- ANS - mailman.amsat.org

ANS-043 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins
by E.Mike McCardel 12 Feb '17

12 Feb '17

AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-043 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: * SSTV From The ISS February 13-14 * K5T Grid Expedition to DL88jx * Great STEM Lesson Idea * Donations for AMSAT SA Kletskous CubeSat * 2017 Teachers Institute Schedule Announced * University CubeSat Opportunity * Nayif-1 CubeSat Launch Announced * Nayif-1 UPDATE Pre-launch Keps and more details * UT1FG/MM QSL Procedure for this season * Live HAMTV Video Planned for ARISS Contact * ARISS News * Satellite Shorts From All Over SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-043.01 ANS-043 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins AMSAT News Service Bulletin 043.01 >From AMSAT HQ KENSINGTON, MD. February 12, 2017 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-043.01 SSTV From The ISS February 13-14 An MAI-75 Experiment SSTV event is planned to begin on Monday, Feb. 13 from 09:25-18:00 UTC and Tuesday, Feb. 14 from 11:25-16:30 UTC. The downlink frequency is expected to be 145.800 MHz and the transmission mode is expected to be PD180. This opportunity should cover most of the world during the operational period. The MAI-75 experiment uses a notebook computer on the ISS Russian Segment, which stores images that are then transmitted to Earth using the ham radio, specifically the onboard Kenwood TM D710E transceiver. Images received can be posted and viewed at https://ariss- sstv.blogspot.com/ Please note that the event, and any ARISS event, is dependent on other activities, schedules and crew responsibilities on the ISS and are subject to change at any time. While preparations are being finalized please check for new and the most current information on the AMSAT.org and ARISS.org websites, the AMSAT-BB(a)amsat.org, the ARISS facebook at Amateur Radio On The International Space Station (ARISS) and ARISS twitter @ARISS_status for the latest information on this event. [ANS thanks ARISS for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- K5T Grid Expedition to DL88jx Several satellite operators will make their way down to the southernmost tip of Texas' "Big Bend" on Sunday, February 12, 2017. Operating from within Big Bend National Park's Talley Campground via amateur satellites, grid chasers will have a shot at the ellusive DL88jx for a period of roughly 18 hours. Listen for K5T on FM and SSB satellites starting roughly at 21:00 UTC on February 12 through 15:00 UTC on February 13. ISS packet is possible but not planned. You may occasionally catch K5T in grid square DL89. Pass/schedule requests will not be honored on this trip. Some HF operation may occur. Paper QSL with SASE via W5PFG or LoTW with the callsign "K5T." [ANS thanks Clayton W5PFG for the above Information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Great STEM Lesson Idea Dave Ryan, EI4HT/M0GIW, has posted an excellent video of a project he devised with his daught Erin. Dave and his daughter downloaded the list of questions for the ARISS QSO between Astronaut Shane Kimbrough and South Street School, Danbury, Connecticut USA. He and Erin researched the questions and made a list of projected answers for them. The contact was made with ON4ISS, an ARISS telebridge station in Belgium, and Erin and Dave were able to listen to the transmission live from from their QTH in South Yorkshire, UK. Dave videotaped the QSO and posted it online at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzQbyIH8Qwg This is an excellent example of how to integrate Amateur Radio and the the ISS without being directly part of an ARISS contact. The examples can be used with any demo or within a planned classroom setting. This is a great example of how to introduce a STEM related activity and create an interest in the hobby at the same time. [ANS thanks Dave EI4HT/M0GIW and Erin for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Donations for AMSAT SA Kletskous CubeSat Two companies, RS Components and Trax Interconnect, have made major contributions to AMSAT SA's Kletskous CubeSat. RS Components have supplied components for the next generation Electronic Power Supply system (EPS) and the controller board. Trax Interconnect supplied the PC Boards for the EPS, the controller board and the magnetic stabilisation system. Their support for amateur radio and amateur radio satellites is much appreciated. [ANS thanks the SARL weekly news in English 2017-2-4 for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- 2017 Teachers Institute Schedule Announced ARRL has announced the 2017 schedule for our Teachers Institute on Wireless Technology. We want you to be among the first to receive this information. If you are an ARRL member you’ll see an article about the Teachers Institute in the March issue of QST. You will also see an announcement in our next issue Radio Waves. If you are a past participant of the Teachers Institute we hope that you have found many ways to use the ideas, training and resources you received and are interested in spreading the word to other teachers. You may want to consider signing up for the advanced TI-2 on Remote Sensing and Data Gathering. You are probably in the best position to know where to circulate information about this opportunity within your school district. A listing on your school or school district website? A newsletter? A web page for science and technology teachers? Word of mouth to teachers in your circle? We’d like to get the word out to reach teachers who can make use of this opportunity. If you would like to receive copies of our printed brochures please send your request and your mailing address to etp(a)arrl.org. Here’s some copy you can use to announce the opportunity in your school community: Integrate STEM by Exploring Wireless Technology ARRL, the national association for Amateur Radio, has just announced the schedule for two sessions of its Introductory Teachers Institute on Wireless Technology (TI-1) to be offered during the summer of 2017. The ARRL Teachers Institute is an expenses paid, intensive professional development opportunity for educators who want to receive training and resources to explore wireless technology in the classroom. Topics at the TI-1 Introduction to Wireless Technology, include basic electronics, radio science, microcontroller programming and basic robotics. ARRL will also offer an advanced Teachers Institute (TI-2) on Remote Sensing and Data Gathering. This linked article from the March issue of ARRL’s journal, QST, includes the schedule and description of offerings this summer. Please visit the ARRL website at: www.arrl.org/ti for more details and to download an application. Watch this video for an inside look at the Teachers Institute! Application deadline is May 1. [ANS thanks Debra K1DMJ and the ARRL for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- University CubeSat Opportunity The UK Space Agency is encouraging university students to take advantage of a new opportunity to build and test their own CubeSats The aim of the The Fly Your Satellite! program is to support university student teams with educational CubeSats throughout the assembly, integration, testing, and verification process. By participating in the programme, students will implement standard practices for spacecraft development; receive support from experienced ESA specialists; attend tailored training courses; and will be offered access to state-of-the-art test facilities. ESA say only launch opportunities from the International Space Station (ISS) are envisioned, and CubeSat teams applying need to ensure that their mission complies with a deployment to orbit from the ISS. Further information at http://tinyurl.com/ANS043-UnivCubesats UK Space Agency https://twitter.com/spacegovuk [ANS thanks ESA via Southgate ARN for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Nayif-1 CubeSat Launch Announced AMSAT-UK and AMSAT-NL are delighted to now be able to confirm that the Nayif-1 1U CubeSat, which has a full FUNcube payload, is now scheduled for launch on an Indian PSLV launch vehicle at 03:58 UT on February 15, 2017. The flight, C-37, will be carry a total of 104 satellites into orbit. Nayif-1 has been developed by the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) and American University of Sharjah (AUS). The UAE’s first Nanosatellite was developed by Emirati engineering students from AUS under the supervision of a team of engineers and specialists from MBRSC within the framework of a partnership between the two entities, aiming to provide hands-on experience to engineering students on satellite manufacturing. The spacecraft includes a U/V linear transponder and telemetry transmitter. It employs enhanced oscillator circuitry and includes an active attitude determination and control system. As with previous missions carrying FUNcube payloads, AMSAT-UK would very much like to receive as many reports from stations around the world, especially during the first few minutes and hours after launch. We expect that the first signals may be heard in North America during the mid evening hours (local time) on Feb 14. There is a mission specific Telemetry Dashboard for this project and this can be downloaded from: http://download.funcube.org.uk/Nayif-1_Dashboard_1038_installer.msi and, in a similar way to the FUNcube-1 Dashboard, this will be capable of uploading the telemetry received to a central Data Warehouse. Guidance Notes for the installation of the Dashboard, integration with a FUNcube Dongle and the Data Warehouse have been prepared for the Nayif-1 mission. These can be downloaded from: http://tinyurl.com/ANS043-Nayif-1-Dashboard A file to test that the Dashboard and Warehouse configuration are working correctly can be downloaded from: http://download.funcube.org.uk/nayif1_testfile.funcubebin The operating frequencies for the spacecraft will be: Telemetry 145.940 MHz using 1k2 BPSK to the FUNcube standard. SSB/CW Transponder Uplink on 435.045 – 435.015 MHz Downlink on 145.960 – 145.990 MHz Initial operations of the spacecraft will be in a low power “safe” mode where only the telemetry transmitter is activated. More details about the launch, exact deployment time and pre-launch TLE’s will be made available as soon as they become available; in the meantime we will really appreciate your support! [ANS thanks AMSAT-UK for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Nayif-1 UPDATE Pre-launch Keps and more details The launch time for the Nayif-1 CubeSat has been confirmed as 03:58UTC on February 15th 2017 on the PSLV C37 vehicle and a set of pre-launch TLEs have now been released: NAYIF 1 17002U 17002A 17046.17824931 0.00000000 00000-0 00000-0 0 9993 2 17002 97.5521 107.5843 0004848 278.6481 296.8511 15.21991390 01 This file can also been downloaded from here http://download.funcube.org.uk/nayif_tle.txt We expect that the FUNcube transmitter on Nayif-1 will activate at approximately 05:06UTC, but the exact timing is still to be confirmed! Initial transmissions will be in “safe” mode and will be of the 1k2 BPSK telemetry only with approx 50mW of RF power. If the predictions are correct, the spacecraft will be heading north over Mexico and the western parts of the US and Canada. During the Launch and Early Operation phase (LEOP) of the mission, the Nayif-1 command team will be headquartered at the American University of Sharjah Ground station in the United Arab Emirates. They will obviously be especially keen to have all possible reports of signal reception during this first orbit! To encourage everyone to take part, there will be a small prize for the station that submits the first data to the Nayif-1 Data Warehouse and perhaps an extra reward if they manage to receive the very first frame transmitted by the spacecraft! This should have the sequence number 5471 or 5472. Details of the Nayif-1 frequencies, together with details of how to the download the Dashboard can be found here https://funcube.org.uk/2017/02/08/nayif-1-launch-date-now-confirmed/ The Data Warehouse is still under final development but a preview can be seen here: http://data.amsat-uk.org/nayif1/index Please note that if you are already a registered user of the FUNcube Dashboard then you do not need to re-register. Your existing details will transfer automatically to the new Dashboard when you run it for the first time. If you run the test file with the Nayif-1 Dashboard please do not expect the Warehouse to show the data - it is from an earlier date than that is already displayed. However the “packets uploaded” tab at the bottom right corner of your Dashboard will show that the files have uploaded OK, that all is well with your system and that it is ready for action. We are hoping that the actual launch will be webstreamed and details of this will be made available as soon as possible. The AMSAT-UK and -NL team will also be using the #funcube IRC channel on launch day and you will be very welcome to join them there. If you do not have the Dashboard available then please submit your heard reports here. A web client can be found at http://irc.lc/freenode/funcube if you do not have an IRC client installed. [ANS thanks Graham G3VZV for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- UT1FG/MM QSL Procedure for this season As you may know Yuri, UT1FG, prefers to do his own QSLs to the extent possible. He has asked me to help funnel QSL requests to him while he is at sea so that he can process them and mail them from ports as he travels. Yuri does not process qsl requests when he is not on a ship. The following procedure only applies to contacts made during this season from the M/V Chestnut. Previous seasons will be handled by his manager Eugene, UX0FY. Eugene has all the logs for previous seasons and can be contacted through his qrz.com email address. Please contact Eugene before sending anything in the mail to him and ask for instructions on how to proceed. You may prepare a logsheet of QSO's that Yuri can print, verify, sign and mail from one of his destination ports. An example of a suitable logsheet can be found at papays.com/sat under the UT1FG/MM QSL Instructions link at the top of the page. Please use the following conventions when preparing the logsheet: 1. List only one contact per grid. 2. Only request confirmations of NEW Grids. 3. Use Excel or a similar program to create the logsheet. 4. Save the Logsheet to a .pdf If your program cannot save to a .pdf, download a free program like Bullzip that will install a .pdf printer that you can print to and create a .pdf file. 5. Each page should stand alone; there should be a place for Yuri's signature on each page. 6. Incude your COMPLETE Mailing Address on each page. 7. Name the logsheet file with this format: Yourcall_UT1FG_DateLastQSO for example: DJ8MS_UT1FG_10Feb2017.pdf 8. Email your file as an attachment to: k8yse at papays.com with the subject line the same as the .pdf file name: DJ8MS_UT1FG_10Feb2017 10. Please be sure to follow the example on the website papays.com/sat/ut1fgqsl.html Consistency will help Yuri process requests more efficiently. 11. If there are qso's on your list that are not in the log, Yuri will draw a line through them and initial. I will send an acknowledgement email when I receive a request. This way you will know that Yuri will have your logsheet. If Yuri tells me that he has mailed your logsheet, I will post that information on the bulletin boards. Yuri's time when nearing or in port is very limited. He has a lot of responsibilities to carry out and large amounts of paper to process along with requests from his Company. He has more time when he is sailing. Let that guide you when deciding when you email your requests. A good time to mail your request is when Yuri is about 5 days from making port. Follow him at marinetraffic.com (M/V Chestnut - bulk Cargo). This new procedure may be changed or stopped depending on how it goes. Hopefully this will work well and Yuri will find it acceptable. We are very fortunate that Yuri operates from so many water grids that otherwise would never be on the satellites. His passion for satellites is amazing. Have fun working him. [ANS thanks John K8YSE for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Live HAMTV Video Planned for ARISS Contact The HAMTV experiment is planned transmit live video during the ARISS contact with Collège André Malraux, Chatelaillon-Plage, France on Mon 2017-02-13 14:00:35 UTC. The HAMTV video downlink is on 2395 MHz (DVB-S,SR2000,fec 1/2, PID video 256, PID audio 257, Mp eg2 codec). Audio will be on 70cm. The video will be streamed on-line at: https://hamtv.batc.tv/live/ Additional streaming from other ground stations will be at: http://www.batc.tv/iss/ [ANS thanks Jean-Pierre, F6DZP and the HAMTV yahoogroups e-mail list for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- ARISS News + A Successful contact was made between Space Exploration Educators Conference, Houston, Texas, and Astronaut Thomas Pesquet KG5FYG using Callsign NA1SS. The contact began Thu 2017-02-09 20:30:10 UTC and lasted about nine and a half minutes. Contact was Telebridge via K6DUE. ARISS Mentor was Frank KA3HDO. + A Successful contact was made between Palmetto Scholars Academy, North Charleston, SC, USA and Astronaut Shane Kimbrough KE5HOD using Callsign NA1SS. The contact began Fri 2017-02-10 17:59:18 UTC and lasted about nine and a half minutes. Contact was direct via K4PSA. ARISS Mentor was John K4SQC. Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule Collège André Malraux, Chatelaillon-Plage, France, direct via F4KJT The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be FXØISS The scheduled astronaut is Thomas Pesquet KG5FYG Contact is a go for: Mon 2017-02-13 14:00:35 UTC 3rd Junior High School, Komotini, Greece, direct via SV7APQ The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be OR4ISS The scheduled astronaut is Shane Kimbrough KE5HOD Contact is a go for: Fri 2017-02-17 08:58:11 UTC [ANS thanks ARISS, Charlie AJ9N and David AA4KN for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Satellite Shorts From All Over + The Smallsat Launcher War "Over the last decade or so the definition of what a ‘small satellite’ is has ballooned beyond the original cubesat design specification to satellites of 50 or 100 kg. Today a ‘smallsat’ is defined far more around the cost, and sometimes the technologies used, than the size and shape of the box that goes into orbit." Read the full story at: http://hackaday.com/2017/02/09/the-smallsat-launcher-war/ [ANS thanks Hackaday.com for the above information and Bernhard VA6BMJ for bringing it to our attention] + NASA seeks partnerships with US companies to advance commercial space technologies NASA is seeking partnerships with U.S. companies focused on industry-developed space technologies that can advance the commercial space sector and benefit future NASA missions through the "Announcement of Collaborative Opportunity (ACO)" solicitation released by NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD). Read complete story at: http://tinyurl.com/ANS043-NASAPartners [ANS thanks spacedaily.com for the above information] + Smallsat Builders Admit a Little Bigger Might Be a Little Better "What’s the perfect size for a small satellite? “The answer is 42 kilograms,” said Martin Sweeting, Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. founder and executive chairman, at the Small Satellite Symposium Feb. 7 and 8." See more at: http://tinyurl.com/ANS043-SmallSatBuilders [ANS thanks SpaceNews 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

