3 Jun we had 2 successfully tests on the UHF downlink of DSLWP-B after lunar orbit insertion. BY2HIT and PI9CAM team successfully decoded 39 GMSK packets from the satellite. SP5ULN and M0IEB also detected signals from the satellite with much smaller antenna, but the decode was not fully successful. Two weeks ago, when the satellites were launched on 20 May, UHF signals from both satellites was received by PY2SDR, CD3NDC, PY4ZBZ and N6RFM. The subsequent tests are planned from 4 Jun 22:00 UTC to 5 Jun 00:00 UTC, and from 5 Jun 08:00 UTC to 5 Jun 10:00 UTC. The mode is 250 bps GMSK for both 435.4 MHz and 436.4 MHz. Tracking file updates can be found on: https://github.com/bg2bhc/dslwp_dev or http://lilacsat.hit.edu.cn/tle/program_tracking_dslwp-b.txt [ANS thanks Wei BG2BHC for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- US Schools/Groups Move Into Phase 2 of ARISS Selections June 08, 2018 - The ARISS-US Team (Amateur Radio on the International Space Station) is pleased to announce schools or organizations submitting proposals have been selected to advance to the next stage of planning to host amateur radio contacts from January to June 2019. The contacts will be with International Space Station (ISS) crew members using the ARISS equipment on the ISS. A review team of teachers from the ARISS-US Education Committee selected proposals after the recent proposal window closed. The groups will go forward to Phase 2, developing an amateur radio equipment plan to host a scheduled ARISS contact. ARISS's primary goal is to engage people in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) activities, and involve them in pursuits related to space exploration, amateur radio, communications, and associated areas of study and career options. Cord Davidson, KD5J, at Central Magnet Middle School in Batesville, AR, exclaimed after a recent ARISS contact, "ARISS shows how amateur radio is the most unique hobby there is, and from the educator's perspective, what a great way to encourage STEM topics!" ARISS anticipates that NASA will be able to provide scheduling opportunities for these US host organizations. The candidates must now complete an equipment plan that demonstrates their ability to execute the ham radio contact. Once their equipment plan is approved by the ARISS technical team, the final selected schools / organizations will be scheduled as their availability and flexibility match up with the scheduling opportunities. The schools and organizations are: Faith Christian Academy, Orlando, FL Hidden Oaks Middle School, Prior Lake, MN Huntington High School, Huntington, TX Moriah Central School, Port Henry, NY NIH-National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences Children's Inn, Bethesda, MD Park Co. Public Library with Boys & Girls Club of the High Rockies, Fairplay, CO Pembroke Junior Senior High School, Corfu, NY ABOUT ARISS Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) is a cooperative venture of the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT), the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the United States, and other international space agencies and international amateur radio organizations around the world. The primary goal of ARISS is to promote exploration of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) topics by organizing scheduled contacts via amateur radio between crew members aboard the ISS and students in classrooms or informal education venues. With the help of experienced amateur radio volunteers from radio clubs and coordination from the ARISS team, the ISS crew members speak directly with large group audiences in a variety of public forums such as school assemblies, science centers and museums, scout camporees, jamborees and space camps, where students, teachers, parents, and communities learn about space, space technologies and amateur radio. This is an excellent opportunity to become involeved while directly supporting the AMSAT mission on a regular basis. Find more information at www.ariss.org, and also www.amsat.organd www.arrl.org [ANS thanks ARISS and Dave for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Call for Volunteers, ANS Seeks Rotating Editors The AMSAT News Service (ANS) is seeking volunteers to serve as rotating editors for its weekly newsletter. Editors work on a rotating schedule, each taking a different turn editing a specific week's newsletter as scheduled by the ANS Editor in Chief. Editors support each other by seeking and reporting to the Editor of the week, information and resources of interest to the AMSAT community. The number of newsletters assigned will be dependent upon the number of available editors at any given time. The average editor can expect to spend, on average, 4-5 hours for each newsletter, dependent on available material. Prospective editors are required to be AMSAT members in good standing and have a genuine interest in satellite operation and an understanding of AMSAT's mission. Former editing experience is a plus but not required. If interested, please submit an inquiry, including your contact information to ans-editor(a)amsat.com. [ANS thanks the ANS editors for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- ARISS News Recent Successful Contacts: + 2018-05-15 08:22 UTC between Scott Tingle KG5NZA (Exp 54), using ISS callsign NA1SS, and University of the Philippines Integrated School, Quezon City, Philippines. Contact was telebridge via W6SRJ. ARISS Mentor was Satoshi 7M3TJZ. + 2018-05-22 08:53 UTC between Scott Tingle KG5NZA (Exp 54), using ISS callsign NA1SS and Viktor Rydberg Gymnasium, Stockholm, Sweden. Contact was telebridge via K6DUE. ARISS Mentor was Eskil SM5SRR. + 2018-05-23 11:06 UTC between Ricky Arnold KE5DAU (Exp 55), using ISS callsign NA1SS ands Janusz Kusocinski Primary School No. 71, Poznan, Poland. Contact was telebridge via W6SRJ Contact was live Streamed via https://ariss.pzk.org.pl/live/ ARISS Mentor was Armand SP3QFE. + 2018-05-31 16:58 UTC Ricky Arnold KE5DAU (Exp 55), using ISS callsign NA1SS and Sterrenschool De Globetrotter, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Contact was telebridge via VK4KHZ. ARISS Mentor was Bertus PE1KEH Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule There are no contacts scheduled for the coming week. The following astronauts are currently on board the ISS: Ricky Arnold KE5DAU Serena Aunon-Chancellor KG5TMT Alexander Gerst KF5ONO [ANS thanks ARISS, Charlie AJ9N and David AA4KN for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Satellite Shorts From All Over + May/June 2018 Apogee View Posted The May/June 2018 edition of Apogee View, an update on AMSAT's activities from AMSAT President Joe Spier, K6WAO, has been posted to the AMSAT website: https://www.amsat.org/apogeeview/ [ANS thanks N8HM for the above information] + Astronaut Drew Morgan who will be joining Luca Parmitano, KF5KDP and Alexander Skvortsov on the ISS during Expedition 60 has acquired his Technician Class license and has been assigned callsign KI5AAA. http://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/UlsSearch/license.jsp?licKey=4049809 [ANS thanks Kenneth N5VHO 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 addi- tional benefits. Application forms are available from the AMSAT Office. Primary and secondary school students are eligible for membership at one-half the standard yearly rate. Post-secondary school students enrolled in at least half time status shall be eligible for the stu- dent rate for a maximum of 6 post-secondary years in this status. Contact Martha at the AMSAT Office for additional student membership information. 73, This week's ANS Editor, EMike McCardel, AA8EM aa8em at amsat dot org

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ANS-154 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins
by Chris Bradley (AA0CB) 03 Jun '18