1 0

ANS-029 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins
by Lee McLamb 29 Jan '17

29 Jan '17

AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-029 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: * Colloquium Videos for 2009-2012 Posted on YouTube * ARRL LoTW Adds Additional Satellite Entries * Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule as of 2017-01-27 * Get Your Iridium Fix Before It’s Too Late! SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-029.01 ANS-029 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins AMSAT News Service Bulletin 029.01 From AMSAT HQ KENSINGTON, MD. DATE January 29, 2017 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-029.01 Colloquium Videos for 2009-2012 Posted on YouTube AMSAT-UK reports that thanks to Wouter Weggelaar PA3WEG and @BATC online videos of talks given at AMSAT-UK Colloquium 2009-2012 are now posted at https://www.youtube.com/user/AMSATUK/videos The videos were made by members of the British Amateur Television Club (BATC) and stored on the club’s streaming site. Dedicated BATC members have carried out the world-wide streaming and recording of the AMSAT-UK International Space Colloquium since 2007. [ANS thanks AMSAT-UK for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- ARRL LoTW Adds Additional Satellite Entries ARRL LoTW/IT staff announce an update release containing additions and changes made since the release of config.xml 10.4 The changes in config.xml 10.5 are: - In the Satellite enumeration, added entries for: - "BY70-1": Bayi Kepu Weixing 1 - "IO-86": Indonesia-OSCAR 86 (LAPAN-ORARI) - "SAREX" for 2-way contacts made using the Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment (SAREX) packet digipeater - "MIREX": for 2-way contacts made using the Mir packet digipeater [ANS thanks Sean, KX9X, for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule as of 2017-01-27 Cours Saint Maur, Monaco, Monaco, telebridge via LU1CGB The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be NA1SS The scheduled astronaut is Thomas Pesquet KG5FYG Contact is a go for: Thu 2017-02-02 08:38:27 UTC 75 deg via LU1CGB Rescheduled due to Service Module spatial constraint. South Street School, Danbury CT, telebridge via ON4ISS The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be OR4ISS The scheduled astronaut is Shane Kimbrough KE5HOD Contact is a go for: Thu 2017-02-02 18:49:14 UTC 80 deg [ANS thanks Charlie, AJ9N, for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Get Your Iridium Fix Before It’s Too Late! The shock and dazzle of Iridium flares will soon be a thing of the past. Here's how to make the most of seeing them before a new generation of spacecraft replaces the Iridium satellites. Each of the approximately 66 Iridiums in orbit have three door-sized aluminum antennae treated with highly reflective, silver-coated Teflon for temperature control. When the angle between observer and satellite is just right, sunlight reflecting off an antenna can cause the satellite to surge from invisibility up to magnitude –8.5 in a matter of seconds. If you've never seen one, the searing brilliance may make you recoil instinctively. On rare occasions, flares can reach magnitude –9.5. That's 100 times brighter than Venus! Sadly, that era will soon draw to a close. On January 14th, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 delivered the first 10 of a new generation of Iridium NEXT satellites to low- Earth orbit, starting the process to replace the older units in a maneuver called slot-swapping. While the new birds will provide faster data rates and enhanced global communications, their antenna design is completely different and not expected to produce significant flares. Heavens Above is one of the easiest sites to get you looking in the right place at the right time. The Heavens Above website allows for easy figuring and finding of Iridium flares. Just sign in and give it your location, then click the Iridium Flares link under the Satellites heading on the left side of the homepage. A table will pop open with a week's worth of passes that includes pertinent information like brightness, altitude, and magnitude of the flare at flare center, the brightest possible magnitude for a particular pass. Clicking on the date will produce a map showing the flare's path and ground track where the flare will appear brightest. When that path passes near or over your location, you'll see a –8 dazzler. If not, you can use the map to drive to the sweet spot and await the display. The transition to the Iridium NEXT generation will be gradual but certain, so make the most of the opportunities that remain. If you're a teacher, do your homework and plan an outing to show a daytime flare to your science class. Anything that gets people talking more about the sky is a good thing, and I guarantee those kids will never forget the sight. [ANS thanks Bob King, and Sky and Telescope 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, KU4OS ku4os at amsat dot org

1 0

ANS-022 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins
by E.Mike McCardel 22 Jan '17