03 Jun '18

AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-154 The AMSAT News Service bulletins are a free, weekly news and infor- mation service of AMSAT North America, The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation. ANS publishes news related to Amateur Radio in Space including 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. The news feed on http://www.amsat.org publishes news of Amateur Radio in Space as soon as our volunteers can post it. Please send any amateur satellite news or reports to: ans-editor at amsat.org. In this edition: * Help Requested to Monitor for Signals From Chinese Lunar Sats * Updates to AMSAT-NA TLE Distribution * Digital Communications Conference (DCC) Call for Papers * Invitation to the 2018 NASA AAQ Workshop - September 7, 2018 * China Microsatellite Symposium 2018 * ARLP022 Propagation de K7RA * ARRL VUCC Satellite Awards and Endorsements * Upcoming Binaryspace HAB Launch * Satellite Shorts SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-154.01 ANS-154 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins AMSAT News Service Bulletin 154.01 From AMSAT HQ KENSINGTON, MD. DATE JUNE 03, 2018 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-154.01 Help Requested to Monitor for Signals From Chinese Lunar Sats After their launch on 2018-05-20 at 21:28 UTC, LJ 1 and LJ 2 were maneuvered onto a track to the Moon. Several amateurs received telemetry from the satellites. But now LJ 1 appears to encounter problems. Quoting Wei BG2BHC: "Can you help to find amateurs in the US to help to monitor DSLWP-A on 435.425 and 436.425 now? We lost the contact of satellite A on S band after an orbit adjustment. We just tried to switch on UHF, but we don't know if it works or not. If operating, 435.425 MHz should be 500bps GMSK and JT4 alternately. 436.425 MHz should be 250 bps GMSK. Both transmit once in 5 minutes. LONGJIANG 1 - NORAD CAT ID 43471 LONGJIANG 2 - NORAD CAT ID 43472 [Nico, PA0DLO, for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Updates to AMSAT-NA TLE Distribution The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has announced that three cubesat carrying Amateur Radio payloads were deployed from the ISS on May 11 at around 1030 UTC. See AMSAT News Service bulletin ANS-133 for details. The following cubesats have been added to this week's AMSAT-NA TLE distribution and are designated by Space-Track as follows: 1KUNS-PF (Kenya)- NORAD CAT ID 43466 (a 3U cubesat with a 1200 bps or 9600 bps telemetry beacon at 437.300 MHz) UBAKUSAT (Turkey)- NORAD CAT ID 43467 (a 3U cubesat with a CW beacon at 437.225 MHz, a telemetry beacon at 435.325 MHZ, and a linear transponder with a 435.200 - 435.250 MHz downlink / 145.940 - 145.990 MHz uplink) Irazu (Costa Rica) - NORAD CAT ID 43468 (a 1U cubesat with a 9600 bps telemetry beacon at 436.500 MHz) Nico Janssen (PA0DLO) reminds us that it is still too early to tell if the above CAT ID's are correct for each object. There may be changes. [ANS thanks Ray, WA5QGD, for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Digital Communications Conference (DCC) Call for Papers Technical papers are solicited for presentation at the ARRL and TAPR Digital Communications Conference (DCC) and publication in the Conference Proceedings. Annual conference proceedings are published by the ARRL. Presentation at the conference is not required for publication. Submission of papers are due by July 31st, 2018 and should be submitted to Maty Weinberg, ARRL 225 Main Street Newington, CT 06111 or via the Internet to maty at arrl.org The ARRL and TAPR DCC is an international forum for radio amateurs to meet, publish their work, and present new ideas and techniques. This year, the DCC is in Albuquerque, New Mexico, September 14- 16. Presenters and attendees will have the opportunity to exchange ideas and learn about recent hardware and software advances, theories, experimental results, and practical applications. Topics include, but are not limited to: • Software Defined Radio (SDR) • Digital voice (D-Star, P25, WinDRM, FDMDV, DRMDV, G4GUO) • Digital satellite communications • Global position system • Precise Timing • Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS) • Short messaging (a mode of APRS) • Digital Signal Processing (DSP) • HF digital modes • Internet interoperability with Amateur Radio networks • Spread spectrum • IEEE 802.11 and other Part 15 license-exempt systems adaptable for A mateur Radio • Using TCP/IP networking over Amateur Radio • Mesh and peer to peer wireless networking • Emergency and Homeland Defense backup digital communications in Amateur Radio • Updates on AX.25 and other wireless networking protocols • Topics that advanced the Amateur Radio art Go to https://tinyurl.com/y7wgm6vh to view the guidelines for paper submissions [ANS thanks the TAPR PSR for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Invitation to the 2018 NASA AAQ Workshop - September 7, 2018 You are invited to participate in the 2018 NASA Academy of Aerospace Quality {AAQ) Workshop. This event will take place at Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio on Friday, September 7 from 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM. The event targets academics (faculty, researchers, students) involved with space related activities such as cube sat, small sat, high altitude balloon, rocket and more. It is also designed for those wishing to be involved with NASA space related projects. The event will feature speakers and a poster session. Travel stipends from NASA are available to attendees on a limited basis and will favor those giving a presentation or poster. There is no registration charge for attending the event but registration in advance is required. Please register at the link below by July 31. http://spider2.eng.auburn.edu/AAQ/registration.html The NASA Academy of Aerospace Quality is an open access virtual academy of educational modules, lessons learned, standards, case studies and more related to quality assurance for space related projects, especially those from academic based teams. The website is: http://aaq.auburn.edu Links to the agenda and materials from previous NASA AAQ Workshops can be found at the link below: http://aaq.eng.auburn.edu/events [ANS thanks Alice Smith and Jeff Smith for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- China Microsatellite Symposium 2018 The China Microsatellite Symposium(CMS2018), (www.microsatsymp.com) will be held at Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an China on 18th - 20th November 2018. The symposium includes keynote presentations and several sessions which will focus on the design experience, scientific missions, launch opportunities and all new technologies about microsatellites. In addition, another import session, International CubeSat and Mission Contest will be held on 20th November 2018, after which a free launch opportunity of 3U CubeSat or 1U payload capacity will be awarded to the winner of the first prize. Participants can get information and submit the works through the official website of our contest: www.cubesatcontest.org. The submission deadlines for the abstract of CMS2018 and work of CubeSat contest are both August 31, 2018. You could submit abstract and get information on the website www.microsatsymp.com Along with the symposium, there will also be a related exhibition, during which you can find the updated progress of CubeSat, launchers and other related technology. For exhibitors, you could also get information about booth on the website. The event is supported by China National Space Administration, International Astronautical Federation, Chinese Society of Astronautics and Chinese Institute of Command and Control. If you have any questions, please contact service at microsatsymp.com. [ANS thanks Ray Nugent for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- ARLP022 Propagation de K7RA ZCZC AP22 QST de W1AW Propagation Forecast Bulletin 22 ARLP022 >From Tad Cook, K7RA Seattle, WA June 1, 2018 To all radio amateurs SB PROP ARL ARLP022 ARLP022 Propagation de K7RA On May 30 at 0005 UTC the Australian Space Forecast Centre issued a warning: "On 1 June geomagnetic activity is expected to increase to Active and Minor Storm levels due to arrival of the co-rotating interaction region and high-speed solar wind streams associated with the recurrent trans-equatorial coronal hole." On May 31 http://www.spaceweather.com issued this Solar Wind Alert: "NOAA forecasters estimate a 60% chance of minor G1-class geomagnetic storms on June 1st, increasing to 65% on June 2nd, when a stream of high-speed solar wind is expected to reach Earth. The last time this gaseous stream lashed our planet's magnetic field, almost a month ago, it sparked bright ribbons of purple light (a.k.a. 'STEVE') seen from multiple US states. Visit today's edition of http://www.spaceweather.com for more information." The Sun remained active over the past reporting week. Average daily solar flux rose from 70.1 to 74.9, and average daily sunspot number rose from 7.7 to 26.3. During the previous week in which the average daily sunspot number was 7.7, the first four days had no sunspots. New sunspot regions appeared on May 21, 23 and 24. Predicted solar flux is 77 on June 1-3, 76, 74 and 72 on June 4-6, 70 on June 7-8, 71 on June 9, 72 on June 10-14, 70 on June 15-17, 72 on June 18-23, 73 on June 24, 72 on June 25-30, 70 on July 1-6, 72 on July 7-11, 70 on July 12-14 and 72 on July 15. Predicted planetary A index is 25 on June 1-2, 15, 12 and 8 on June 3-5, 5 on June 6-12, 8 on June 13, 5 on June 14-18, 8 on June 19, 5 on June 20-23, 8 on June 24-25, 5 on June 26-27, then 15, 28, 15, 12, 10 and 8 on June 28 through July 3, then 5 on July 4-9, 8 on July 10, and 5 on July 11-15. 2018 ARRL Field Day is June 23-24. Assuming the predicted numbers above, conditions should be good for Field Day. We want to see low geomagnetic activity, and planetary A index at 5 and 8 on Saturday and Sunday are good indicators. During this period of low solar activity solar flux at 72 and 73 is also good. Ted Leaf, K6HI of Kona, Hawaii reports that he is still in operation through the local volcanic activity, and asks, "Are there beacons for the lower frequencies, especially now with the lower solar flux?" I found this Wikipedia resource for HF beacons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio_propagation_beacon Of course, there are lower frequency HF resources on http://www.wsprnet.org, but this is a bit different than showing what you can tune in and hear without using a special weak signal mode. Any readers have suggestions for lower frequency HF beacons? Note that Ted has a comment on page 56 of the June 2018 QST regarding preamps and attenuator effects on receiver noise. >From last week: https://bit.ly/2LG8MAp F.K. Janda, OK1HH brings us this geomagnetic activity forecast for the period June 1-26, 2018. "Geomagnetic field will be: Quiet on June 11-12, 16-17, 20-23 Quiet to unsettled on June 10, 18, 24-25 Quiet to active on June 8-9 Unsettled to active on June 3-4, 7, 13-15, 19 Active to disturbed on June 1-2, (5-7, 26) "Solar wind will intensify on June 1-3, (4-8, 13-15), 16-17, (18-19, 22-24) "Remark: - Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement. - Forecasts remain less reliable." >From Dr. Tamitha Skov, the Space Weather Woman: "What's Old is New Again "Dear Tad, "I am still smiling at the huge response I got to a post I put up on Twitter this week. A newbie to our Space Weather community dared to talk about amateur radio as if it were an outdated hobby-- whoops, bad idea. I gently educated him. In doing so, I roused many radio amateurs and emergency communicators, who added their own comments and talked about their own personal experiences in the field. It was very gratifying. What I hadn't expected, however, was the strong interest in the concept that amateur radio will be critical to establishing over-the-horizon radio communications on planets like Mars in the near future. "This idea brings me back to how we managed to communicate over long distances many decades before we had satellites, internet or cellular networks. In terms of wireless communications on Earth, we were very much in the same place back in the early 1900s that we find ourselves in now when we think about colonizing Mars. Yet few people realize that despite all our advanced technology, we can't bring a cell phone to Mars. We will need to fall back on our 'old ways' of doing things when it comes to communicating on other planets. Isn't it funny how 'old' things become 'new' again? "Speaking of, this week brings us a new chance for a decent solar storm. Strangely though, the source of this storm is an old coronal hole that gave us a moderate level solar storm about a month ago. This old hole has survived its backside passage on the Sun and has now returned, with the new promise of bringing aurora views down to mid-latitudes again. Isn't it funny, what was old has become new again, in more ways than one! "Cheers, Tamitha" Dr. Skov's latest video report: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwvKyY26lB0 If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers, email the author at, k7ra(a)arrl.net . For more information concerning radio propagation, see the ARRL Technical Information Service web page at, http://arrl.org/propagation-of-rf-signals. For an explanation of numbers used in this bulletin, see http://arrl.org/the-sun-the-earth-the-ionosphere. An archive of past propagation bulletins is at http://arrl.org/w1aw-bulletins-archive-propagation. More good information and tutorials on propagation are at http://k9la.us/. Monthly propagation charts between four USA regions and twelve overseas locations are at http://arrl.org/propagation. Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins. Sunspot numbers for May 24 through 30, 2018 were 39, 32, 26, 27, 20, 22, and 18, with a mean of 26.3. 10.7 cm flux was 73.7, 75.7, 72.9, 74.6, 76.9, 74.9, and 75.3, with a mean of 74.9. Estimated planetary A indices were 4, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, and 4, with a mean of 3.9. Estimated mid-latitude A indices were 5, 4, 5, 5, 4, 5, and 5, with a mean of 4.7. [ANS thanks ARRL for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- ARRL VUCC Satellite Awards and Endorsements Here are the endorsements and new VUCC Satellite Awards issued by the ARRL for the period May 1, 2018 through Jun 1, 2018. Congratulations to all those who made the list this month! CALL 01 May 2018 01 Jun 2018 KO4MA 1598 1627 KD8CAO 1240 1253 N8HM 1025 1054 N8RO 1040 1051 K4FEG 877 901 K6FW 703 743 N9IP 589 609 N6UK 551 568 K5ND 502 526 WD9EWK 430 441 KE4AL 317 379 NS3L 300 325 VE7CEW 292 304 AA9LC New 299 AA8CH 218 256 G0ABI 124 200 N3GS 130 198 AA4FL 164 181 KE8FZT 100 175 XE1SEW New 130 WU2M New 105 KB2YSI New 101 PU8MRS New 100 If you find errors or omissions. please contact me off-list at <mycall>@<mycall>.com and I'll revise the announcement. [ANS thanks Ron, W5RKN for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Upcoming Binaryspace HAB Launch Binaryspace is doing another High-Altitude Balloon Launch from about 07:00 CAT on 9 June from the Leeukop Farm Airfield in Deneysville in the Free State. Everybody is invited to join us for the day to launch and chase the balloon. We are estimating a 3-hour mission from launch to recovery. The Sasolburg Amateur Radio Club (ZS4SRK) will join us with the tracking and recovery of the payload. Flexible Use of Airspace has been approved and depending on weather or technical difficulties, the launch and/or the payload contents can change at any time. We have some new equipment to test on Mission - Binary 03. A SSTV Camera Transmitter (400 - 500 mW) will take a photo and transmit it every 5 minutes. The call sign is ZR6MUG and will transmit on 144.500 FM, Martin 1 Mode and you will need MMSSTV to decode. A Telemetry Transmitter (400 - 500 mW) will transmit telemetry data every 30 seconds under the call sign ZR6TG on 144.600 FM and you can use FLdigi to decode. And an APRS Transmitter (300 mW) will transmit position and altitude every minute on 144.800 MHz under the call ZR6TG-11. We will also have a Go-pro camera and a Science Lab (Raspberry pi based with lots of sensors) in the payload. The payload is estimated to be around 900 g and we are using a 1 000 g white balloon. There are several prizes and awards available. The first person to recover the payload will get a prize and footage of the payload coming down will receive a prize. Special awards will be given to everyone who captures the SSTV images and RTTY telemetry. Please e- mail the decoded information, time of transmission (bonus if you can provide a recorded sound clip), your location and the equipment used totvdbon(a)gmail.com. [ANS thanks SARL weekly news in English 2018-6-2 for the above information] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Satellite Shorts (Venice, LA, USA) Wyatt Dirks, AC0RA, and Clayton Coleman, W5PFG's plan to activate maidenhead gridsquare EL58hx was rescheduled due to unsafe weather conditions. The new dates for the expedition are June 7-9, 2018. Please send your Hamvention photos that you would like to share with others in our amateur radio community to journal(a)amsat.org. (thanks to Joe, KB6IGK for the request) --------------------------------------------------------------------- /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 addi- tional benefits. Application forms are available from the AMSAT Office. Primary and secondary school students are eligible for membership at one-half the standard yearly rate. Post-secondary school students enrolled in at least half time status shall be eligible for the stu- dent rate for a maximum of 6 post-secondary years in this status. Contact Martha at the AMSAT Office for additional student membership information. 73, This week's ANS Editor, Chris Bradley, AA0CB aa0cb at amsat dot org