22 Jan '17

AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-022 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: * Reno, Nevada to Host 2017 AMSAT Space Symposium Oct 27-29 * Diwata 2's payload includes amateur radio * AMSAT News From South Africa * JAMSAT Symposium in Kyoto on 11-12 March, Presenters Requested. * Kenwood features ARISS in February 2017 Two Page QST Ad * AMSAT Phase 4 Weekly Engineering Report * US Naval Academy HFsat Receives IARU Frequency Coordination * ARISS News * Satellite Shorts From All Over SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-022.01 ANS-022 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins AMSAT News Service Bulletin 022.01 >From AMSAT HQ KENSINGTON, MD. January 22, 2017 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-022.01 Reno, Nevada to Host 2017 AMSAT Space Symposium Oct 27-29 AMSAT NA announces that the 2017 AMSAT Space Symposium will be held on Friday through Sunday, Oct 27, 28, 29, 2017 in Reno, Nevada. Location will be at the Silver Legacy Resort , 407 N Virginia Street, in Downtown, Reno. The Silver Legacy is a 4 star Resort/Hotel/Casino which is an iconic 42-story hotel with its massive round dome and spires centered in downtown. The Silver Legacy is typically lit green at night and is referred to by many as the "Emerald City" of Reno. In support of the University of Nevada Wolf Pack, the Silver Legacy will sometimes turn blue. Some of the perks include * Free parking for attendees. * Free transportation to and from the airport (10 minutes shuttle ride). * Complimentary WiFi. * The Silver Legacy has 8 restaurants and 8 different retail shops. * Large selection of additional restaurants and casinos (El Dorado, Circus Circus, and the rest of downtown Reno) are in close proximity and within walking distance. * Multiple alternate activities and attractions are in the Reno area. Nevada Museum Of Modern Art National Automobile Museum Fleischmann Planetarium (UNR Campus) National Bowling Stadium * If you are staying longer in the Reno area, there are several other points of interest close by, including Virginia City and Lake Tahoe. 2017 AMSAT Space Symposium and Annual Meeting The annual AMSAT Space Symposium features: * Space Symposium with Amateur Satellite Presentations * Operating Techniques, News, & Plans from the Amateur Satellite World * Board of Directors Meeting open to AMSAT members * Opportunities to Meet Board Members and Officers * AMSAT-NA Annual General Membership Meeting * Auction, Annual Banquet, Keynote Speaker and Door Prizes !! Several members from The Sierra Nevada Amateur Radio Society (SNARS) as well as many other local radio amateurs will be participating in helping with this event. Additional information about the 2017 AMSAT Symposium will be posted on the AMSAT web site, www.amsat.org as it becomes available. [ANS thanks Joe Spier, K6WAO, Frank Kostelac, N7ZEV, Linda Kostelac, KC7IIT, and the AMSAT-NA Office for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Diwata 2's payload includes amateur radio THE whole world is again set to witness come 2018 a third-world country launching into space another microsatellite -- this time with an amateur or ham radio included in the payload. An amateur radio is a communication technology that allows its operators to talk or send messages to other people, especially first responders, planners and government agencies whose own communications have been knocked out, in time of disasters and emergencies. Diwata 2 -- the Philippines' second microsatellite that is currently being developed by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman, Hokkaido University, and Tohoku University in Japan -- has this technology, along with a telescope and cameras. Its predecessor, the Diwata 1, was launched into orbit last April 2016 and has been sending pictures to DOST-Advanced Science and Technology Institute (Asti); the latest photo posted on PHL-Microsat Program's website shows the swollen Pinacanauan River, as well as agricultural areas damaged by flood after Tropical Cyclone Lawin (Haima) made landfall in Peñablanca, Cagayan on October 19, 2016. The PHL-Microsat said that as of January 13, the "Diwata 1 has circled the world approximately 4,083 times, taking images not just of the Philippines but also of other parts of the Earth." "We will download the images every time the Diwata 1 passes by the Philippines," said Dr. Joel Joseph Marciano Jr., program leader of PHL-Microsat and acting director of DOST-Asti, in an interview with SunStar. As to the amateur radio included in the payload of Diwata 2, Marciano said it is a very important feature of the second microsatellite, especially that the country is prone to natural disasters and calamities. "So when the satellite passes over in time of disaster, you can get a ham radio and send messages to another person in other areas in the country, and even give updates on evacuation using ham radio," he told fellows of the 20th Lopez Jaena Community Journalism Workshop held in UP Diliman last November 2016. The Philippines has more than a thousand amateur radio operators nationwide. Most of them are members of the Philippine Amateur Radio Association. Aside from the amateur radio, Diwata 2 has a Spaceborne Multispectral Imager (SMI) with liquid crystal tunable filter (LCTF) for environmental monitoring; high precision telescope (HPT) for rapid post-disaster assessment; and enhanced resolution cameras (instead of wide and middle field cameras used in Diwata 1). "Medium and wide cameras will be replaced by enhanced resolution cameras but there will still be the HPT and SMI with LCTF... Three cameras, plus an amateur radio as part of the payload," Marciano told SunStar. He said 11 Filipino scholars are working on the Diwata 2. "Mas dumami pa, because we now have 11 scholars. They are in Japan, working with the two universities (Hokkaido and Tohoku)," said Marciano. There were only nine Filipino scholars who assembled the Diwata 1. "They are considered as scholars because they are under the DOST scholarships, and building the microsatellites is part of their studies," added Marciano. He said that at present, they are working on the engineering model. "We are now in the design phase. We are working on the blocks. They are being done here locally and they will be tested in Japan." The DOST targets to launch the Diwata 2 in the first half of 2018, but Marciano said the launching will also depend on the availability of the launching facility. "The target overall for the completion of the flight model is in December 2017," he said. Except for the amateur radio and enhanced resolution cameras, Diwata 2 will hover 400 kilometers above the Earth's surface just like Diwata 1. It also weighs 50 kilograms, the size of a room air conditioner. "The characteristics are the same. There will be chances na mag-abot sila doon, which is an advantage to us since it will mean that we can generate more images from them... The idea is they should be operated on the same constellation. They have to communicate with other satellites to provide us better images," said Marciano. He explained that the country's microsatellites are not geostationary satellites, which have an altitude of 39,000 kilometers and are more expensive. "Diwata 2 only has 400 to 600 kilometers altitude," he said, adding that because it is a microsatellite, it is only considered a secondary payload. "Parang nakikiangkas lang tayo sa paglaunch (We are just hitching a ride), because it is very expensive to launch big satellites. You have to pay for the rocket," he told the Lopez Jaena journalism workshop fellows. He also said in November that the challenge of Diwata satellites' orbit is they can only take images of a certain location if they passes by it. "Diwata 1 passes every day, but it passes in different places, so there's a challenge of being in the right place at the right time," said Marciano. Asked about the possibility of a launching failure, Dr. Marc Caesar Talampas, project leader in-charge of the microsatellite BUS development, said in a follow-up interview: "They undergo rigorous testing before they will be launched into space. There is vibration test, radiation testing, etc. We have to comply with all the specifications." "The failure is more on not responding, not on the launching. But so far, based on our experience with Diwata 1, the communication has been positive," added Marciano. The government has allotted P2 billion per year for DOST's space technology program. This is on top of the P840 million that was already invested for the PHL-Microsat program. "There's an increase in the availability of funding for research in space technology... In 2018, we will come up with a new (budget) proposal,"Marciano said. [ANS thanks LAUREEN MONDOÑEDO-YNOT and SunStar Philippines for the above information.] --------------------------------------------------------------------- AMSAT News From South Africa ** Turn your laptop into a 24 MHz to 1,7 GHz receiver. AMSAT SA is holding a half-day SDR Workshop in association with the South African Radio League at the NARC on 18 February 2017. This is a hands-on workshop where participants will install a VHF/UHF RTL dongle and programme it to become a VHF/UHF receiver covering 24 MHz to 1,7 GHz. Anton Janovsky, ZR6AIC, and Cor Rademeyer, ZS6CR, will present the Workshop. The Workshop fee includes the RTL dongle and a memory stick with all the required software as well as light refreshments. Register before 11 February 2017, all the details and registration form are available on www.amsatsa.org.za. Book early to avoid disappointment. ** The 2017 AMSAT SA Space Conference will be held on Saturday 20 May 2017 in Pretoria. This is the first call for paper proposals. The theme of the conference is "Conquering Space as an educational pastime." Proposals for papers should include a brief synopsis of the proposed paper. The closing date for proposals is 31 January 2017. Authors will be notified of acceptance of their paper by 15 February 2017. More details on www.amsatsa.org.za [ANS thanks the SARL weekly news in English 2017-1-7 for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- JAMSAT Symposium in Kyoto on 11-12 March, Presenters Requested. Mikio Mouri, JA3GEP, JAMSAT announces "We are going to held our AGM and JAMSAT Symposium in Kyoto next March. "I hope to have some attendance from AMSAT-NA, even via Skype. We hope to hear some update of activities in US." The meeting will be held at: http://hotel-binario.jp/en/ The Hotel Binario Saga Arashiyama is located in the beautiful Arashiyama district of Kyoto and is perfect for sightseeing. Date and Time of Symposium: 14:30-17:30JST(05:30-08:30UTC) March 11(Sat) 09:00-13:00JST(00:00-04:00UTC) March 12(Sun) If anyone has an opportunity to join and present, please let Mikio know the appropriate time of your availability. He will keep the time slot for your presentation. Mikio can be contacted via JBH02173 (at) nifty.com] [ANS thanks Mikio JA3GEP for the above information.] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Kenwood features ARISS in February 2017 Two Page QST Ad Kenwwood features ARISS donations in its two page ad in the February 2017 QST. Check out the ad on pages 27 and 28. During February the ARRL is running a special slider in their rotating banner, on their website home page, with an appeal for ARISS donations. Also, The QST Cover story for February teases "Texas Students Take Amateur Radio to the Edge of Space" The article "To the Edge of Space and Back with Ham Radio" by Chase Mertz, KG5KKX is featured on page 76. Mertz highlights "Student engineers in the Eldorado Space Program design, build, and program instrument packages, sending them as high as 120,000 feet using a highaltitude weather balloon." [ANS thanks ARRL for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- AMSAT Phase 4 Weekly Engineering Report AMSAT Phase 4 Ground Radio prototype with Ettus Research B210 by John Petrich W7FU can be viewed at: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oyAe21bWR4g&feature=youtu.be [ANS thanks Michelle W5NYV for the above information.] --------------------------------------------------------------------- US Naval Academy HFsat Receives IARU Frequency Coordination The US Naval Academy has received IARU satellite frequency coordination for HFsat, a 1.5 U CubeSat with a 15 meter to 10 meter linear transponder with 30kHz bandwidth. The CubeSat will also carry an APRS digipeater on 145.825MHz. HFsat is a project to demonstrate the viability of HF satellite communications as a backup communications system using existing ubiquitous HF radios that are usually a part of the communications suite on all small mobile platforms such has ham radio mobiles and portable operations frequently used by Amateurs in support of disaster and emergency response communications. The HFsat will be gravity gradient stabilized by its long full size 10 meter band halfwave HF dipole antenna with tip masses. A standardized CubSsat VHF communications card based on the popular Byonics MTT4B all-in-one APRS Tiny-Track4 module for telemetry, command and control is under development at the US Naval Academy. Standardizing the communications board makes it easy to add the HF Transponder mission into Naval Academy’s standard CubeSat bus without an all new start. HFsat will continue the long tradition of small amateur satellites designed by Aerospace students at the US naval Academy. The students are working with Bill Ress, N6GHZ on the HF transponder card. HF Uplink: 21.40 MHz, 30 kHz wide multi user bandwidth HF downlink: 29.42 MHz, the 30 kHz wide downlink passband VHF APRS DigiPeater: 145.825 MHz FM 1200 baud AFSK packet Find additional information on-line at: http://aprs.org/HFsat.html (US Naval Academy) http://www.amsat.org.uk/iaru/ (search for HFsat in the list of satellites that have been coordinated) [ANS thanks the US Naval Academy and the IARU for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- ARISS News + A Successful contact was made between High School "Léon Blum", Le Creusot, France and Astronaut Thomas Pesquet KG5FYG using Callsign NA1SS. The contact began Mon 2017-01-16 11:53:17 and lasted about nine and a half minutes. Contact was Telebridge via K6DUE. ARISS Mentor was Joseph F6ICS. Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule as of 2017-01-19 06:30 UTC Quick list of scheduled contacts and events: South Street School, Danbury CT, telebridge via VK4KHZ. The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be NA1SS. The scheduled astronaut is Shane Kimbrough KE5HOD. Contact is a go for: Fri 2017-01-27 19:50:18 UTC Swiss Space Center – EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland, telebridge via W6SRJ. The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be NA1SS. The scheduled astronaut is Thomas Pesquet KG5FYG. Contact is a go for: Thu 2017-01-26 11:06:29 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 145.800 MHz. The following US states and entities have never had an ARISS contact: Arkansas, 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 Check out the Zoho reports of the ARISS contacts https://reports.zoho.com/ZDBDataSheetView.cc?DBID=412218000000020415 Exp. 49 on orbit Shane Kimbrough KE5HOD Andrei Borisenko Sergey Ryzhikov Exp. 50 on orbit Peggy Whitson Thomas Pesquet KG5FYG Oleg Novitskiy [ANS thanks ARISS, Charlie AJ9N and David AA4KN for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Satellite Shorts From All Over + APRS Symbol Look Up Table Kenneth Finnegan, W6KWF has created an easy to use lookup table for APRS symbol codes. "I've made a lookup table which has the symbol code, the primary symbol, and the secondary symbol all on top of each other as opposed to the three adjacent tables on the aprs.org page: http://tinyurl.com/ANS-022-APRS-Table [ANS thanks Kenneth K6KWF for the above information.] + Colloquium Videos for 2009-2012 Posted on YouTube AMSAT-UK reports that thanks to Wouter Weggelaar PA3WEG and @BATC online videos of talks given at AMSAT-UK Colloquium 2009-2012 are now posted at: https://www.youtube.com/user/AMSATUK/videos [ANS thanks AMSAT-UK for the above information] + June Page of the 2017 ARRL Calendar Features NPOTA Satellite Ops "Fernando Ramirez-Ferrer NP4JV, overlooks the vastness of Grand Canyon National Park (NP22) in Arizona as he makes contacts via the SO-50 Amateur Radio satellite. This was the sixth NPOTA unit he had activated via satellite." (Ruth V Ramirez, photo credit) [ANS thanks ARRL for the above information.] + UT1FG/MM is departing Finland ~1900 UTC (21 January) heading to Mexico. Clean your antennas, de-wax your ears and remember to give others a chance to get through.. [ANS thanks Jari OH2FQV, Via Twitter, 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

1 0

ANS-015 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins
by Joseph Spier 15 Jan '17