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ANS-147 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins
by Lee McLamb 27 May '18

27 May '18

AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-147 The AMSAT News Service bulletins are a free, weekly news and infor- mation service of AMSAT North America, The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation. ANS publishes news related to Amateur Radio in Space including 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. The news feed on http://www.amsat.org publishes news of Amateur Radio in Space as soon as our volunteers can post it. Please send any amateur satellite news or reports to: ans-editor at amsat.org. In this edition: * Help Requested to Monitor for Signals From Chinese Lunar Sats * Updates to AMSAT-NA TLE Distribution * Digital Communications Conference (DCC) Call for Papers * Invitation to the 2018 NASA AAQ Workshop - September 7, 2018 * China Microsatellite Symposium 2018 * 25 Year Archive of Keplerian Elements Now on AMSAT Web Site * Satellite Shorts SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-147.01 ANS-147 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins AMSAT News Service Bulletin 147.01 From AMSAT HQ KENSINGTON, MD. DATE May 27, 2018 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-147.01 Help Requested to Monitor for Signals From Chinese Lunar Sats After their launch on 2018-05-20 at 21:28 UTC, LJ 1 and LJ 2 were maneuvered onto a track to the Moon. Several amateurs received telemetry from the satellites. But now LJ 1 appears to encounter problems. Quoting Wei BG2BHC: "Can you help to find amateurs in the US to help to monitor DSLWP-A on 435.425 and 436.425 now? We lost the contact of satellite A on S band after an orbit adjustment. We just tried to switch on UHF, but we don't know if it works or not. If operating, 435.425 MHz should be 500bps GMSK and JT4 alternately. 436.425 MHz should be 250 bps GMSK. Both transmit once in 5 minutes. LONGJIANG 1 - NORAD CAT ID 43471 LONGJIANG 2 - NORAD CAT ID 43472 [Nico, PA0DLO, for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Updates to AMSAT-NA TLE Distribution The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has announced that three cubesat carrying Amateur Radio payloads were deployed from the ISS on May 11 at around 1030 UTC. See AMSAT News Service bulletin ANS-133 for details. The following cubesats have been added to this week's AMSAT-NA TLE distribution and are designated by Space-Track as follows: 1KUNS-PF (Kenya)- NORAD CAT ID 43466 (a 3U cubesat with a 1200 bps or 9600 bps telemetry beacon at 437.300 MHz) UBAKUSAT (Turkey)- NORAD CAT ID 43467 (a 3U cubesat with a CW beacon at 437.225 MHz, a telemetry beacon at 435.325 MHZ, and a linear transponder with a 435.200 - 435.250 MHz downlink / 145.940 - 145.990 MHz uplink) Irazu (Costa Rica) - NORAD CAT ID 43468 (a 1U cubesat with a 9600 bps telemetry beacon at 436.500 MHz) Nico Janssen (PA0DLO) reminds us that it is still too early to tell if the above CAT ID's are correct for each object. There may be changes. [ANS thanks Ray, WA5QGD, for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Digital Communications Conference (DCC) Call for Papers Technical papers are solicited for presentation at the ARRL and TAPR Digital Communications Conference (DCC) and publication in the Conference Proceedings. Annual conference proceedings are published by the ARRL. Presentation at the conference is not required for publication. Submission of papers are due by July 31st, 2018 and should be submitted to Maty Weinberg, ARRL 225 Main Street Newington, CT 06111 or via the Internet to maty(a)arrl.org The ARRL and TAPR DCC is an international forum for radio amateurs to meet, publish their work, and present new ideas and techniques. This year, the DCC is in Albuquerque, New Mexico, September 14- 16. Presenters and attendees will have the opportunity to exchange ideas and learn about recent hardware and software advances, theories, experimental results, and practical applications. Topics include, but are not limited to: • Software Defined Radio (SDR) • Digital voice (D-Star, P25, WinDRM, FDMDV, DRMDV, G4GUO) • Digital satellite communications • Global position system • Precise Timing • Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS) • Short messaging (a mode of APRS) • Digital Signal Processing (DSP) • HF digital modes • Internet interoperability with Amateur Radio networks • Spread spectrum • IEEE 802.11 and other Part 15 license-exempt systems adaptable for A mateur Radio • Using TCP/IP networking over Amateur Radio • Mesh and peer to peer wireless networking • Emergency and Homeland Defense backup digital communications in Amateur Radio • Updates on AX.25 and other wireless networking protocols • Topics that advanced the Amateur Radio art Go to https://tinyurl.com/y7wgm6vh to view the guidelines for paper submissions [ANS thanks the TAPR PSR for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Invitation to the 2018 NASA AAQ Workshop - September 7, 2018 You are invited to participate in the 2018 NASA Academy of Aerospace Quality {AAQ) Workshop. This event will take place at Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio on Friday, September 7 from 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM. The event targets academics (faculty, researchers, students) involved with space related activities such as cube sat, small sat, high altitude balloon, rocket and more. It is also designed for those wishing to be involved with NASA space related projects. The event will feature speakers and a poster session. Travel stipends from NASA are available to attendees on a limited basis and will favor those giving a presentation or poster. There is no registration charge for attending the event but registration in advance is required. Please register at the link below by July 31. http://spider2.eng.auburn.edu/AAQ/registration.html The NASA Academy of Aerospace Quality is an open access virtual academy of educational modules, lessons learned, standards, case studies and more related to quality assurance for space related projects, especially those from academic based teams. The website is: http://aaq.auburn.edu Links to the agenda and materials from previous NASA AAQ Workshops can be found at the link below: http://aaq.eng.auburn.edu/events [ANS thanks Alice Smith and Jeff Smith for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- China Microsatellite Symposium 2018 The China Microsatellite Symposium(CMS2018), (www.microsatsymp.com) will be held at Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an China on 18th – 20th November 2018. The symposium includes keynote presentations and several sessions which will focus on the design experience, scientific missions, launch opportunities and all new technologies about microsatellites. In addition, another import session, International CubeSat and Mission Contest will be held on 20th November 2018, after which a free launch opportunity of 3U CubeSat or 1U payload capacity will be awarded to the winner of the first prize. Participants can get information and submit the works through the official website of our contest: www.cubesatcontest.org. The submission deadlines for the abstract of CMS2018 and work of CubeSat contest are both August 31, 2018. You could submit abstract and get information on the website www.microsatsymp.com Along with the symposium, there will also be a related exhibition, during which you can find the updated progress of CubeSat, launchers and other related technology. For exhibitors, you could also get information about booth on the website. The event is supported by China National Space Administration, International Astronautical Federation, Chinese Society of Astronautics and Chinese Institute of Command and Control. If you have any questions, please contact service(a)microsatsymp.com. [ANS thanks Ray Nugent for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- 25 Year Archive of Keplerian Elements Now on AMSAT Web Site AMSAT Orbital Elements Manager Ray Hoad, WA5QGD has made his archive of orbital elements for active amateur satellites back to October 1993. Joe Fitzgerald, KM1P has posted this on the AMSAT web site at: http://www.amsat.org/tle/historical/ Joe commented, "Thanks for all those bulletins, Ray. That represents a lot of work over 25 years!" [ANS thanks Ray Hoad, WA5QGD and Joe Fitzgerald, KM1P for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Satellite Shorts (Venice, LA, USA) Wyatt Dirks, AC0RA, and Clayton Coleman, W5PFG’s plan to activate maidenhead gridsquare EL58hx on Memorial Day weekend, 2018, is rescheduled due to unsafe weather conditions. The National Weather Service’s National Hurricane Center confirms 70% potential for a tropical depression to form in the next five days with potential to move into the Gulf of Mexico this weekend. Rainfall predicted to hit the Louisiana coast combined with additional moisture from the potential depression would inhibit safe access to the operating location. The new dates for the expedition are June 7-9, 2018. AMSAT Vice President Engineering, Jerry Buxton, N0JY has made his Engineering presentation at the 2018 Dayton Hamvention AMSAT forum available on-line: http://amsat.us/?p=189 There is a PDF version for viewing, and the original pptx version. You may reuse the information in this presentation in its entirety as a presentation, or by the use excerpts from this presentation to enhance your own pre- sentation, so long as you do not alter the original wording when making your own slides. (via @N0JY on Twitter) Members of the Radio Club Croatian Flora Fauna will be active as 9A90P from Vela Palagruza Island (CI-084, LH 0057) between June 16-23rd. Operators mentioned are Marijan/9A1MB, Radovan/ 9A2SC, Zeljko/9A3DF, Branko/9A3ST, Kiko/9A4WY, Vito/9A5VS, Neven/9A5YY and Emir/9A6AA. Activity will be on 80-6 meters near the IOTA frequencies using CW, SSB, the Digital modes and the satellites. QSL 9A90P via 9A2MF. ADDED NOTE. Look for some operators to possibly operate (using their own callsign) from neighboring islands: Mala Palagruza (EU-090, CI-461) and Galijula Island (EU-090, CI-462). (thanks to Ohio/Penn DX Bulletin No. 1365) --------------------------------------------------------------------- /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 addi- tional benefits. Application forms are available from the AMSAT Office. Primary and secondary school students are eligible for membership at one-half the standard yearly rate. Post-secondary school students enrolled in at least half time status shall be eligible for the stu- dent rate for a maximum of 6 post-secondary years in this status. Contact Martha at the AMSAT Office for additional student membership information. 73, This week's ANS Editor, Lee McLamb, KT4TZ kt4tz at amsat dot org