15 Jan '17

AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-015 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: * RadFxSat (Fox-1B) Launch Date Moved to August 29, 2017 * AMSAT-UK Colloquium 2017 * ITF-2 CubeSat Set to Deploy from ISS * Satellite Logging Updates Requested for ARRL LoTW * College OSCAR Activity, Grow Future Membership * 2017 Interplanetary Small Satellite Conference * Frequency Plan of the PicSAT Project Validated by the IARU * AMSAT Events * ARISS News * Satellite Shorts from All Over SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-015.01 ANS-015 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins AMSAT News Service Bulletin 015.01 >From AMSAT HQ KENSINGTON, MD. DATE January 15, 2017 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-015.01 --------------------------------------------------------------------- RadFxSat (Fox-1B) Launch Date Moved to August 29, 2017 The launch date for RadFxSat (Fox-1B) has been moved to August 29, 2017. RadFxSat is one of four CubeSats making up the NASA ELaNa XIV mission, riding as secondary payloads aboard the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS)-1 mission. JPSS-1 will launch on a Delta II from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. RadFxSat is a partnership with Vanderbilt University ISDE and hosts four payloads for the study of radiation effects on commercial off the shelf components. RadFxSat features the Fox-1 style FM U/v repeater with an uplink on 435.250 MHz (67.0 Hz CTCSS) and a downlink on 145.960 MHz. Satellite and experiment telemetry will be downlinked via the "DUV" subaudible telemetry stream and can be decoded with the FoxTelem software. RadFxSat construction and testing was completed in the fourth quarter of 2016 and the CubeSat is currently in clean storage at Fox Labs, waiting for delivery and integration which is now scheduled for June, 2017. [ANS thanks Jerry Buxton, NØJY, AMSAT Vice President for Engineering for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- AMSAT-UK Colloquium 2017 AMSAT-UK is very happy to announce that the dates of the next AMSAT-UK Colloquium will be 14-15 Oct 2017. This year it will be incorporated into the RSGB Convention at the Kents Hill Park Convention Centre in Milton Keynes. Exact details are currently being finalized with the RSGB and these will be notified when they are known. If you have not been to Kents Hill before, it is very close to the M1 motorway and is near to Bletchley Park, where RSGB members have free entry. For overseas visitors it is convenient for planes to London Luton Airport (30-minute taxi ride) and also London Gatwick and Birmingham airports, both of which have direct train connections to Bletchley and/or Milton Keynes stations. These stations are approximately 10 minutes away by taxi. [ANS thanks Jim Heck, G3WGM for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- ITF-2 CubeSat Set to Deploy from ISS Toshihiro Kameda, JJ3GRX/W3GRX, of the University of Tsukuba's "Yui" satellite project in Japan, reports that the ITF-2 ("Imagine The Future") CubeSat is set for release from the International Space Station (ISS) on Monday, January 16, at 0910 UTC. The 1U ITF-2 was designed and built at the university. The Amateur Radio downlink is 437.525 MHz. Updated information will be announced on the AMSAT Bulletin Board at, http://www.amsat.org/pipermail/amsat-bb/ . ITF-2 is the successor to the unsuccessful ITF-1, which launched in 2014 but was never heard. Six CubeSats delivered to ISS by HTV-6 will deploy from ISS with new JEM Small Satellite Orbital Deployer (J-SSOD) at 16h Jan. New J-SSOD has four satellite install cases. One satellite install case has 3U space, so new J-SSOD can delploy twelve CubeSat at one time. Six CubeSats are installed as follows, satellite install CubeSats case #1 three 1U CubeSats ITF-2, WASEDA-SAT3, FREEDOM #2 one 3U CubeSat EGG #3 one 2U CubeSat AOBA-VELOX3 #4 one 3U CubeSat TuPOD (including Tancredo1 and OSNSAT) ITF-2, WASEDA-SAT3, AOBA-VELOX3, TuPOD and Tancredo1 operate on the amateur radio bands. #1 and #2 will be deployed at 0900-0930z 16th Jan, #3 and #4 will be 1030-1100z. Live broadcast will start at 0850z on YouTube JAXA channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4xq_rj0QiQ [ANS thanks the ARRL and JAXA for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Satellite Logging Updates Requested for ARRL LoTW AMSAT has requested that BY70-1 be added as "BY70-1" in the next configuration file for the ARRL Logbook of the World (LoTW). AMSAT has also requested that this update be made no later than January 31st due to NPOTA QSOs that were made via the satellite. AMSAT has also requested the addition of IO-86 as well as SAREX and MIREX for previous QSOs that occurred via the digipeater carried on various Space Shuttle missions and the Mir space station. If anyone notices a satellite that was available for amateur operation that is not included in the LoTW configuration file, please let me know: Paul Stoetzer n8hm(a)arrl.net Please also keep in mind that there may be a delay in requests being made for the addition of satellites to the LoTW configuration file while AMSAT awaits word of any potential OSCAR number request. [ANS thanks Paul Stoetzer, N8HM, for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- College OSCAR Activity, Grow Future Membership In 2008-2009 we used to have regular College Satellite Nights, where clubs active in our area of interest would get on the birds at the same time and give out contacts. Please let me know if there is an interest again in doing this once per month and if the group minds allowing SO-50 to be the venue. It is important to our future that we grow our ranks through attracting younger hams. OSCAR operating at the college level can also be a huge advantage for attractive college students to the hobby. Many of our technician course attendees at UF are there for that reason (we give two licensing courses a year). Please help spread the word to those at your local universities, and to other college clubs. There will be a College Student Amateur Radio Forum at HamCation HamFest in Orlando, Saturday Feb. 11. Please let college student hams know of the event info. The event is ARRL sponsored, part of CARI, the Collegiate Amateur Radio Initiative. The forum will take place at 3pm, and there is room for 50 college student attendees. There are more events planned for the day, including an evening social event for college students. We should also have table space for the day for college clubs to distribute club info and to meet, greet, and network with alumni. The table would be a good place for high school student hams to network in preparation for a life of amateur radio during the upcoming college years. Questions can be directed to the moderator of the forum, UF Doctoral student Andy Milluzzi, KK4KWR - andy(a)gatorradio.org For the latest of information see the CARI Facebook group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/ARRLCARI/ [ANS thanks Dr. Jay H. Garlitz, AA4FL, FCC Trustee, W4DFU at Univ. of Florida, since 2005, www.gatorradio.org. The Club Station of the Gator Amateur Radio Club, at UF since 1934, for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- 2017 Interplanetary Small Satellite Conference The Interplanetary Small Satellite Conference (ISSC) will be held at San Jose State University on May 1-2, 2017 in San Jose, California. The conference addresses interplanetary small satellites, including mission design, enabling technologies, science applications, and all other technical aspects of these missions. You can find out more details about the conference at http://www.intersmallsatconference.com/ This year we are expecting over 200 people to attend the conference. This year’s keynote speakers will be announced soon. The conference will feature a suite of talks and attendees from JPL, NASA and other space agencies, universities, and companies from around the world to work on developing this important new direction for small spacecraft missions. The Interplanetary Small Satellite Conference also gives an exciting chance for organizations to sponsor an exhibitor table or a booth. A table is $270 (includes one registration) and a booth is $540 (includes two registrations). Prices are guaranteed until January 31, when they may increase. Registration will be available soon on our website, but please email us at exhibitors(a)intercubesat.org for information and to reserve your spot. Tables and booths will be assigned on a first-come, first-served basis when registration payments are received. Please also consider submitting an abstract to represent your organization. Abstracts are due on February 15, 2017. I hope you'll be able to join us in beautiful San Jose. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any additional questions. [ANS thanks the ISSC Committee (via the cubesat.org mailing list) for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Frequency Plan of the PicSAT Project Validated by the IARU AMSAT-F (AMSAT Francophone) announced on January 8 the the IARU validated the proposed frequency plan for the PICSAT satellite project of the Paris Observatory. The satellite will offer capabilities for telemetry data transmission: AX25 - 9k6 BPSK, and an FM transponder. Uplink : 145.910 MHz FM Downlink : 435.925 MHz FM AMSAT-F and Réseau des Émetteurs Français (REF), the national non-profit organization for amateur radio enthusiasts in France, will provide active technical support for this project. For more information : IARU Coordination: http://www.amsatuk.me.uk/iaru/formal_detail.php?serialnum=536 Link budget estimated: https://perso.lesia.obspm.fr/picsat/files/2016/12/PicSat_IARU_Coordination.… Project page: http://lesia.obspm.fr/PICSAT.html REF-Info: http://ref-info.ref.org/projet-picsat-de-lobservatoire-de-paris/ [ANS thanks AMSAT-Francophone for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- AMSAT Events Information about AMSAT activities at other important events around the country. Examples of these events are radio club meetings where AMSAT Area Coordinators give presentations, demonstrations of working amateur satellites, and hamfests with an AMSAT presence (a table with AMSAT literature and merchandise, sometimes also with presentations, forums, and/or demonstrations). *Saturday, 14 January 2017 – Thunderbird Hamfest 2017 in Phoenix AZ *Friday and Saturday, 20-21 January 2017 – Cowtown Hamfest in Forest Hill, TX *Thursday, 26 January 2017 – presentation for Arizona Repeater Association in Tempe AZ *Saturday, 4 February 2017 – Palm Springs Hamfest in Palm Springs CA *Friday-Sunday, 10-12 February 2017 Orlando HamCation in Orlando, FL *Friday and Saturday, 17-18 February 2017 – Yuma Hamfest in Yuma AZ *Friday-Sunday, March 31, April 1 & 2, 2017, NVCON in Las Vegas, NV [ANS thanks AMSAT-NA for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- ARISS News Successful Contacts * A combined telebridge via K6DUE with students at Collège Saint-Guibert, Gembloux, Belgium and Euro Space Center, Transinne, Belgium was successful Thu 2017-01-12. * A direct contact via W6FOG with students at the World Genesis Foundation (WGF), Goodyear, AZ. & Quartzsite in Motion, Quartzsite, AZ. was successful Wed 2017-01-11. * A direct contact via K4JMC with students at Rainbow Middle School in Rainbow City, AL. was successful Wed 2017-01-04. * A direct contact via F1IMF with students at Collège Mathilde Marthe Faucher, Allassac, France was successful Wed 2017-01-04. * A direct contact via F4KJV with students at Primary School Georges Wallers, Saint-Amand-les-Eaux (59), France was successful Sat 2016-12-31. * A direct contact via IK1SLD with students at Ecole Communale de Saint Sylvestre, Saint Sylvestre, France was successful Wed 2016-12-21. Upcoming Contacts * A telebridge via K6DUE students at the Léon Blum High School, Le Creusot, France, is presently scheduled for Mon 2017-01-16 11:53:17 UTC 60 deg. The scheduled astronaut is Thomas Pesquet, KG5FYG. Le Creusot is a commune in the Saône-et-Loire department in the region of Bourgogne in eastern France. Formerly a mining town, its economy is now dominated by large metallurgical companies such as ArcelorMittal, Schneider Electric, and Alstom. In the 19th century, iron ore mines and forges around Le Creusot generated a business in steel, railways, armaments, and shipbuilding. The lycée Léon Blum (Le Creusot-71) together with the lycée international Charles de Gaulle (Dijon-21) and lycée Pierre Paul Riquet (Saint-Orens-31) were selected after a call for projects in March 2015 by the CNES Youth Education department for the PROXIMA mission. The project is named CERES (after the name of ancient roman goddess of agriculture). Thomas will grow some seeds in space as part of the CERES educational experiment. A special cargo of mustard, lentil and radish seeds was sent to him on the Space Station. He should water them and take pictures at regular intervals to study how the seeds grow in space. Students of the two partner high schools and a local elementary school are also participating to the list of questions. Watch http://www.ariss.org/upcoming-contacts.html for information about upcoming contacts as they are scheduled. [ANS thanks ARISS and Charlie, AJ9N for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Satellite Shorts From All Over South East VHF Society Conference Charlotte NC April 28-29 The SVHF Society will hold their convention in Charlotte, NC this year on April 28 and 29 at the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel Charlotte Airport, 2600 Yorkmont Road, Charlotte, NC 28201. We have arranged rooms at $95; you can call 800-222-TREE and ask for this rate under the name "South East VHF Society". Early registration guest room rate of $89 is offered for reservations made by January 31, 2017. If you plan to attend, please call now to reserve your room at this lower rate before the end of January. Registration information will be posted soon on the web site (http://svhfs.org) so watch for the sign up details. The conference fee for pre-registration is $30, Friday's Luncheon is $15, and Saturday's banquet is $40. [ANS thanks Gary Greene, W2ZV, SVHF Society conference committee member for the above information] AMSAT CW Activity Day reports As of 8 January, only two of the participants in AMSAT CW Activity Day have posted reports to amsat-bb. While there is no requirement to do so, if you participated, please consider posting one while it's still fresh in your mind. You can post a list of stations worked, satellites used, "Soapbox" comments, suggestions for next year's event, or what have you. [ANS thanks Ray, W2RS, for the above information] DXpedition Teams Make Satellite Plans FP, ST. PIERRE & MIQUELON. Eric, KV1J, will once again be operating from the Island of Miquelon (NA-032, DIFO FP-002 WLOTA 1417, Grid GN17) as FP/KV1J between July 4-18th. Activity will be on 160-10 meters using CW, SSB and RTTY (but primarily SSB and RTTY). He will generally be on the highest frequency band that is open (favoring 12/10m). He will be active in the IARU HF Contest (July 8-9th), NA QSO Party-RTTY (July 15-16th) and the CQ VHF Contest [6M only] (July 15-16th). QSL via KV1J, direct or by the Bureau. Also eQSL and LoTW. For more details and updates, check out his Web page at: http://www.kv1j.com/fp/July17.html PLEASE NOTE: Eric mentions, "I will also be on the analog Satellites when the WX is good enough to operate from outside." YN, NICARAGUA. A team of four operators, sponsored by Texas DX Society, will be operating near Granada beginning March 20th and ending March 27th. Operators mentioned are Keith/NM5G (YN2MG), Ken/KD2KW (YN2KW), Bill/K5WL (YN2WL) and Marty/W5MF (YN2MF). The group plans to participate in the CQWW WPX SSB Contest (March 25-26th) as YN2KW and station, as a Multi-Op/Single- Transmitter/All-Bands/Low-Power entry. Outside of the contest, operators will use their own callsigns on CW, SSB, RTTY and other Digital modes. They will also have equipment to make some satellite contacts as time and weather permit. QSL YN2KW via N5ET, all others callsigns listen for instructions, but probably the same route. [ANS thanks the Ohio/Penn DX Bulletin No. 1299 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, Joe Spier, K6WAO k6wao at amsat dot org