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ANS-140 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins
by Peter Laws 20 May '18

20 May '18

AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-140 The AMSAT News Service bulletins are a free, weekly news and information service of AMSAT North America, The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation. ANS publishes news related to Amateur Radio in Space including 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. The news feed on http://www.amsat.org publishes news of Amateur Radio in Space as soon as our volunteers can post it. Please send any amateur satellite news or reports to: ans-editor(a)amsat.org. ***************************************************************************************** * AMSAT @ HAMVENTION May 18-20 - Booth (1007-1010 & 1107-1110) * ***************************************************************************************** In this edition: * AMSAT Activities at Hamvention 2018 * Ready for Phase 5? * CAMSAT amateur radio transponder satellites to launch this year * Call for Nominations - AMSAT Board of Directors * ARISS News * Satellite Shorts From All Over SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-140.01 ANS-140 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins AMSAT News Service Bulletin 140.01 >From AMSAT HQ KENSINGTON, MD. May 20, 2018 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-140.01 --------------------------------------------------------------------- AMSAT Activities at Hamvention 2018 At deadline, Hamvention 2018 was nearly over. If you are attending, and have somehow put it off, the AMSAT booth (1007-1010 & 1107-1110) will be open until noon local time on Sunday. Well-dressed satellite operators can still pick up the latest AMSAT fashions for 2018 as well as other AM-swag. The 2018 update of Gould Smith’s book, Getting Started With Amateur Satellites will be available as well. [ANS thanks the AMSAT Office for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Work the AMSAT Hamvention Demo Station! Hamvention 2018 is almost over, but there is still time to work W3ZM/8, the AMSAT Club Station. Listen for the station on passes from 1200-1600 UTC Sunday, May 21st. Hamvention is located in the six character gridsquare EM89aq and if you are attending, the demo station is outside Building 1. As a reward for working the AMSAT demo station, individuals working us will receive a digital certificate upon request. Please email n8hm(a)amsat.org with your QSO details to receive a certificate. [ANS thanks Paul N8HM for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Ready for Phase 5? Phase 3 was the term coined for AMSAT's first high-earth orbit satellites back in the late 1970s[1], Phases 1 and 2 being the prior "bleepsats" and early transponder based LEO satellites (the very successful AO-6, AO-7, and AO-8 among them). Later, Phase 4 was coined to indicate satellites in geosynchronous orbits and Phase 5 to denote missions that would leave Earth's orbit. While AMSAT-NA doesn't currently have any Phase 5 missions planned, industrious students at China's Harbin Institute of Technology not only have a Lunar mission planned, but it is expected to launch on May 20 at 21:30 UTC! Ambitious is a good description of the mission: not one, but two 47-kg microsats are expected to end up in an "HLO" -- a highly elliptical Lunar orbit -- and will be carrying amateur radio payloads. For more details and links to further information including a Linux-based "live CD" for using these satellites, see AMSAT-UK's news article here: https://amsat-uk.org/2018/05/19/dslwp-satellites-lunar-orbit/ [ANS thanks AMSAT-UK for the above information] [1] - AMSAT Newsletter, Vol VII, #2, June 1975, p3 - see http://www.ka9q.net/AMSAT-Newsletter-1975.pdf --------------------------------------------------------------------- CAMSAT amateur radio transponder satellites to launch this year CAMSAT has released details of three new amateur radio satellites, CAS-5A, CAS-5B and CAS-6, that are hoped to launch in September 2018. Two of the satellites CAS-5A and CAS-6 will carry transponders. CAS-5A a 6U CubeSat which will include the following capabilities: • HF/HF – H/T Mode Linear Transponder • HF/UHF – H/U Mode Linear Transponder • HF – CW Telemetry Beacon • VHF/UHF – V/U Mode Linear Transponder • VHF/UHF – V/U Mode FM Transponder • UHF – CW Telemetry Beacon • UHF – AX.25 4.8k/9.6k Baud GMSK Telemetry. The transponders will have 30-kHz bandwidths except the H/U unit which will be 15 kHz wide. Planning a launch in September 2018 from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center into a 539 × 533 km, 97.5 degree orbit. Details: http://www.amsatuk.me.uk/iaru/formal_detail.php?serialnum=619 CAS-5B, a femto-satellite architecture (90 x 80 x 50 mm, 500 g mass) with a proposed UHF CW beacon and to be deployed from CAS-5A when in space. Details: http://www.amsatuk.me.uk/iaru/formal_detail.php?serialnum=620 CAS-6 a 50 kg micro satellite (490 x 499 x 430 mm). It will include: • VHF CW Telemetry Beacon • U/V Mode 20 kHz Linear Transponder • AX.25 4.8k baud GMSK telemetry downlink • Deployable Antennas • Solar Panels, Lithium ion battery and power controller • Integrated Housekeeping Unit • Three-axis stabilization system • Atmospheric Wind detector • S-band TT&C system (non-amateur radio band) • X-band Data link system (non-amateur radio band) Planning a sea launch from the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology in September 2018 into a 579 x 579 km, 45 degree orbit. Details: http://www.amsatuk.me.uk/iaru/formal_detail.php?serialnum=622 [ANS thanks AMSAT-UK for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Call for Nominations - AMSAT Board of Directors It's time to submit nominations for the upcoming AMSAT-NA Board of Directors election. Three directors' terms expire this year: those of Tom Clark, K3IO; Mark Hammond, N8MH; and Bruce Paige, KK5DO. In addition, up to two Alternates may be elected for one-year terms. A valid nomination requires either one Member Society or five current individual members in good standing to nominate an AMSAT-NA member for Director. Written nominations, consisting of the nominee's name and call, and the nominating individuals' names, calls and individual signatures should be mailed to: AMSAT-NA 10605 CONCORD ST STE 304 KENSINGTON MD 20895-2526 In addition to traditional submissions of written nominations, which is the preferred method, the intent to nominate someone may be made by electronic means. These include e-mail, fax, or electronic image of a petition. Electronic petitions should be sent to martha(a)amsat.org or faxed to +1-301-822-4371. No matter what means is used, petitions MUST arrive at the AMSAT-NA office no later than June 15th. If the nomination is a traditional written nomination, no other action is required. If electronic means are used, a verifying traditional written petition MUST be received at the AMSAT-NA office within 7 days following the close of nominations on June 15th. ELECTRONIC SUBMISSIONS WITHOUT THIS SECOND, WRITTEN VERIFICATION ARE NOT VALID UNDER THE EXISTING AMSAT-NA BYLAWS. [ANS thanks the AMSAT Office for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- ARISS News Hamvention and ARISS Work Together The Amateur Radio on the International Space Station team (ARISS) is happy to announce that Hamvention and ARISS are working together again this year. Hamvention's 2018 theme is, "Amateur Radio ... Serving the Community." ARISS serves communities by inspiring great numbers of youth to explore STEM and Amateur Radio. ARISS is kicking off its 2018 fund-raising campaign at Hamvention to raise money for the expensive space-rated parts needed to finish building the required multiple units of the custom-built Multi-Voltage Power Supply, and to help defray some costs of continuing ARISS operations. The power supply is part of the next-gen ARISS Interoperable Radio System to replace the intermittent, aging ISS amateur radio station. ARISS Chair Frank Bauer, KA3HDO, said, "Having Hamvention partner with ARISS really puts our 2018 funding campaign into gear." Hamvention's support began with a post on the convention's front web page. The posting discussed teaming up with ARISS, and announcing a special ARISS prize drawing at the convention, and the need for hams to contribute to ARISS right now by going to http://www.ariss.org/donate.html, to https://fundrazr.com/arissnextgen, or stopping at the ARISS Hamvention booth on Sunday morning. The double boost to ARISS by Hamvention is the featuring of the ARISS Challenge Coin at a special drawing just minutes before the convention's big prize drawings on the final day. Thousands of people will hear about the ARISS Challenge Coin and how ARISS inspires students to engage in STEM studies and radio technology. 2018 Hamvention Prize Committee Chairman Bill Serra, N8NRT, wrote, "We are happy to be able to make the ARISS Challenge Coin a very special part of Sunday's prize awards." ARISS donated two of its handsome coins positioned side by side in a beautiful display, showing off each of the coin's sides. This ARISS Challenge Coin is the premium received by donors who give $100 or more to ARISS. The ARISS team will welcome convention goers at the ARISS booth in Building 1 through the weekend to donate and see a mock-up of the Multi-Voltage Power Supply that ARISS will launch in the future. A raffle is being held at the booth to win a coin - the owner of the ticket pulled does not have to be present to win. For those unable to make the trip to Xenia, readers can donate any amount by going to http://www.ariss.org/donate.html ARISS thanked everyone on the Hamvention staff whose personal efforts are aiding ARISS in its fund-raising and publicity goals. Rosalie White, K1STO, ARISS-US Delegate for ARRL, added: "We are so pleased and proud to know that Hamvention believes in the ARISS team and its goals of piquing the interest of young people and communities in a quite unique 'wow way' for STEM and Amateur Radio." About ARISS Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) is a cooperative venture of international amateur radio societies and the space agencies that support the International Space Station (ISS). In the United States, sponsors are the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT), the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The primary goal of ARISS is to promote exploration of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) topics by organizing scheduled contacts via amateur radio between crew members aboard the ISS and students in classrooms or informal education venues. With the help of experienced amateur radio volunteers, ISS crews speak directly with large audiences in a variety of public forums. Before and during these radio contacts, students, teachers, parents, and communities learn about space, space technologies and amateur radio. For more information, see www.ariss.org, www.amsat.org, and www.arrl.org. To receive our Twitter updates, follow @ARISS_status [ANS thanks ARISS & David AA4KN for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Satellite Shorts From All Over + The AMSAT-NA Office will be closed through Monday, May 21st. The office will reopen on Tuesday, May 22nd + AMSAT HQ, @amsat, tweeted some images of the latest "Am-swag" at https://twitter.com/AMSAT/status/997443139760771073 + Jeff, KE9V, @ke9v, tweeted some images of AMSAT activities at Hamvention here: https://twitter.com/ke9v/status/997528369087631360 + Burt, FJ8OJ, @fj8oj, has a list of upcoming satellite operations here: https://sat.fg8oj.com/calendar.php (his website has other information of interest to AMSAT members as well) + SpaceDaily.com published an article on May 15 which gives nice mention to AMSAT, RadFxSat/Fox-1B: "What Happens After Launch: Two NASA Educational CubeSats" - http://tinyurl.com/AMSAT-RadFX-Fox1B [ANS thanks SpaceDaily.com for this item] + Get on the Satellites for Field Day! Field Day is right around the corner! Posted on the AMSAT website with the ARRL’s permission is an article entitled “Get on the Satellites for ARRL Field Day” written by Sean Kutzko, KX9X, and published in the June 2018 issue of QST. Read it at https://www.amsat.org/get-on-the-satellites-for-field-day/. As a reminder, AMSAT runs a Field Day event concurrently with ARRL Field Day. For more information, please see https://www.amsat.org/field-day/. [ANS thanks Paul N8HM for the above information.] + EL58: Wyatt, AC0RA, and Clayton, W5PFG, will be activating EL58 on Satellite (FM and linear as W5PFG) between 0000 UTC May 26 and 1700 UTC May 27. In addition to satellite, the team will be active on 6-m SSB and digital modes (FT8, MSK144) with a 5-el Yagi at 10 m height and with 1 kW of power (as AC0RA). Because they will operate from the land portion of the grid, QSOs will count for Louisiana (WAS), Plaquemines Parish (for County Hunters), and IOTA NA-168. Skeds for QSOs >6000 km from the grid are available by contacting w5pfg(a)arrl.org. [ANS thanks Wyatt, AC0RA, & Clayton, W5PFG for the above information.] + EL60: 6E5RM/XF3 Cozumel Island Special Event. Members of the Radioclub Cancun will be active as 6E5RM/XR3 celebrating the 2018 Rally Maya Mexico on May 23rd and 24th. In addition to 6 m and HF operations, satellite operations are planned. Cozumel Island is IOTA NA-090. QSL via XE3N. [ANS thanks Ohio/Penn DX Bulletin & dxnews.com for this 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. Primary and secondary school students are eligible for membership at one-half the standard yearly rate. Post-secondary school students enrolled in at least half time status shall be eligible for the student rate for a maximum of 6 post-secondary years in this status. Contact Martha at the AMSAT Office for additional student membership information. 73, This week's ANS Editor, Peter Laws, N5UWY n5uwy(a)amsat.org

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ANS-133 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins
by E.Mike McCardel 13 May '18

13 May '18

AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-133 The AMSAT News Service bulletins are a free, weekly news and infor- mation service of AMSAT North America, The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation. ANS publishes news related to Amateur Radio in Space including 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. The news feed on http://www.amsat.org publishes news of Amateur Radio in Space as soon as our volunteers can post it. Please send any amateur satellite news or reports to: ans-editor at amsat.org. ******************************************************************** * DON'T FORGET THAT IT IS MOTHER'S DAY * * AMSAT at HAMVENTION May 18-20 booth (1007-1010 & 1107-1110) * * AMSAT ForumSaturday, May 19 in Forum room 4 at 2:45-3:45 PM * ******************************************************************** In this edition: * Dr. Alan B. Johnston (PhD), KU2Y, Named AMSAT Vice-President, Educational Relations * Jerry Buxton, NØJY CubeSat Presentation at Princeton Orbital Initiative * ARISS HamVideo Currently Not Transmitting * AMSAT at Hamvention 2018 -- 3rd and Final Call for Volunteers * Work the AMSAT Hamvention Demo Station! * Video Streaming of RadFxSat-2 (Fox-1E) Flight Model Testing * AMSAT Activities at Hamvention 2018 * Tips For Prompt Message Posting To The AMSAT-BB * Three CubeSats with Amateur Radio Payloads Deployed from ISS * Satellite-Image_26113 Re-recovered... Call for amateur help! * ARISS News * Satellite Shorts From All Over SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-133.01 ANS-133 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins AMSAT News Service Bulletin 133.01 >From AMSAT HQ KENSINGTON, MD. May 13, 2018 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-133.01 Dr. Alan B. Johnston (PhD), KU2Y, Named AMSAT Vice-President, Educational Relations AMSAT President, Joe Spier, K6WAO has announced the appointment of Alan Johnston, KU2Y as AMSAT Vice President-Educational Relations. Joe noted, "The subject of educational outreach is critical for the mission of AMSAT. AMSAT continues creating structure for fulfilling our mission component regarding education with projects such as the CubeSat Simulator, ARISS, and outreach to primary, middle, high school, and university programs. Alan has agreed to help AMSAT establish and coordinate an education initiative program and serve as AMSAT’s senior point of contact with outside organizations regarding educational outreach." Given the increasing importance of fulfilling education goals as justification for launch opportunities, this is an important subject for AMSAT. Alan is aptly suited for this position as he is currently an instructor at Rowan University in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department, and has previously taught at Seattle University, Illinois Institute of Technology, and Washington University in St Louis. Alan is interested in using amateur radio satellites to teach various engineering and scientific topics and understands the teacher perspective as well. He holds an Amateur Extra license and is also a published author. [ANS Thanks Joe, K6WAO for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Jerry Buxton, NØJY CubeSat Presentation at Princeton Orbital Initiative The Princeton Orbital Initiative, a student organization at Princeton University, has invited Jerry Buxton, NØJY, AMSAT Vice President of Engineering, to share his experience with CubeSat development and AMSAT's proven technology combining scientific telemetry with on-orbit CubeSat voice operations, further expanding AMSAT's educational outreach. Dan Marlow, K2QM, a faculty advisor to the Princeton Orbital Initiative (POI) says the group plans to build and fly a 3U CubeSat with a goal to submit the project to the NASA CubeSat Launch Initiative in November of this year. Marlow's invitation includes meetings with Andrew Redd, the lead for the POI initiative and an additional session with the graduate student chief designer of the thruster that the Princeton Plasma Lab is planning. Marlow said the visit would also provide an opportunity to explore possible mutual interest in partnering along the lines of some of the recent Fox missions. Buxton will give a presentation followed by a Q&A session, and have informal sessions with the students. The students have begun mechanical design of their 3U CubeSat and are looking to AMSAT for advice and guidance for their electronic and communications systems. Buxton commented, "Many institutions have been calling us for input on building CubeSats and to explore partnerships, and I think that this opportunity from an Ivy League University reflects the high level of standing and reputation AMSAT has established in the satellite industry ... with a specialty in amateur radio satellites of course." AMSAT North America pioneered satellite operations in space and con- tinues that tradition now based based on reliable CubeSat operations with amateur radio transponders, hosting scientific experimental missions sharing the amateur radio payload, successful multiple CubeSat deployment, and orbital deployment from the International Space Station. AMSAT was an early participant with the NASA CubeSat Launch Initiative in the Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) program and con- tinues to have our launches selected based on our prior success and exciting future technological, scientific and educational opportunities. [ANS thanks Jerry Buxton, NØJY, AMSAT Vice President of Engineering for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- ARISS HamVideo Currently Not Transmitting In the official ARISS News Release No.18-06 dated May 10, 2018, ARISS PR Editor David Jordan, AA4KN, reports that the ARISS HamVideo is not currently transmitting The HamVideo digital Amateur Television (DATV) transmitter aboard the International Space Station (ISS) Columbus module recently ceased transmitting. The unit's indicators show it is functioning but its signal cannot be detected on the ground. The ARISS team's efforts to get the transmitter working again have been unsuccessful, thus far. A series of steps are currently being undertaken to try to diagnose the problem. However, if an actual failure occurred, only a ground- based evaluation will fully diagnose the problem. The ARISS International team is working diligently to bring HamVideo back to full operation as soon as practical. We have started coordination with our space agency partners and with our sponsors to expeditiously troubleshoot the issue on-board and, if necessary, troubleshoot and repair the device on the ground. The HamVideo DATV transmitter has become a very valuable educational asset that astronauts enjoy employing as part of the ARISS connection. Astronauts Tim Peake, KG5BVI; Paolo Nespoli, IZ0JPA; and Thomas Pesquet, FX0ISS, regularly utilized HamTV to inspire students and educators during ARISS contacts scheduled as part of these astronauts' ISS missions. Australian and European HamTV ground stations have been operational for receiving and distributing DATV signals from the ISS, and in the US, HamTV stations are under development. Several hams in Japan have set up ground stations that have received HamVideo. As more information becomes available on the HamVideo status and on any potential repair plans, we will keep you informed through future news releases and via messages on the ARISS web site www.ariss.org. [ANS thanks David AA4KN for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- AMSAT at Hamvention 2018 -- 3rd and Final Call for Volunteers Hamvention 2018 in Xenia, Ohio is next week, May 18-20! If you’ve been waiting to volunteer until you’d firmed up your plans, we need to hear from you ASAP! If you're an experienced satellite operator, we can use you and your experience. If you've never operated a satellite before, we can use your help too. Whether you're available for only a couple of hours or if you can spend the entire weekend with us, your help would be greatly appreciated. Please send an e-mail to Phil, w1eme(a)amsat.org if you can help. Thank you! [Information provided by Phil Smith, W1EME Hamvention 2018 Team Leader] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Work the AMSAT Hamvention Demo Station! As previously announced, AMSAT will have it's traditional presence at Hamvention this year, including a satellite demo station. The demostation will operate under the AMSAT club callsign W3ZM/8. We intend to be on most passes of voice satellites between 12:00 UTC and 20:30 UTC on Friday, May 19th and Saturday, May 20th and between 12:00 UTC and 16:00 UTC on Sunday, May 21st. Hamvention is located in the six digit gridsquare EM89aq. As a reward for working the AMSAT demo station, individuals working us will receive a digital certificate upon request. Please email n8hm(a)amsat.org with your QSO details to receive a certificate. If you are attending Hamvention, please stop by the demo station outside Building 1! [ANS thanks Paul N8HM for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Video Streaming of RadFxSat-2 (Fox-1E) Flight Model Testing AMSAT Vice President Engineering Jerry Buxton, N0JY, has been streaming live videos of testing of the flight model of RadFxSat-2 (Fox-1E) from Fox Labs in Granbury, TX. You can view archived videos at: https://www.twitch.tv/n0jy/videos/all. The first two are also posted at: https://tinyurl.com/ANS133-RadFxModelTest Follow @N0JY on Twitter for future live streams of RadFxSat-2 flight model testing. RadFxSat-2 is scheduled to launch later this year on the ELaNa XX mission aboard Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne air-launch-to-orbit system. The satellite carries a 30 kHz wide V/u linear transponder and radiation experiments for Vanderbilt University's Institute for Space and Defense Electronics. [ANS thanks Paul Stoetzer N8HM, and Jerry Buxton, N0JY for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- AMSAT Activities at Hamvention 2018 The 2018 Hamvention will be held on May 18-20, 