1 0

ANS-008 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins
by Lee McLamb 08 Jan '17

08 Jan '17

AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-008 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 Hidden World of Space Junk * AMSAT at the Cowtown Hamfest * Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule as of 2017-Jan-05 * Tips for Posting to AMSAT-BB SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-008.01 ANS-008 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins AMSAT News Service Bulletin 008.01 From AMSAT HQ KENSINGTON, MD. DATE January 8, 2017 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-008.01 The Hidden World of Space Junk Adrift is a short documentary that explores the hidden world of space junk. The film reveals an issue that is troubling and beautiful, dangerous and fascinating. It begins with the tale of astronaut Piers Sellers, who dropped his spatula in space in 2006, which became the most deadly kitchen instrument soon after, traveling at 27,000 km/h. The film then journeys across the remote deserts of Chile with astronomers of Collowara Observatory, into the skies, where threats to the International Space Station take place, and through to Thailand, where a man watches space debris burn. The film includes a narration by Vanguard, the oldest piece of space junk, voiced by Sally Potter (Dir Orlando). As featured on BBC Arts Online bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3sjd1wnYD47WLzhT9dV02YH/lost-in-space-turning- cosmic-junk-into-art [ANS thanks Stephen, G7VFY, and Southgate ARN for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- AMSAT at the Cowtown Hamfest Keith Pugh, W5IU, reports that there will be an AMSAT Forum, a Booth, and Demonstrations at the Cowtown Hamfest, 20-21 January 2017. The Hamfest takes place in Forrest Hills, TX. A suburb of Fort Worth, TX. [ANS thanks Keith, W5IU, for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule as of 2017-Jan-05 Quick list of scheduled contacts and events: World Genesis Foundation (WGF), Goodyear AZ, direct via W6FOG The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be NA1SS The scheduled astronaut is Shane Kimbrough KE5HOD Contact is a go for: Wed 2017-01-11 16:10:15 UTC 46 deg Collège Saint-Guibert, Gembloux, Belgium and Euro Space Center, Transinne, Belgium; Combined telebridge via K6DUE The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be NA1SS The scheduled astronaut is Thomas Pesquet KG5FYG Contact is a go for Thu 2017-01-12 13:46:51 UTC 36 deg [ANS thanks Charlie, AJ9N, for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Tips for Posting to AMSAT-BB 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 primary 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. 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. 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. [ANS thanks Alan, WA4SCA, 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, KU4OS ku4os at amsat dot org

1 0

ANS-001 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins
by E.Mike McCardel 01 Jan '17

01 Jan '17

AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-001 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: * Tomsk-TPU-120 CubeSat to deploy during EVA * New Amateur Radio FM Transponder CubeSat Now in Space * Background info on launch problems for BY70-1 * Possible Satellite Activity Galapagos Islands * CONTACT! via UHF ISS digipeater using Kenwood TH-D72 * AMSAT CW Activity Day * ARISS News * Satellite Shorts From All Over SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-001.01 ANS-001 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins AMSAT News Service Bulletin 001.01 >From AMSAT HQ KENSINGTON, MD. January 01, 2017 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-001.01 Tomsk-TPU-120 CubeSat to deploy during EVA The amateur radio CubeSat Tomsk-TPU-120 may be deployed during a Russian spacewalk (EVA) in July 2017. The satellite was developed by students at the Tomsk Polytechnic University to test new space materials technology and is the world’s first space vehicle with a 3D-printed structure. It was launched from Baikonur in Kazakhstan to the ISS on March 31, 2016 in a Progress-MS- 2 cargo vessel. It will be deployed by hand during a Russian spacewalk, which is why unlike other CubeSats this one has a handle. The call sign of the satellite is RS4S. According to Alexey Yakovlev, head of the Tomsk Polytechnic University’s Institute of High Technologies, the 3D printed satellite is something of a landmark for additive manufacturing, being the first example of a fully 3D printed satellite: “The Tomsk-TPU-120 is the first such project in the world, in which the entire casing of a satellite is fully 3D printed using dynamic modeling,” Yakovlev recently told Sputnik. “The combination of these technologies can significantly reduce the development time and the number of full- scale tests, find new engineering solutions, and reduce the project’s cost.” In May 2016 the Tomsk Polytechnic University celebrated its 120th anniversary. As part of the celebrations on May 10/11 the Tomsk-TPU- 120 was activated in the ISS and transmitted a greeting to Earth inhabitants, recorded by students of the university in 10 languages: Russian, English, German, French, Chinese, Arabic, Tatar, Indian, Kazakh and Portuguese. The greeting message was transmitted once a minute on 437.025 MHz FM. A Kenwood transceiver on the ISS provided a cross-band relay, re- transmitting the signal on 145.800 MHz FM. Read the 3ders article at http://tinyurl.com/ANS001-3darticle Sputnik News – Unique 3D-Printed Siberian Satellite to Orbit Earth http://tinyurl.com/ANS001-3D/ ISS Calendar http://spaceflight101.com/iss/iss-calendar/ Tomsk-TPU-120 CubeSat Video http://tinyurl.com/ANS001-Tomsk-TPU-120 [ANS thanks AMSAT-UK for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- New Amateur Radio FM Transponder CubeSat Now in Space The BY70-1 CubeSat launched on December 28 from the Taiyuan Space Launch Center in China, but in a lower orbit than intended. The satellite carries an Amateur Radio FM transponder. BY70-1 was intended to go into a 530-kilometer (approximately 329- mile) circular Sun-synchronous orbit, but it appears the orbit is 524 x 212 kilometers, which will give the spacecraft an orbital lifetime of just a month or two. Paul Stoetzer, N8HM, reported working Wyatt Dirks, AC0RA, through the FM transponder during the 1709 UTC pass on December 28. "Uplink requires precise frequency adjustment, and there's a delay on the downlink, but the signal is strong," Stoetzer said. BY70-1 is a 2U CubeSat project for education and Amateur Radio. It features 3-axis stabilization and deployable solar panels. In addition to the FM transponder, BY70-1 has a camera, and plans call for downloading images and telemetry via a 9600 bps BPSK downlink. The IARU Amateur Satellite Frequency Coordination pages list an uplink of 145.920 MHz, and a downlink of 436.200 MHz. AMSAT-UK has more information online at, http://tinyurl.com/ANS001-AMSAT-UK-BY70 [ANS thanks ARRL for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Background info on launch problems for BY70-1 On Dec 28 China launched a CZ-2D from Taiyuan - the first time the 2D model has flown from their southern launch site. However, the rocket appears to have run into problems and achieved orbit with an underspeed of 100 m/s, making a 212 x 520 km orbit instead of a circular 500 km one. The main payloads are Gaojing 1 and 2, two commercial high resolution (0.5m) imaging satellites also called SuperView 1 and 2. The satellites are owned by Beijing Aerospace World View Information Technology Co., Ltd (also called Beijing Space View Tech Co.Ltd.); the US company DigitalGlobe is a major investor. Also aboard was BY70-1, or Bayi kepu weixing 01 xing, a 2U cubesat with an amateur radio payload developed by high school students at the PLA-related Beijing Bayi School. [ANS thanks Jonathan's Space Report, No. 733 for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Possible Satellite Activity Galapagos Islands HC8, GALAPAGOS ISLANDS. Geoff, G8OFQ, will once again be active as HC8/G8OFQ from Isabela Island (SA-004) between August 1st and October 31st, 2017. Activity will be on 160-6 meters using SSB only. There is a possibility of some satellite activity on 2m and 70cm SSB. Geoff is there working as a volunteer for the Galapagos National Park at the Giant Tortoise Breeding Center (see pictures on QRZ.com) on Isabela Island. QSL via G8OFQ: Geoff Dobson, 9 Fitzpain Road, Ferndown, Dorset, BH22 8RZ, United Kingdom. Also LoTW on request. [ANS thanks Ohio/Penn DX Bulletin #1297 for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- CONTACT! via UHF ISS digipeater using Kenwood TH-D72 I made CONTACT! Through the UHF ISS digipeater using my Kenwood TH-D72 View the video at: https://www.facebook.com/SpaceComms/videos/1342108185861041/ This was my second contact through the ISS digipeater. I actually contacted the same station I contacted in this video, W8LR, three days before, but I wasn't recording any video. For this video I recorded the audio from my Kenwood TH-D72a and later played it back to Soundmodem+UISS. Soundmodem decodes many more packets than my radio does. I made a screen capture of UISS and its map so you can see the complete details of every received packet. Another thing this video shows is how hard it can be to track a near overhead pass (close to 90 degrees elevation). When I was beginning in satellites I only tried to work overhead passes because I knew the signal would be strongest when the satellite was closest to me. While that is true, the closer the satellite is to you the faster its relative speed is. When it passes overhead it switches from coming towards you to going away from you very fast, and drops 10s of degrees in seconds. That makes the satellite very easy to lose track of. In this video I got distracted while changing settings on my radio and lost the ISS after it went overhead. It didn't help that I was using a tripod for the first time. I prefer to hold the antenna in my hand precisecly because I find it's easier to track, as I can make quick adjustments and listen for the signal going up and down. To control the radio for packet, it helps to have two hands. See my previous UHF ISS digi video to see how hard it is to change settings with one hand. Here is the very appropriate QSL card I got from W8LR for my first ISS digi contact: http://imgur.com/vUfwkiE http://imgur.com/DIq7fD4 Here are all the stations I heard on the pass from this video (time stamps GMT -5) -------------- N4ZQ 12/18/2016 11:08:08 System time KG4AKV-5 12/18/2016 11:08:13 W8LR 12/18/2016 11:09:02 KC4LE 12/18/2016 11:09:17 W0NBC 12/18/2016 11:11:07 RS0ISS 12/18/2016 11:11:38 W4TBD-6 12/18/2016 11:12:14 KA8YES-6 12/18/2016 11:12:52 Total Stations = 8 The music at the end is "Jubilee - Opa--locka" You can subscribe to John's SpaceComms YouTube Channel at: https://www.youtube.com/SpaceComms1?sub_confirmation=1 [ANS Thanks John KG4AKV for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- AMSAT CW Activity Day January 1, 2017 (UTC) will be AMSAT's first annual CW Activity Day! As with the old Straight Key Night, this is a fun event, not a contest. It will run for 24 hours on January 1, 2017 (UTC). All forms of CW are welcome, -- straight keys, bugs, keyers, even keyboards and decoders. Since it is not a contest, there is no required exchange. A QSO is a QSO. Working the same station on more than one satellite is permitted. Instead of submitting Best Fist nominations, all participants are asked to post their results, including "Soapbox" comments, to AMSAT- BB. Please include the satellites you used, and the number of CW QSOs you had on each. While it is not necessary to post your full log, you may do so if you wish. [ANS thanks Ray W2RS for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- ARISS News + A Successful contact was made between Primary School Georges Wallers, Saint-Amand-les-Eaux (59), France and Astronaut Thomas Pesquet KG5FYG using Callsign FXØISS. The contact began Sat 2016-12- 31 11:31:12 UTC and lasted about nine and a half minutes. Contact was direct via F4KJV. ARISS Mentor was Joseph F6ICS. Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule Collège Mathilde Marthe Faucher, Allassac, France, direct via F1IMF. The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be FXØISS. The scheduled astronaut is Thomas Pesquet KG5FYG Contact is a go for: Wed 2017-01-04 11:16:26 UTC Rainbow Middle School, Rainbow City, AL, direct via K4JMC. The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be NA1SS. The scheduled astronaut is Shane Kimbrough KE5HOD Contact is a go for: Wed 2017-01-04 17:29:40 UTC [ANS thanks ARISS, Charlie AJ9N and David AA4KN for the above information] [ANS thanks ARISS, Charlie AJ9N information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Satellite Shorts From All Over + Amateur Radio Kids Day January 7 Organized by the ARRL Kids day, scheduled this year for January 7 is meant to develop interest in Amateur Radio. Please consider this while operating the satlleite January 7. Listen for kids on-the-air or plan to assist kids with operating the satellites. For more information visit http://www.arrl.org/kids-day. [ANS thanks the ARRL for the above information] + ANS Seeks Rotating Editors The AMSAT News Service (ANS) seeks additional volunteers to serve as rotating editors. 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. If you are interested in serving AMSAT-NA in this important and rewarding role, please contact Lee McLamb, KU4OS: ku4os at amsat dot org. [ANS thanks the ANS editorial staff for the above information] + The AMSAT News Service editors wish you and yours a prosperous and safe 2017. [ANS thanks Lee KU4OS, Joe K6WAO and 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