2018 at Greene County Fairground and Expo Center in Xenia Ohio. AMSAT is planning for an exciting event. May 17 – Booth setup on Thursday. May 18, 19, 20 – AMSAT in full operation at Hamvention May 20 – Booth teardown on Sunday AMSAT Booth Stop by the AMSAT booth (1007-1010 & 1107-1110) Friday 9am-6pm, Saturday 9am-5pm, Sunday 9am-1pm to meet board members, officers, and active satellite operators. You’ll be able to ask questions and see demonstrations of AMSAT’s current and upcoming technologies. Well dressed satellite operators will look forward to picking up the latest AMSAT “swag” and fashions for 2018. Gould Smith’s book, Getting Started With Amateur Satellites, has been updated for 2018 and will be on sale during the Hamvention. AMSAT Forum The AMSAT Forum at Hamvention 2018 will be held on Saturday, May 19 in Forum room 4 at 2:45-3:45 PM. Amateur Satellite Demonstrations Amateur Satellite operation demonstrations will be held every day outside the main Maxim Hall (Building 1 or E1) entrance. AMSAT will be be demonstrating actual contacts with the operational amateur satellites. We especially invite youth to make a contact via an amateur satellite. All are invited to observe, participate and ask questions. Satellite pass times will be posted at the AMSAT booth and in the demo area. Annual AMSAT “Dinner at Tickets” Party The annual AMSAT “Dinner at Tickets” party will be held Thursday at 1800 EDT at Tickets Pub & Eatery at 7 W. Main St, Fairborn, OH. Feast on a great selection of Greek and American food and great company! No program or speaker, just good conversation. Food can be ordered from the menu, drinks (beer, wine, sodas and iced tea) are available at the bar. Leave room for dessert, there’s an in-house ice cream shop! Come as you are. Bring some friends and have a great time the night before Hamvention. AMSAT/TAPR Banquet The twelfth annual AMSAT/TAPR Banquet will be held at the Kohler Presidential Center on Friday at 1830 EDT. This dinner is always a highlight of the AMSAT and TAPR activities during the Dayton Hamvention. We are pleased to announce that Jeri Ellsworth, AI6TK will be our speaker. Jeri will present her innovative ideas and adventures in Amateur Radio. Banquet tickets are no longer available There will be no tickets to pick up at the AMSAT booth. Tickets purchased on-line will be maintained on a list with check-in at the door of the banquet center. AMSAT Announces Hamvention Forum Speaker Line Up The AMSAT Forum at Hamvention 2018 will be held on Saturday, May 19 in Forum room 4 at 2:45-3:45 PM. The speaker and topic line up includes: Moderator: Keith Baker, KB1SF / VA3KSF “AMSAT Status Report” by Joseph Spier, K6WAO, AMSAT-NA President, who will highlight recent activities within AMSAT and discuss some of our challenges, accomplishments, projects, and any late breaking news. “AMSAT Engineering Program” by Jerry Buxton, N0JY, AMSAT-NA Vice President for Engineering, will talk about the Fox-1 and Golf (Greater Orbit Larger Footprint) Projects. “ARISS Report 2018” by Frank Bauer, KA3HDO, AMSAT-NA Vice President for Human Spaceflight will discus ARISS’ “Next Generation ARISS Radio System” on the International Space Station. AMSAT/TAPR Banquet Speaker – Jeri Ellsworth, AI6TK The twelfth annual joint AMSAT/TAPR Banquet will be held on Friday, May 18 at the Kohler Presidential Banquet Center, 4572 Presidential Way, Kettering, OH 45429 (just south of Dayton). Doors open at 6:30 PM for a cash bar with the buffet dinner served at 7:00 PM. Jeri Ellsworth, AI6TK, will present on her innovative ideas and adventures in Amateur Radio. Jeri is an American entrepreneur, self- taught engineer, and an autodidact computer chip designer and inventor. She gained notoriety in 2004 for creating a complete Commodore 64 system on a chip housed within a joystick, called C64 Direct-to-TV. That “computer in a joystick” could run 30 video games from the early 1980’s, and at peak, sold over 70,000 units in a single day via the QVC shopping channel. Ellsworth co-founded CastAR (formerly Technical Illusions) in 2013 and stayed with the company until its closure on June 26, 2017. In 2016, she passed all three amateur radio exams, earned her Amateur Extra license, and received the AI6TK callsign. This has now launched new adventures into Amateur Radio. She has been featured in January 2017 QST and in YouTube videos from Quartzfest earlier this year. Jeri has been given a free hand to speak on whatever topic she wishes (as long as it’s amateur radio, somewhat). [ANS thanks The AMSAT Office for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Tips For Prompt Message Posting To The AMSAT-BB Recently, there have been several posts, including some time sensitive roving information, which have been held for moderator release because they were sent by list members from accounts other than the one used to register with the list. While the moderators are happy to release these messages, it can result in significant delay. Since there are many new members here, below is a guide which was published two years ago. Tips for prompt message posting. People sometimes post time-sensitive messages to AMSAT-BB. Examples are last minute grid activities, unexpected satellite mode changes, requests for critically important telemetry, etc. These normally go through promptly, but occasionally get held for two basic reasons: While AMSAT-BB is an open list, that means it is open for membership, not posting. In order to post to the list, it normally must be from the same account you originally registered. For instance, if you registered from your home account, and post from your office account, it will normally be held for release by a moderator. Likewise, some people have all their email forwarded to a single account from which they reply. We can create a filter to pass the second address, but that is not automatically done on the first instance, and does require moderator action. AMSAT-BB receives many pieces of spam for each legitimate message. As part of the filtering process, emails larger than 50 kB are blocked. This usually happens to legitimate email when someone attempts to attach a large file, or does not trim an extended series of exchanges. Also, there is a limit to the number of addresses before an email is held as potential spam. I have seen legitimate email sent to 30+ addresses. We have a team of volunteer moderators, but they are not available 24/7. The result is that a message sent in the evening or on a holiday, US time, may well be held for several hours before being released. So, if it absolutely, positively needs to be distributed promptly: 1. Post from the same account you registered, or one which from past experience you know has been flagged as acceptable. 2. Do not use attachments. (Pictures and other files should be included by a link.) They will be blocked to the list, and if the total size of the message plus attachments exceeds 50 kB, the mail will be held. 3. Send it to AMSAT-BB and a few other addresses at most. If you must send to a large distribution list, send to them, and another copy to AMSAT-BB. (A trick which seems to work well is to place most of the addresses in the BCC rather than CC line.) 4. Consider also posting to the AMSAT Twitter and Facebook accounts. There is overlap in membership, though at present it is far from 100%. 5. Do not send large commercial press releases, or things which look like them. They will be caught by heuristic spam filters. A simple posting of an event or activity will normally go through. Note that there are existing exemptions for official channels such as ANS, ARISS, other AMSAT organizations, etc. 6. All new accounts are automatically flagged for moderation. This flag will normally be cleared on the first or second posting, but do allow for and expect an initial delay if you establish a dedicated account for your satellite organization. 7. Remember that this is a text-only list. Posting using HTML formatting will have unpredictable results, and may trigger the 50 kB hold for what appears to be a short message. [ANS thanks Alan WA4SCA for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- ISS Orbit Reboost Saturday May 12 The International Space Station was scheduled to raise its orbit this weekend (Saturday, May 12) to prepare for the departure of three Expedition 55 crew members and the arrival of a new Russian cargo craft. The docked Russian Progress 69 resupply ship will fire its engines Saturday at 6:07 p.m. EDT for two minutes and 52 seconds slightly boosting the orbital lab’s altitude. This orbital reboost sets up the proper phasing trajectory for the Soyuz MS-07 spacecraft when it undocks June 3. The Soyuz will carry Commander Anton Shkaplerov and Flight Engineers Scott Tingle and Norishige Kanai back to Earth after six-and-a-half month mission in space. The reboost will also enable a two-orbit launch to docking opportunity for Russia’s next resupply ship the Progress 70 in July. [Ed note: Stations who have not refreshed their Keplerian Elements will discover that the ISS is arriving slightly later than predicted.] https://tinyurl.com/ANS133-ISS-Boost [ANS thanks NASA for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Three CubeSats with Amateur Radio Payloads Deployed from ISS The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has announced that three CubeSats carrying Amateur Radio payloads, including one with a V/U linear transponder, were deployed from the International Space Station (ISS) on May 11 at around 1030 UTC. Irazu (Costa Rica) and 1KUNS-PF (Kenya) carry beacon/telemetry in the 70-centimeter Amateur Radio band, while UBAKUSAT (Turkey) carries an Amateur Radio linear transponder for SSB and CW, in addition to CW and telemetry beacons. Irazu is a 1U CubeSat developed by students at the Costa Rica Institute of Technology, with a telemetry beacon at 436.500 MHz. 1KUNS-PF is a 3U CubeSat developed by students at the University of Nairobi, with a telemetry beacon (9.6 kbps) at 437.300 MHz. UBAKUSAT, a 3U CubeSat developed by students at the Istanbul Technical University, has a CW beacon at 437.225 MHz, and a telemetry beacon at 437.325 MHz. The linear transponder downlink is 435.200 - 435.250 MHz; the uplink is 145.940 - 145.990 MHz. [ANS thanks ARRL for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Satellite-Image_26113 Re-recovered... Call for amateur help! Earlier this week Scott Tilley again recovered IMAGE on S-band. The spacecraft started a series of eclipses and the first one appeared to cause IMAGE to reboot and start transmitting again. After the initial recovery in January of this year IMAGE faded away in late February. NASA is now trying to reestablish control of the spacecraft and has been actively attempting with some success to have the spacecraft accept commands over the last couple of days. A number of phenomenon have been observed that has challenged the ground controllers to understand what is going on with the spacecraft and they have asked for amateurs to contribute s-band signal data particularly as the spacecraft passes through eclipse. If you have access to equipment and are suitably located to contribute observations please contact me for more information and support in sharing your observations with NASA. NASA kindly supplied the following table for stations planning to monitor IMAGE during eclipses. Those studying the TLE for IMAGE will note eclipses primarily happen in the southern hemisphere and have limited visibility to northern hemisphere locations. It's not impossible for northern stations but not 'convenient'. https://tinyurl.com/ANS133-ImageRecovery For those needing general information about the mission to plan their efforts: Track: 26113 IMAGE, see Spacetrack... Frequency: 2272.5MHz +/- Doppler If possible, record amplitude, frequency and timestamp to a machine readable file and send to me with any information that may be needed to interpret your data. Please include lat/long and altitude of observing station and provide general details of the station. I.e. GPS time and frequency disciplined etc, antenna etc. If all you can do is record a plot that's fine too! Stations collecting real data or needing more help can email me directly and I will forward to NASA: sthed475 (at) telus (dot) net IMAGE thanks you. For more information on IMAGE (Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration) visit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMAGE [ANS thanks Scott Tilley and Seesat-l for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- ARISS News The following ARISS contacts have been successful: 2018-04-17 16:44 UTC Astronaut Scott Tingle KG5NZA using ISS callsign NA1SS with Salado Intermediate School, Salado, TX, USA, direct via K5LBJ. ARISS Mentor was Gene K5YFL. 2018-04-18 15:57 UTC Astronaut Ricky Arnold KE5DAU using ISS callsign NA1SS with Central Islip Union Free School District, Central Islip, NY, USA, direct via KD2IFR. ARISS Mentors were Gordon KD8COJ and Backup John K4SQC. 2018-04-19 12:05 UTC Astronaut Ricky Arnold KE5DAU using, ISS callsign NA1SS with King's High School, Warwick, UK, direct via GB4KHS, ARISS Mentor was Ciaran MØXTD. 2018-04-24 11:05 UTC Cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov using ISS callsign RSØISS with About Gagarin From The Space. Implementation Of The Session Of Radio-Love Communication With Participants Of "Artek" Change, near Black Sea, Russia, direct via RM6KD. Mentor was Sergey RV3DR. 2018-04-26 12:30 UTC Astronaut Ricky Arnold KE5DAU using ISS callsign OR4ISS with Zespól Szkoly Podstawowej i Publicznego Gimnazjum w Buczku, Buczek, Poland; I Liceum Ogólnoksztalcace im. Tadeusza Kosciuszki w Lasku, Lask, Poland; and Zespól Szkól Ponadgimnazjalnych w Zelowie, Zelów, Poland, direct via SP7KYL. ARISS Mentor was Armand SP3QFE. 2018-05-03 15:47 UTC Astronaut Scott Tingle KG5NZA using ISS callsign NA1SS with Mill Springs Academy, Alpharetta, GA, USA, direct via WA4MSA. ARISS Mentor was John K4SQC. 2018-05-03 17:22 UTC Astronaut Scott Tingle KG5NZA using ISS callsign NA1SS with Students for the Exploration & Development of Space, College Station, TX, USA, direct via W5QZ. ARISS Mentor was Keith W5IU. 2018-05-07 13:54:10 UTC Astronaut Ricky Arnold KE5DAU using ISS callsign NA1SS with Mooreland Heights Elementary, Knoxville, TN, USA, direct via WA4SXM. ARISS Mentor was Dave AA4KN. Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule An International Space Station school contact has been planned with participants at University of the Philippines Integrated School, Quezon City, Philippines on 15 May. The event is scheduled to begin at approximately 08:22 UTC. It is recommended that you start listening approximately 10 minutes before this time.The duration of the contact is approximately 9 minutes and 30 seconds. The contact will be a telebridge between NA1SS and W6SRJ. The contact should be audible over the west coast of the U.S. Interested parties are invited to listen in on the 145.80 MHz downlink. The contact is expected to be conducted in English. The UP Integrated School (est. 1976) is the laboratory school of the UP College of Education. It offers an integrated curriculum from Kindergarten to Grade 12. It is one of the country's pioneer integrated schools and has been offering an integrated curriculum from Kindergarten to Grade 10 since its inception until the mandatory implementation of the Department of Education's K-12 program in 2012. The UPIS is the product of the merging of three schools whose functions it inherited. These are the UP High School (est. 1916), the UP Elementary School (est. 1936), and the UP Preparatory High School (est. 1954). Age of students is 14 and 15. Participants will ask as many of the following questions as time allows: 1. What are the challenges that astronauts face while working inside the international space station? How are these issues addressed? 2. What can you give as an advice or words of inspiration to young aspiring Filipinos dreaming of becoming involved in NASA's (or International) space programs? 3. The Philippines is one of the most disaster-prone (typhoon, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions) countries in the world. What researches does the ISS have to help these countries (or the Philippines, in particular) minimize risks related to such disasters? 4. Which of the recent breakthroughs/discoveries in your research in the ISS is your team's favorite and why? 5. Given the latest discoveries/experiments your team has done in the ISS, which field in science and technology do you think has the most promising advancement in the upcoming years? 6. How can the youth have a more active participation in space programs? (Skills training, seminars, etc.) 7. How long does it take to get use to the weightlessness in space? 8. What did you do before you became an astronaut? 9. Compared to Earth-based monitoring programs, how does the ISS facilities and equipment help in monitoring environmental disasters? 10. What can the Philippines do if it wants to participate in international space programs? PLEASE CHECK THE FOLLOWING FOR MORE INFORMATION ON ARISS UPDATES: Visit ARISS on Facebook. We can be found at Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS). To receive our Twitter updates, follow @ARISS_status [ANS thanks ARISS, Charlie AJ9N and David AA4KN for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Satellite Shorts From All Over + Get on the Satellites for Field Day! Field Day is right around the corner! Posted on the AMSAT website with the ARRL’s permission is an article entitled “Get on the Satellites for ARRL Field Day” written by Sean Kutzko, KX9X, and published in the June 2018 issue of QST. Read it at https://www.amsat.org/get-on-the-satellites-for-field-day/. As a reminder, AMSAT runs a Field Day event concurrently with ARRL Field Day. For more information, please see https://www.amsat.org/field-day/. [ANS thanks Paul N8HM for the above information.] + 6Y5IDX log I, Marty N9EAT, have been working with Chris, VO1IDX/6Y5IDX to get his logs sorted out. However, some passes may have been lost due to phone issues during rainstorms while he was in Jamaica. The following are in the log at this time, and we plan to upload May 11: YS1MS(x2), TI2CDA, TI4DJ, FG8OJ, WP4PRD, N1RCN (x2), KE4AL, K9EO, N1COR, HP2VX, NA2AA(x2), N9EAT, AK4WQ, AA5PK, N8HM, N8RO, K4FEG, KD8ATF, KG4AKV, KB1PVH, NK1K. If you worked them, and have a recording available to prove it, forward them to either me or Chris VO1IDX. His email is good on QRZ. Additionally, forward any lotw issues to either of use. Paper QSL cards are via direct to VO1IDX. [ANS thanks Marty N9EAT for the above information.] + 6E5RM/XF3 Cozumel Island Special Event Includes Satellite Operation Members of the Radioclub Cancun will be active as 6E5RM between May 23rd and June 1st. Activity is to celebrate the 2018 Rally Maya Mexico. However, on May 23rd and 24th, they will be active as 6E5RM/XF3 from Cozumel Island. Operations are expected to be on 80-6 meters using SSB, RTTY, FT8 and the satellites. They will be on the air as much time as possible for the Rally activities. [ANS thanks Ohio/Penn DX Bulletin #1363] + ARISS Story Line Featured in Book Emily Calandrelli KD8PKR recently released her third short novel for kids, "Take Me to Your Leader". In it, her main character, Ada Lace uses amateur radio around her hometown. She also uses radio to contact an astronaut on the ISS. I believe it is Sandy Magnus in her story. Even though the contact does not follow the ARISS protocol, she talks about the ARISS program in one of the appendices at the back of the book. If you (or your schools) are ever looking for a good short book to explain a little about radio contacts, this would be a good choice. [ANS thanks Brian VE6JBJ 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 addi- tional benefits. Application forms are available from the AMSAT Office. Primary and secondary school students are eligible for membership at one-half the standard yearly rate. Post-secondary school students enrolled in at least half time status shall be eligible for the stu- dent rate for a maximum of 6 post-secondary years in this status. Contact Martha at the AMSAT Office for additional student membership information. 73, This week's ANS Editor, EMike McCardel, AA8EM aa8em at amsat dot org