1 0

ANS-360 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins
by Joseph Spier 25 Dec '16

25 Dec '16

AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-360 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: * Fox-1Cliff and Fox-1D launch now likely 2Q 2017 * AMSAT CW Activity Day * STARS-C reports requested * Extra - Extra - Read all about it - LVB Tracker * BY70-1 2U CubeSat Scheduled for Launch 01/08/201 * Pratham student satellite returns to life * FUNcube Transponders Info * AMSAT Events * ARISS News * Satellite Shorts from All Over SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-360.01 ANS-360 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins AMSAT News Service Bulletin 360.01 >From AMSAT HQ KENSINGTON, MD. DATE December 25, 2016 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-360.01 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Fox-1Cliff and Fox-1D launch now likely 2Q 2017 AMSAT Vice President Engineering Jerry Buxton said that because of the delays SpaceX has experienced following their September 1 anomaly, it is likely that the launch of the Fox-1Cliff and Fox-1D CubeSats will be no earlier than the second quarter of 2017. The two Fox-1 CubeSats will be carried to orbit in the Spaceflight Sherpa platform on a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch from Vandenberg AFB. The last period set for our launch would have closed November 30 of this year but was delayed due to the anomaly. The new launch period is not yet set but SpaceX expects to return to flight with their Iridium-1 launch in early January, 2017. Based on that expectation, we are looking forward to a 2Q 2017 launch of Fox-1Cliff and Fox-1D. [ANS thanks Jerry Buxton, NØJY, AMSAT Vice President for Engineering for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- AMSAT CW Activity Day January 1, 2017 (UTC) will be AMSAT's first annual CW Activity Day! As with the old Straight Key Night, this is a fun event, not a contest. It will run for 24 hours on January 1, 2017 (UTC). All forms of CW are welcome, -- straight keys, bugs, keyers, even keyboards and decoders. Since it is not a contest, there is no required exchange. A QSO is a QSO. Working the same station on more than one satellite is permitted. Instead of submitting Best Fist nominations, all participants are asked to post their results, including "Soapbox" comments, to AMSAT- BB. Please include the satellites you used, and the number of CW QSOs you had on each. While it is not necessary to post your full log, you may do so if you wish. [ANS thanks Ray W2RS for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- STARS-C reports requested A group here in Huntsville is attempting to help the STARS-C team collect signal reports and data from the STARS-C satellite recently launch from the ISS. The team will filter the data and forward it to the STARS-C team at Shizuoka University in Japan. A NASA colleague received an email from Professor Yoshiki Yamagiwa, an engineering professor at Shizuoka University in Japan, requesting help listening for signals from a pair of CubeSats recently released from ISS. University orbiter set to lift space elevator technology The Asahi Shimbun http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201607060005.html provides overview information about the STARS-C (Space Tethered Autonomous Robotic Satellite-Cube). The basic configuration is two 1U satellites, a mother and a daughter, connected by a tether. Our understanding is that the STARS-C team is trying to receive the CW beacons as part of the first step of their operations, but their signals they're getting are too weak for data analysis, especially from the daughter satellite. They're reaching out to ham operators and ground stations at universities, and would appreciate reports on CW data received. Orbit and frequency info for the satellites: 19 Dec 2016 18:19:55 J-SSOD#5 Satellite Name: STARS-C Time: (UTCG) 19 Dec 2016 08:50:19.273 Semi-major Axis (km) 6785.004 Eccentricity 0.0009020 Inclination (deg) 51.6492 RAAN (deg) 214.6791 Arg of Perigee (deg) 33.9061 Mean Anomaly (deg) 293.7118 (*1) True of Date Coordinate System, Osculating Orbit # Mother satellite: CW 437.245MHz, FM downlinks 437.405MHz # Daughter satellite: CW 437.255MHz, FM downlinks 437.425MHz Details of the telemetry format are at http://www.ipc.shizuoka.ac.jp/~vk127139/download/Telemetry%20Format.pdf http://www.ipc.shizuoka.ac.jp/%7Evk127139/download/Telemetry%20Format.pdf The STARS-C team will appreciate any info that reaches your ears, automated receivers, or whatever! For additional information here is a link from the AMSAT UK group: https://amsat-uk.org/2016/11/08/jaxa-iss-ham-radio-cubesats/ Please email all reports with date and time directly to scotty.collect(a)gmail.com You can see the deployment on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOseY2mE5LY I hope you will like it though it is in Japanese. JAXA announced another 6 CubeSats transported to ISS by HTV-6 will deploy in January 2017. [ANS thanks Tim, N8DEU for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Extra - Extra - Read all about it The AMSAT On-Line Store has been stocked with LVB Tracker Complete. A limited number are available. Shipments will not go out until after Christmas due to long lines at the post office and the labor contract of the elves at the AMSAT Office. There is no choice in the color of the LED, some are Blue and some are Amber. You get what is in the box when shipped. Do not forget, these make great after Christmas, Kwanzaa, New Year, birthday, or just because, presents for that special ham (or yourself - we know that's what you really wanted). [ANS thanks Bruce KK5DO for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- BY70-1 2U CubeSat Scheduled for Launch 12/26/2016 BY70-1 is a 2U CubeSat project led by China Center for Aerospace Science and Technology International Communications for school education and amateur radio. The amateur radio station onboard will provide telecommand, telemetry and FM repeater functions. The spacecraft will be 3 axis stabilized and have deployable solar panels. Proposing a V/U transponder and requesting a 436.2MHz downlink and a 145.920 MHz uplink, this satellite has been IARU coordinated. It was planned to launch from Jiuquan on Dec 26th 2016 into a 530km circular SSO. The launch has now been rumored to be delayed due to weather. More info at http://english.spacechina.com/n16421/index.html [ANS thanks AMSAT-UK for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Pratham student satellite returns to life The Mumbai Mirror reports on the return to life of the Pratham satellite launched on September 26, 2016. Pratham carries an amateur radio payload and was built by students at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT-B). The newspaper says: After one month of radio silence, the ground station at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, received a signal from Pratham satellite on the morning of December 17, suggesting that it was still alive and kicking. Pratham is the first satellite to be sent into space by an IIT. The satellite had received signals in the first few weeks after its launch on September 26, this year, but had gone quiet in November, due to technical difficulties, causing team members to worry if it was still operational. “The fact that we received a signal on Saturday suggests that the satellite has now stabilized and is back to collecting data,” said Ratnesh Mishra, project manager of Pratham. While Mishra says that the incoming signal means that the satellite is functional, data transfer is yet to take place. Read the full article at http://mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com/mumbai/other/IIT-Bs-satellite-gets-a-sig… -from-space/articleshow/56075162.cms Pratham info https://amsat-uk.org/2016/09/07/pratham-student-satellite/ https://amsat-uk.org/2016/12/20/pratham-returns-to-life/ [ANS thanks AMSAT-UK for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- FUNcube Transponders Info AO-73 has just changed into continuous transponder mode. Plan is to switch back to auto mode on Sunday 8 Jan 2017 pm UTC. This will give a long opportunity for transponder operations over the Holidays. Pls see below for FUNcube transponder info Have FUN with the transponder. All the best for the holiday season, and for 2017 AO-73 FUNcube-1 The transponder is normally operational only when the satellite is in eclipse, ie the solar panels are NOT being illuminated. During weekends (from pm Fridays UTC to PM Sundays UTC) the transponder is operational 24/7. When the transponder is switched off, the telemetry beacon is on full power, when the transponder is on the beacon it is on low power. During holidays, eg Christmas, New Year, Easter, etc, the transponder maybe activated for extended periods. Watch AMSAT-BB for announcements which are usually made on Friday evenings (UTC) The nominal transponder frequencies are: Uplink: 435.150 - 435.130 MHz LSB (Inverting) Downlink: 145.950 - 145.970 MHz USB Telemetry Tx: 145.935 MHz BPSK (The passband may be up to 15kHz higher depending on on-board temps. Low temperatures give higher freqs!) FUNcube-2 aka FUNcube on UKube The FUNcube-2 sub-system continues to operate autonomously and, almost continuously, in amateur mode. The transponder is operational and the telemetry downlink is functioning with about 70mW output. The FUNcube-1 Dashboard does not correctly display the telemetry but it does correctly decode the data and uploads it to the FUNcube Data Warehouse from where it can be examined. Most of the real time data channels are operational and these include battery voltages, temperatures and ADCS data coming via the main On Board Computer (OBC). The transponder is interrupted for a few seconds every 2 minutes when the other transmitter sends its CW beacon and, occasionally, for a few seconds when the main OBC reboots (approx seven times each orbit). The nominal transponder frequencies are: Uplink: 435.080 - 435.060 MHz LSB (Inverting) Downlink: 145.930 - 145.950 MHz USB Telemetry Tx: 145.915 MHz BPSK (The passband may be up to 10kHz higher depending on on-board temps. Low temperatures give higher freqs!) EO79 FUNcube-3 Due to power budget constraints the transponder cannot be operational 24/7 and an orbit specific schedule has been developed. The transponder will commence operation 27 minutes after the spacecraft enters sunlight and will stay on for a period of 25 minutes. This schedule may be modified in future months as a result of experience. The nominal transponder frequencies are: Uplink: 435.077-435.047 MHz LSB (Inverting) Downlink: 145.935-145.965 MHz USB All FUNcube transponders are sponsored by AMSAT-UK and AMSAT-NL. We are very grateful for the assistance given by Innovative Solution In Space Bv, The Netherlands. [ANS thanks Jim, G3WGM and the FUNcube team for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- AMSAT Events Information about AMSAT activities at other important events around the country. Examples of these events are radio club meetings where AMSAT Area Coordinators give presentations, demonstrations of working amateur satellites, and hamfests with an AMSAT presence (a table with AMSAT literature and merchandise, sometimes also with presentations, forums, and/or demonstrations). *Sunday, 8 January 2017 – Ham Radio University in Bethpage, NY *Saturday, 14 January 2017 – Thunderbird Hamfest 2017 in Phoenix AZ *Thursday, 26 January 2017 – presentation for Arizona Repeater Association in Tempe AZ *Saturday, 4 February 2017 – Palm Springs Hamfest in Palm Springs CA *Friday-Sunday, 10-12 February 2017 Orlando HamCation in Orlando, FL *Friday and Saturday, 17-18 February 2017 – Yuma Hamfest in Yuma AZ *Friday-Sunday, March 31, April 1 & 2, 2017, NVCON in Las Vegas, NV [ANS thanks AMSAT-NA for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- ARISS News Successful Contacts * Maristes High School, Toulouse, France, direct via F8IDR The ISS callsign was scheduled to be FXØISS The scheduled astronaut was Thomas Pesquet KG5FYG Contact was successful: Mon 2016-12-12 13:29:47 UTC * A direct contact with students at The Communication College Of Vologda and Information Technologies, in Vologda, Russia, was successful Tue 2016-12-13. * Scuola Secondaria di Primo Grado “Niccolò Pisano”, Marina di Pisa, Italy, telebridge via IK1SLD The ISS callsign was scheduled to be OR4ISS The scheduled astronaut was Shane Kimbrough KE5HOD Contact was successful: Sat 2016-12-17 12:23:31 UTC * Ecole Communale de Saint Sylvestre, Saint Sylvestre, France, direct via IK1SLD The ISS callsign was scheduled to be OR4ISS The scheduled astronaut was Thomas Pesquet KG5FYG Contact was successful: Wed 2016-12-21 13:46:38 UTC 29 deg Very good contact between the school Nelson Mandela / St Sylvestre and Thomas Pesquet this afternoon. All 20 questions answered plus 2 spare minutes for congratulations and applause. Very clear audio all the way long Thanks to Claudio / IK1SLD who made a great job. Reported more than 300 people present in the gymnasium, with: 1 regional TV (France 3) 1 regional radio (France Bleu) 3 local Radios (Alouette FM, Beaub FM, Flash FM) 2 newspapers (Le Populaire du Centre, l'Echo du Centre) Live audio streaming on Beaub FM web site Upcoming Contacts * Primary School Georges Wallers, Saint-Amand-les-Eaux (59), France, Direct via F4KJV The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be FXØISS The scheduled astronaut is Thomas Pesquet KG5FYG Contact is a go for: Sat 2016-12-31 11:31:12 UTC 44 deg Watch http://www.ariss.org/upcoming-contacts.html for information about upcoming contacts as they are scheduled. [ANS thanks ARISS and Charlie, AJ9N for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Satellite Shorts From All Over Best Wishes for the Holidays and the New Year All the editors at the AMSAT News Service wish to extend to you and yours the best wishes this holiday season and great success in the New Year. May your launches be high, your birds sing true, and have life beyond their years. [ANS thanks Joe, Lee, and EMike 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, Joe Spier, K6WAO k6wao at amsat dot org

1 0

ANS-353 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins
by Lee McLamb 18 Dec '16

18 Dec '16

AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-353 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: * Gould Smith, WA4SXM appointed Director-Field Operations * AO-73/FUNcube Holiday Transponder Operation * HM85 Christmas Weekend Operation * 18 Years of SSTV and Human Spaceflight * WB8ELK Balloon Completes Second Lap Around the World * 18th Annual Long Island Section Convention SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-353.01 ANS-353 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins AMSAT News Service Bulletin 353.01 From AMSAT HQ KENSINGTON, MD. DATE December 18, 2016 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-353.01 Gould Smith, WA4SXM appointed Director-Field Operations AMSAT President Barry Baines, WD4ASW has appointed G. Gould Smith, WA4SXM as Director-Field Operations. The public announcement was made during the Field Operations Forum held in conjunction with the 34th AMSAT Space Symposium held on board Carnival Liberty on 12 Nov 2016. Field Operations consists of AMSAT volunteers who serve as Area Coordinators in their local areas. As “Ambassadors of AMSAT”, they give AMSAT presentations at local club meetings or at hamfests, manage an AMSAT table/booth at a hamfest, or support local satellite operations as ‘elmers’ to new satellite operators. Gould previously served as Director-Field Operations from 2004-2008 prior to becoming VP-User Services from 2008-2013. Gould is also the author of several books published by AMSAT starting in 1990 with “Getting Started With Amateur Satellites” the current AMSAT publication that carries his name. Due to medical issues, Gould was forced to resign from the Board of Directors and as VP-User Services in 2014 to focus on his medical concerns. Two years later, Gould’s medical recovery is now such that he’s once again in position to support AMSAT. In conjunction with this transition, Patrick Stoddard, WD9EWK now serves as “Lead Area Coordinator”, essentially functioning as Gould’s Executive Officer. Together, Gould and Patrick will work to enhance the Field Organization. “Having Gould back in an AMSAT leadership role is welcome news” notes AMSAT President Barry Baines, WD4ASW. “Gould is passionate about amateur radio in space and wants to encourage amateurs to become involved with satellite operations. The Field Organization will benefit from Gould’s focus on providing support to our Area Coordinators and developing materials that will assist our volunteers to speak on AMSAT’s behalf at club presentations and hamfests.” Initially, Gould has been spending some time getting back up to speed on the current status of the Field Organization and establishing a line of communication with the Field Ops Team. Gould notes, “As a long time AMSAT volunteer I am excited to be re-engaging with the organization since my health has improved significantly. The Field Operations position is one that I have experience with and am looking forward to leading with the help of Patrick, WD9EWK. I have looked at the current Area Coordinator list and their activities and know most of the members. One of the first things I will be doing is getting to know the newer coordinators and determining how best we can serve AMSAT, it's members and prospective members. Please let me know of any ideas or suggestions to improve he Field Operations team.” [ANS thanks AMSAT President Barry Baines, WD4ASW, for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- AO-73/FUNcube Holiday Transponder Operation The AO-73/FUNcube plan for the Holidays is to switch to continuous transponder mode on Wed 22 Dec pm UTC, and revert back to auto transponder switching on Sunday 8 Jan 2017 ppm UTC. Have FUN with the transponder. [ANS thanks Jim, G3WGM, for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- HM85 Christmas Weekend Operation Pedro, CU2ZG, reports that Christmas HM58 operation will take place from December 23rd to December 25th. Pedro will be SSB equipped and plans to operate on the following satellites: AO-7, FO-29, SO-50, AO-73, EO-79, XW-2A/B/C/D/F, and AO-85. Logs will be uploaded as CU2ZG. [ANS thanks Pedro, CU2ZG, for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- 18 Years of SSTV and Human Spaceflight December 12, 2016, marked the 18th anniversary of the activation of the MIR SSTV Amateur Radio developed System which was transported and put aboard the MIR Space Station. The MIR SSTV System sent pictures over a period of about 2 years and 4 months to the delight of Amateur Radio Operators and others worldwide. (Mir was deorbited in March, 2001) For those interested in this historical event and background, the publication Amateur Television Quarterly (ATVQ), Spring 2015 issue has an article, “How Did the MIR SSTV System come into Existence”? Back issue copies of ATVQ containing this article are available via WA6SVT(a)aol.com. See also web address: www.ATVQuarterly.com. A small sampling of perhaps thousands of received pictures may be found in web sites: http://www.marexmg.org/marexmirweb/fileshtml/galleryimagepage1.htm http://www.qsl.net/dg7ro/afu/mirsstv.htm Background information and initial efforts on developing the MIR System and early efforts to provide SSTV for the ISS may be reviewed at: http://www.marexmg.org/fileshtml/sponsorspeople.htm The ISS is now transmitting a similar series of SSTV Transmissions to that of MIR: https://amsat-uk.org/beginners/iss-sstv [ANS thanks Farrell, W8ZCF, for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- WB8ELK Balloon Completes Second Lap Around the World After flying for over 41,000 miles, the WB8ELK HF WSPR Skytracker balloon has completed its second lap after crossing over into Indiana on 12 Dec 2016. For those of you capable of listening to 20m WSPR mode, it transmits at the 4-minute and 6-minute marks every 10 minutes on 14.09560 MHz USB during daylight hours. [ANS thanks Bill WB8ELK and the BALLOON_SKED group on yahoogroups for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- 18th Annual Long Island Section Convention Ham Radio University (HRU) is scheduled for January 8th, 2017, there will be 30 forums with Tom Gallagher, CEO, of ARRL as the keynote speaker. Peter, W2JV, will be doing a forum at 10 AM on ‘Getting Started with the Amateur Satellites”, AMSAT will have a table in the club room to answer your questions. There will be demonstrations on the air as time and weather permits, on both the FM and linear transponder satellites. Look for W2JV, or others on the air. [ANS thanks Peter, W2JV, 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, KU4OS ku4os at amsat dot org

1 0

ANS-346 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins
by E.Mike McCardel 10 Dec '16