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ANS-126 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins
by Chris Bradley (AA0CB) 06 May '18

06 May '18

AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-126 The AMSAT News Service bulletins are a free, weekly news and infor- mation service of AMSAT North America, The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation. ANS publishes news related to Amateur Radio in Space including 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. The news feed on http://www.amsat.org publishes news of Amateur Radio in Space as soon as our volunteers can post it. Please send any amateur satellite news or reports to: ans-editor at amsat.org. In this edition: * The end of daytime HF * Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule as of 2018-05-04 * EL58hx Grid Expedition - 25-27 May * UK Unicorn-2a PocketQube + HuskySat-1 transponder frequencies * VUCC Awards-Endorsements for April 2018 * Introducing the Satellite FAQ and How-To wiki * 2018 AMSAT Space Symposium, Nov 2-4, in Huntsville, Alabama * ARRL Executive Committee Discussion of Small Satellite NPRM SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-126.01 ANS-126 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins AMSAT News Service Bulletin 126.01 From AMSAT HQ KENSINGTON, MD. DATE May 6, 2018 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-126.01 The end of daytime HF The National Electric Code now requires electronics on every module of a solar array communicating via signalling on the DC power lines to assure EACH pair of panels can shut down independently. This is to make all possible faults never allow more than 80 volts anywhere in the system. This is effective 1 Jan 2019 This is the nail in the coffin of simple DC series string arrays which are the quietest systems and almost demands microinverters or optimizers on every panel. Refer to the QST article a few years ago about how disastrous optimizers are to RFI and HF operations with modules all over the roof.. Here is the Solar news: https://solarbuildermag.com/bos/nec-2017-module-level-solar-system- shutdown/ Also, what is going to happen to an array that has signaling all over it in the near field of HF? Although you can avoid it by going solar before then, you may have problems when your neighbors go later. I hate to be an alarmist but we all know what happens when ham radio and commercial systems are incompatible and even though Ham radio might be in the right, we are only 1 in 600 and no one is going to side with us. We took on broadband over power and squelched that dumb idea, but now this has the potential for equal demise of Ham radio. It should be fixable, but we also know that there is high competition in the solar market and the modules that are made the cheapest will be popular and will likely not be adequately filtered. Sorry for posting to the AMSAT-bb but it is the only HAM email reflector I subscribe to. If nothing else, we need to find out what systems are terrible emitters and nip them in the bud. Maybe all it takes is driving by solar systems you see and turing on your AM radio on a weak signal channel and seeing if the background noise peaks near that home. But also it has individual peaks, so it might also be nice to tune around too find the max and then check the range. I find the noise can go hundreds of feet along the power lines.... You cant miss em... just sounds like a 60 Hz buzz on all the harmonics of the inverter switching frequency. [ANS thanks Bob, WB4APR for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule 2018-05-04 07:30 UTC Mill Springs Academy, Alpharetta, GA, direct via WA4MSA The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be NA1SS The scheduled astronaut is Scott Tingle KG5NZA Contact was successful for: Thu 2018-05-03 15:47:30 UTC 25 deg (***) Students for the Exploration & Development of Space, College Station, TX, direct via W5QZ The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be NA1SS The scheduled astronaut is Scott Tingle KG5NZA Contact was successful for: Thu 2018-05-03 17:22:31 UTC 47 deg (***) Mooreland Heights Elementary, Knoxville, TN, direct via WA4SXM/N4CFB The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be NA1SS The scheduled astronaut is Ricky Arnold KE5DAU Contact is a go for: Mon 2018-05-07 13:54:10 UTC 23 deg [ANS thanks Charlie, AJ9N, for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- EL58hx Grid Expedition - 25-27 May The activation of maidenhead grid square EL58hx by W5PFG & AC0RA is just three weeks away. Even if you are not a grid or awards chaser, we would love to work you during this expedition via satellite. There are no permanent residents of this grid square, as the majority of it is open water in the Gulf of Mexico. What little land in EL58 is sandbar at mouth of the Mississippi River and accessible only by boat. See here: http://qthlocator.free.fr/index.php?locator=el58hx During the entire expedition, we will be land-based in the grid, meaning this activation will count as Louisiana, Plaquemines Parish (County), USA. It counts as Islands on the Air IOTA NA-168, Burwood Island. If you participate in the 2018 ARRL International Grid Chase, this might be your only opportunity to work EL58. Operating activity is estimated to begin around 23:00 UTC on 25 May. There are some variability in our arrival time and it will take us some time to prepare the site for operation. We will likely conclude operations around 15:00 UTC on 27 May. There are a total of 110 satellite passes predicted, 42 being FM. While we won't work every one of those, we should be on the ones that fall into good times and the best footprints over population centers. The list below are satellites we plan to utilize: FM: SO-50, AO-85, AO-91, AO-92 SSB: AO-7, FO-29, AO-73, XW-2A, XW-2B, XW-2C, XW-2F, CAS-4B Skeds are available for DX and stations greater than 6000 kms distance from EL58hx. Sked via direct email only to w5pfg at arrl dot net. Even if you worked the previous EL58 trip (K5L/mm), we'd love to work you again. This expedition we will use callsign W5PFG on satellites and AC0RA on 6m. We are hoping to work and confirm as many grid squares as possible, so if you want to work us from a nearby grid line to your home QTH, it is appreciated! AC0RA is responsible for the 6m side of our activation. You may hear either of us on 20m and 40m. Any one who works us is encourage to spot us. I may activate other grids in route to EL58, especially Friday morning the 25th. I'll try to announce those via Twitter @w5pfg but it may be on short notice. [ANS thanks Clayton, W5PFG, for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- UK Unicorn-2a PocketQube + HuskySat-1 transponder frequencies UK Unicorn-2a PocketQube Satellite https://amsat-uk.org/2018/05/01/unicorn-2a-pocketqube-satellite/ Amateur radio regulatory changes in Eire https://amsat-uk.org/2018/05/01/amateur-radio-regulatory-changes-in- eire/ HuskySat-1 Linear Transponder frequencies have been coordinated by IARU. As well as the V/U transponder for SSB/CW the satellite also has a downlink on 24 GHz http://www.amsatuk.me.uk/iaru/finished_detail.php?serialnum=604 King's High School ARISS contact on BBC TV https://amsat-uk.org/2018/04/19/kings-high-school-ariss-contact-bbc/ Emily Calandrelli's new book aimed at young people - Ada Lace, Take Me to Your Leader - features amateur radio and space communication. Sean Kutzko KX9X was an advisor for the book http://www.southgatearc.org/news/2018/may/ada-lace-book-features-ham- radio.htm AMSAT-EA May issue of English language newsletter now available https://www.amsat-ea.org/app/download/10352773/AMSAT-EA- Newsletter_05-2018.pdf AMSAT-UK http://amsat-uk.org/ Twitter https://twitter.com/AmsatUK Facebook https://facebook.com/AmsatUK YouTube https://youtube.com/AmsatUK [ANS thanks Trevor, M5AKA, for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- VUCC Awards-Endorsements for April 2018 Here are the endorsements and new VUCC Satellite Awards issued by the ARRL for the period April 1, 2018 through May 1, 2018. Congratulations to all those who made the list this month! There were two calls which decreased by one this month. I have reported these to ARRL. These are not listed below. ARRL corrected some similar errors last month. CALL 1 Apr 1 May 2018 N8RO 1030 1040 NP4JV 699 730 N4UFO 724 725 W5RKN 575 606 NJ4Y 549 580 WD9EWK 425 430 N0JE 248 400 NS3L 275 300 VE7CEW 251 292 AA8CH 175 218 PT9BM 172 176 K5IX 125 175 N7AGF 126 152 KE8FZT 100 151 AL6D 112 150 NA2AA 127 128 N1PEB New 125 G0ABI 122 124 PU8RFL 101 120 NX2X New 119 AE5B New 100 If you find errors or omissions. please contact me off-list at <mycall>@<mycall>.com and I'll revise the announcement. This list was developed by comparing the ARRL .pdf listings for April 1, 2018. and May 1, 2018. It's a visual comparison so omissions are possible. Apologies if your call was not mentioned. Thanks to all those who are roving to grids that are rarely on the birds. They are doing most of the work! [ANS thanks Ron, W5RKN, for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Introducing the Satellite FAQ and How-To wiki http://sats.wikidot.com/ The main content so far: = What apps can I use to track satellites? = * http://sats.wikidot.com/what-apps-can-i-use-to-track-satellites * A table of Android/iOS mobile apps with supported/not supported checkmarks for various features. I don't have iOS so I had to put question marks on a lot of features for those apps. * If you know the status of the features let me know off list, or I can add you to the wiki so you can edit it yourself. = How do you know when the ISS is transmitting SSTV? = * http://sats.wikidot.com/how-do-you-know-when-the-iss-is- transmitting-sstv * Includes instructions on how to setup email notifications on the RSS feed of ariss-sstv.blogspot.com website using blogtrottr so you can be emailed when new events are announced. = How do you add 2 meter only digipeaters to SatPC32 = * http://sats.wikidot.com/how-do-you-add-add-2-meter-only- digipeaters-to-satpc32 * I just added this based on an email from 2 hours ago = How to create multiple profiles in GoSatWatch = * http://sats.wikidot.com/gosatwatch:multiple-profiles * You can create the equivalent of profiles in the GoSatWatch by cloning an element set then selecting only those satellites of interest. * Brad WF7T created this tutorial Brad, WF7T and I started this wiki.The purpose is to document answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) across the various forums like amsat-bb, the AMSAT-NA Facebook group, twitter, QRZ.com forums, etc. How-Tos are also acceptable. The goal is not to be a comprehensive source of amateur satellite information (especially not lists of all the sats, as that info is on many other sources), just to supplement what is already out there and provide a place to collect commonly requested information. More information on the intention/philosophy of the wiki can be found here: http://sats.wikidot.com/about If you want to add stuff or edit the wiki, please create an account on wikidot and let me or Brad know your username/email address and we can add you. On the To-Do list [1] I have a goal to make a new page with a list of full duplex HTs. I know a list of these HTs already is on the web but I don't believe it's updated. I also know Patrick, WD9EWK has a lot of detailed info on various Chinese radios. All of this could be summarized and updated as new HTs come out. If you want to start it "that would be great." ;-) 1) http://sats.wikidot.com/talk:start [ANS thanks John Brier, KG4AKV, for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- 2018 AMSAT Space Symposium, Nov 2-4, in Huntsville, Alabama AMSAT announces that the 2018 36th Annual AMSAT Space Symposium and General Meeting will be held on Friday through Sunday, Nov. 2, 3, & 4, 2018 in Huntsville, Alabama. Location will be at the US Space and Rocket Center, One Tranquility Base, Huntsville, Alabama (https://www.rocketcenter.com/). Hotel accommodations will be next door at the Marriott at the Space & Rocket Center, 5 Tranquility Base, Huntsville, Alabama USA. The 2018 AMSAT Space Symposium and Annual Meeting features: * Space Symposium with Amateur Satellite Presentations * Operating Techniques, News, & Plans from the Amateur Satellite World * Board of Directors Meeting open to AMSAT members (The AMSAT BOD will meet at the Marriott at the US Space and Rocket Center) * Opportunities to Meet Board Members and Officers * AMSAT Annual General Membership Meeting * Auction, Annual Banquet, Keynote Speaker and Door Prizes !! Our Keynote Speaker this year will be announced at a later date. Additional information about the 2018 AMSAT Symposium will be posted on the AMSAT web site, www.amsat.org The Marriott at the US Space and Rocket Center is located at 5 Tranquility Base, Huntsville, AL, 35805. Hotel Reservations for the Symposium may be made by individual attendees directly with Marriott reservations at 1-(800) 228-9290 or (256) 830-2222, please mention the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT), Reference Number M-BIHHXTA. [ANS thanks 2018 AMSAT Symposium Committee, for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- ARRL Executive Committee Discussion of Small Satellite NPRM The ARRL Executive Committee meeting on April 21 in Windsor, Connecticut, discussed the FCC's recent Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) regarding the deployment of "small satellites" by colleges, universities, and commercial entities using experi- mental licenses on Amateur Radio spectrum. The Committee was told that the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) has changed its previous policy regarding the coordination of small satellites (CubeSats), and that FCC policy is overly restrictive in some respects and insufficiently protective against commercial exploitation of amateur spectrum in other respects. AMSAT has requested ARRL's input. The Committee agreed that ARRL's comments should reflect their support for World Radiocommunication Conference 2015 Resolution 659 and IARU policies. In addition, ARRL (a) will support and encourage college and university Amateur Radio experiments where the sponsor of the experiment is an amateur licensee and all operation is in amateur spectrum, and (b) will discourage commercial or Part 5 experimental operations using Amateur Radio spectrum. ******* Editor's note ******* The ARRL plans to file a comment on the FCC's Part 25 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM). AMSAT may file comments as well, though the focus of those comments will be about any potential inference to the Part 97, Amateur Radio Service. AMSAT and the ARRL have been in contact discussing this Part 25 NPRM. Until this NPRM has been published in the Federal Register, the comment period has not opened. Once published, the comment period will be open for 45 days. [ANS thanks the ARRL for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Satellite Shorts From All Over + http://www.satmagazine.com/ .... May SatMagazine available for reading on-line or download. Seems to have mostly a commercial satellite focus this month. --------------------------------------------------------------------- /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 addi- tional benefits. Application forms are available from the AMSAT Office. Primary and secondary school students are eligible for membership at one-half the standard yearly rate. Post-secondary school students enrolled in at least half time status shall be eligible for the stu- dent rate for a maximum of 6 post-secondary years in this status. Contact Martha at the AMSAT Office for additional student membership information. 73, This week's ANS Editor, Chris Bradley aa0cb at amsat dot org

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