10 Dec '16

AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-346 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: * New Satellites on the Horizon * Possible Satellite Activity From Virgin Islands * Obituary for Frank (Robin) Haighton, VE3FRH, (1937-2016) * Phase 4 Ground Weekly Report * AMSAT CW Activity Day * AMSAT Awards * AMSAT Events * NEON - NASA Educators Online Network ANNOUNCEMENTS * ARISS News * Satellite Shorts From All Over SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-346.01 ANS-346 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins AMSAT News Service Bulletin 346.01 >From AMSAT HQ KENSINGTON, MD. December 11, 2016 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-346.01 New Satellites on the Horizon Recent International Amateur Radio Union satellite coordination requests provide new details on several satellites expected to launch before the end of the first quarter of 2017. The first satellite expected to launch is UBAKUSAT. UBAKUSAT, developed by Istanbul Technical University along with TAMSAT, GUMUSH, and ERTEK Ltd. is a 3U CubeSat with a Mode V/u inverting linear transponder, CW beacon, and a digital telemetry downlink. The transponder downlink frequencies will be 435.200 MHz – 435.250 MHz with an uplink of 145.940 MHz – 145.990 MHz. The CW beacon frequency will be 437.225 MHz and the digital telemetry downlink will be 437.325 MHz. UBAKUSAT will be delivered to the International Space Station aboard the JAXA HTV-6 resupply mission, scheduled for launch on December 9, 2016, for future deployment. The mission is expected to last 6-12 months. On December 26, 2016, the China Center for Aerospace Science and Technology’s BY70-1 satellite is expected to launch from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center into a 530 km sun-synchronous orbit. The satellite, a 3-axis stabilized 2U CubeSat with deployable solar panels, will carry a Mode V/u FM transponder with an uplink frequency of 145.920 MHz and a downlink frequency of 436.200 MHz. On March 31, 2017, two satellites from the Chinese Amateur Satellite Group (CAMSAT) are expected to launch from Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center into a 524 km orbit with an inclination of 42 degrees. The two satellites, CAS-4A and CAS-4B, will be 50 kg mass with 3-axis stabilization carrying optical remote sensing missions. The amateur radio payloads will be similar to the XW-2 series of satellites with Mode U/v linear transponders with power output of 100 mW, 100 mW AX.25 4800 baud GMSK telemetry, and 50 mW CW beacons. Frequencies for these two satellites have not yet been coordinated. In addition to these satellites, AMSAT’s Fox-1Cliff, Fox-1D, and RadFxSat (Fox-1B) satellites carrying Mode U/v FM transponders are all expected to launch in the first half of 2017. Nayif-1, from the Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology (EIAST) and American Univeristy of Sharjah (AUS) carrying a FUNcube Mode U/v linear transponder and telemetry downlink, as well as the U. S. Naval Academy Satellite Lab’s QIKcom-2, PSAT-2, and BRICSAT-2 satellites carrying two-way amateur radio payloads are all expected to launch in the first half of 2017. Es’Hail-2, a geostationary satellite carrying AMSAT-DL’s Phase 4A payload is scheduled to launch in the third quarter of 2017. AMSAT’s RadFxSat-2 (Fox-1E) satellite carrying a Mode V/u linear transponder may also launch in late 2017. [ANS thanks Paul N8HM for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Possible Satellite Activity From Virgin Islands KP4/WP4, U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS. The "Buddies of the Caribbean", operators Tom/K4ZGB, Bryan/N8WD, Rick/AA4W and Robert/KE4AL, will be active as WP2/K4ZGB, KP2/N8WD, KP2/AA4W and KP2/KE4AL, respectively, from Saint Croix Island (NA-106) between December 6-14th. The location of their DXpedition is from "My Mountain Breeze" which is the location of the station NP2N <http://www.mymountainbreeze.com/page7/page7.html>. They will also be operating from his station and will have a station in the ARRL 10 meter Contest, NPOTA (Salt River Bay, Christiansted, and Buck Island), QRP, and beach operations will also take place. Activity will be on 160-6 meters using CW, SSB and the Digital modes. In addition, they will attempt to make some satellite contacts through SO-50 and AO-85. QSL via LOTW, eQSL or direct to their home callsigns. [ANS thanks Ohio/Penn DX Bulletin #1294 for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Obituary for Frank (Robin) Haighton, VE3FRH, (1937-2016) Robin was a Past Executive Vice President, a past President and a long-time member of the Board of Directors for AMSAT-North America (AMSAT-NA). HAIGHTON, F.R.E. "Rob" (1937-2016) P. ENG. Passed away at Joseph Brant Hospital, on Friday, December 2, 2016, at the age of 79. Beloved husband of Diana (nee Anderson) for 54 years. Cherished father to Andrew (Lois) and Peter (Nichole). Dear grandfather of Amethyst, Emerald, Topaz, Jasper, Rachel, David, Mary and Joanna. Brother of Jill Hill. Born in England, he immigrated to Canada with Diana and Andrew in 1965. Rob was a past Master of Burlington Lodge No.165, A.F. & A.M., a charter member and past Master of Wellington Square Lodge No. 725, A.F. & A.M., member of the Scottish Rite-32nd Degree, the York Rite, White Oak Chapter No.104 of the Royal Arch and very excellent companion of Royal Arch Masonry. Rob, an Active Ham Radio Operator known as VE3FRH, was also a long time member of the Burlington Amateur Radio Club. He was a past president of AMSAT North America and instrumental Founding Member of ARISS space satellite systems. Visitation at SMITH'S FUNERAL HOME, 1167 Guelph Line (one stop light north of QEW), BURLINGTON (905-632- 3333), on Sunday, December 18, 2016 from 3-5 pm and 7-9 pm with Masonic Service to begin at 8:30 pm. For those who wish, donations in memory of Rob to the Joseph Brant Memorial Foundation, to the Heart and Stroke Foundation or to a charity of choice would be sincerely appreciated by the family. Visitations: Sunday, December 18th, 2016, 3:00pm - 5:00pm Sunday, December 18th, 2016, 7:00pm - 9:00pm Smith's Funeral Home - Guelph Line Address 1167 Guelph Line Burlington, ON L7P 2S7 [ANS thanks Smith's Funeral Home for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Phase 4 Ground Weekly Report Greetings all! This is the Phase 4 Ground weekly report for the weekend of December 9th 2016. Paul KB5MU sitting in for Michelle. (Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/Jjn2_NLkMzY) Generic stream encapsulation for DVB, or GSE for short, is now working in GNU Radio with ping packets! Low latency, high efficiency, and it's available as an out of tree module right now at the following link. https://github.com/drmpeg/gr-dvbgse Thank you Dr. MPEG (Ron w6rz) Why is GSE important? It's the data link layer protocol we've chosen, and therefore binds the universe together. It's efficient and low latency. It allows us to carry packet protocols like IP, ethernet, or whatever through our system. There are several addressing modes and it enables adapative coding and modulation. You can do hardware filtering with it and you can add other link protocols by extension. There are no built-in integrity checks in GSE. That's left up to the physical layer to do. We are confident that the physical layer is up to the job. GSE is also used in the terrestrial version of the protocol, DVB-T2. You've heard less about this but it's what we're going to use for terrestrial radio modes. Sharing GSE function between all modes makes for a more consistent design and a bit less work. The testing continues with GSE using the Ayecka SR1 and SR1 Pro. These are DVB-S2 receivers that claim to do GSE. Three of us purchased the SR1 in anticipation that it would do GSE out of the box and be either a good test equipment choice or possibly one of the many recipes for a Phase 4 Ground radio or both. However, GSE is, if you hunt hard enough, listed as an option that requires another $220 to unlock. And, Ayecka wants to upgrade your receiver remotely, which could be a problem in some IT situations. Dr. MPEG's early results seem to indicate that there are some bugs in Ayecka's SR1 GSE implementation. That's just further evidence of our early adopter status. Yay us! We were of course disappointed to find out that GSE was an extra cost option, and nobody like to run into bugs, but kudos to the Ayecka folks for being very responsive with fixes for the GSE issues we've reported. "Just say no to HLS" We are soliciting opinions about HLS from Xilinx. This is High-Level Synthesis and is part of the Vivado design environment. It allows C, C++ and System C specifications to be directly targeted into Xilinx All Programmable devices without the need to manually create RTL. Sounds like magic, doesn't it? Is it something that you have experience with? Is it something you have an opinion about? Xilinx wants to know. Get in touch with me with your feedback. [ANS thanks Paul KB5MU for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- AMSAT CW Activity Day January 1, 2017 (UTC) will be AMSAT's first annual CW Activity Day! As with the old Straight Key Night, this is a fun event, not a contest. It will run for 24 hours on January 1, 2017 (UTC). All forms of CW are welcome, -- straight keys, bugs, keyers, even keyboards and decoders. Since it is not a contest, there is no required exchange. A QSO is a QSO. Working the same station on more than one satellite is permitted. Instead of submitting Best Fist nominations, all participants are asked to post their results, including "Soapbox" comments, to AMSAT- BB. Please include the satellites you used, and the number of CW QSOs you had on each. While it is not necessary to post your full log, you may do so if you wish. [ANS thanks Ray W2RS for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- AMSAT Awards Congrats to all who have earned an AMSAT Award since the last posting. AMSAT Satellite Communicators Award for making their first satellite QSO Augustinus Robert Tuanubun, YC8VRA Kenneth Hitchcock, KB0OQJ Jacek Zebrowski, W9OOO Terry Holman, AJ4A ------ AMSAT Communications Achievement Award Robert Beatty, WB4SON #569 Dan Koawl, AL7RS, #570 Robert Hinshaw, N6UK, #571 Mac Cody, AE5PH, #572 John Papay, K8YSE/7, #573 Dave Swanson, KG5CCI, #574 ------ AMSAT Sexagesimal Award Fernando Ramirez-Ferrer, NP4JV #173 Robert Hinshaw, N6UK, #174 Dan Koawl, AL7RS, #175 John Papay, K8YSE/7, #176 Dave Swanson, KG5CCI, #177 ------ AMSAT Century Club Award Dave Swanson, KG5CCI #48 ------ South Africa Satellite Communications Achievement Award Robert Hinshaw, N6UK, #US197 Dan Koawl, AL7RS, #US198 Mac Cody, AE5PH, #US199 John Papay, K8YSE/7, #200 Dave Swanson, KG5CCI, #201 ------ AMSAT Robert W. Barbee Jr., W4AMI Award Cleber Rodrigues, PY3TX, #88 Paul Stoezter, N8HM, Upgrade to 4000 Frank Westphal, K6FW, Upgrade to 2000 John Papay, K8YSE/7, Upgrade to 3000 ------ AMSAT Robert W. Barbee Jr., W4AMI 5000 Award Paul Stoetzer, N8HM, #33 [ANS thanks Bruce KK5DO for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- AMSAT Events Information about AMSAT activities at other important events around the country. Examples of these events are radio club meetings where AMSAT Area Coordinators give presentations, demonstrations of working amateur satellites, and hamfests with an AMSAT presence (a table with AMSAT literature and merchandise, sometimes also with presentations, forums, and/or demonstrations). *Sunday, 8 January, 2017 - Long Island Section Convention at Briarcliffe College in Bethpage, NY *Saturday, 14 January 2017 – Thunderbird Hamfest 2017 in Phoenix AZ *Saturday, 4 February 2017 – Palm Springs Hamfest in Palm Springs CA *Friday-Sunday, 10-12 February 2017 Orlando HamCation in Orlando, FL *Friday and Saturday, 17-18 February 2017 – Yuma Hamfest in Yuma AZ *Friday-Sunday, March 31, April 1 & 2, 2017, NVCON in Las Vegas, NV [ANS thanks AMSAT-NA for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- NEON - NASA Educators Online Network ANNOUNCEMENTS Free STEM Education Webinars From NASA Educator Professional Development Audience: In-service, Pre-service, Home School and Informal Educators The NASA STEM Educator Professional Development Collaborative (EPDC) at Texas State University is presenting a series of free webinars open to all educators. Join NASA education specialists to learn about activities, lesson plans, educator guides and resources that bring NASA into your classroom. Registration is required to participate. To register, simply click on the link provided beneath the webinar description. December 6, 2016, at 5:00 p.m. ET: Picking Up STEAM: Using Models and Data to Understand Clouds (Grades 4-10) - Practice STEAM through the use of inquiry-based science activities from NASA curriculum guides. The activities and NASA educational websites introduced will provide participants with new curriculum ideas to assist in reaching the Next Generation Science Standards and CORE learning outcomes standards. This STEAM workshop will guide participants through inquiry-based learning activities related to clouds, phase change, light, water cycle, weather and climate. Participants will use authentic data sets to model STEAM lessons. Register online to participate. https://www.etouches.com/205303 ********** December 6, 2016, at 6:30 p.m. ET: Don't Count NASA Out of Your Math Classes: SpaceMath - Linking Math and Science (Grades 5-8) - Space Mathematics is a two-part series designed to help educators make the critical linkage between mathematics and science in the classroom. In Part 1 -- Linking Math and Science, participants will survey some of the available NASA resources and discuss the use of science as a vehicle for mathematics instruction. Register online to participate. https://www.etouches.com/199140 ********** December 7, 2016, at 6:30 p.m. ET: Don't Count NASA Out of Your Math Classes: SpaceMath - Active Math (Grades 5-8) - Space Mathematics is a two-part series designed to help educators make the critical linkage between mathematics and science in the classroom. In Part 2 -- Active Math, participants will explore the use of inquiry to reinforce mathematics skills while engaging students with hands-on activities. Register online to participate. https://www.etouches.com/199142 ********** December 8, 2016, at 6:30 p.m. ET: Don't Count NASA Out of Your Math Classes: Mass vs Weight (Grades K-12) - Participants will learn about hands-on standards-aligned activities comparing mass and weight. They also will learn about the microgravity environment of the International Space Station. This webinar addresses the Next Generation Science Standards ESS1 and ESS2 and Common Core Math Standards. Register online to participate. https://www.etouches.com/207364 ********** December 12, 2016, at 6:30 p.m. ET: Don't Count NASA Out of Your Math Classes: Scale of Discovery (Grades K-12) - Participants will engage in hands-on standards-aligned activities using scale to create a scroll of the universe exploring the inner planets, outer planets and the asteroid belt. They also will use mathematical conversions and scale to compare planets and asteroids using various-sized fruit while learning about the Dawn and New Horizons. This webinar addresses the Next Generation Science Standards ESS1 and ESS2 and Common Core Math Standards. Register online to participate. https://www.etouches.com/207360 ********** December 13, 2016, at 4:00 p.m. ET: Teachers Connect: LaRC Centennial Badge (Grades 6-8) - This webinar will focus for the first half-hour on clouds and their role in Earth’s “energy budget” and on implementation ideas using GLOBE for different classroom settings as part of the “Earth Right Now: LaRC 100th” digital badge. We also will talk about student badge implementations, extension ideas and extra resources. The second half-hour will be very similar but centered on the engineering design process using the Drag Race to Mars Engineering Design Challenge as part of the “Journey to Mars: LaRC 100th” digital badge. This portion of the webinar will focus on forces and motion and math calculations using paper airplanes and testing different materials as part of the “Aeronautics: LaRC 100th” digital badge. This webinar meets requirements of teacher discussions within the NASA Langley 100th Educator Professional Development Collaborative digital badges. To learn more about the Langley 100th digital badges, log in to https://nasatxstate-epdc.net/ and search for LaRC 100th. Register online to participate. https://www.etouches.com/207899 ********** December 14, 2016, at 6:00 p.m. ET: Don't Count NASA Out of Your Math Classes: So You Want to be a Rocket Scientist? (Grades 4-8) - So you want to be a rocket scientist? Explore the math and science of rockets with NASA missions and STEM curriculum resources. Launch your students' interest in forces and motion with inquiry rocket activities and design challenges that include designing, building and launching simple rockets while recording and analyzing data. Join us in a learning journey "blast-off." Register online to participate. https://www.etouches.com/209754 ********** December 15, 2016, at 4:00 p.m. ET: Teachers Connect: LaRC Centennial Badge (Grades 6-8) - This webinar will focus for the first half-hour on clouds and their role in Earth’s “energy budget” and on implementation ideas using GLOBE for different classroom settings as part of the “Earth Right Now: LaRC 100th” digital badge. We also will talk about student badge implementations, extension ideas and extra resources. The second half-hour will be very similar but centered on the engineering design process using the Drag Race to Mars Engineering Design Challenge as part of the “Journey to Mars: LaRC 100th” digital badge. This portion of the webinar will focus on forces and motion and math calculations using paper airplanes and testing different materials as part of the “Aeronautics: LaRC 100th” digital badge. This webinar meets requirements of teacher discussions within the NASA Langley 100th Educator Professional Development Collaborative digital badges. To learn more about the Langley 100th digital badges, log in to https://nasatxstate-epdc.net/ and search for LaRC 100th. Register online to participate. https://www.etouches.com/207902 ********** For the NASA STEM Educator Professional Development webinar schedule, go to: http://www.txstate-epdc.net/events/ [ANS thanks NASA Educators Online Network for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- ARISS News + A Successful contact was made between Collège Jean Charcot, Saint Malo, France] and Astronaut Thomas Pesquet KG5FYG using Callsign OR4ISS. The contact began Thu 2016-12-08 15:19:45 UTC and lasted about nine and a half minutes. Contact was telebridge via IK1SLD. ARISS Mentor was Joseph F6ICS. + A Successful contact was made between The Museum of Innovation and Science (miSci), Schenectady NY, USA and Astronaut Shane Kimbrough KE5HOD using Callsign NA1SS. The contact began Sat 2016-12- 10 19:49:54 UTC and lasted about nine and a half minutes. Contact was direct via W2IR. ARISS Mentor was John K4SQC Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule + Maristes High School, Toulouse, France, direct via F8IDR The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be FXØISS The scheduled astronaut is Thomas Pesquet KG5FYG Contact is a go for: Mon 2016-12-12 13:29:47 UTC + Scuola Secondaria di Primo Grado “Niccolò Pisano”, Marina di Pisa, Italy, telebridge via IK1SLD The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be OR4ISS The scheduled astronaut is Shane Kimbrough KE5HOD Contact is a go for: Thu 2016-12-15 12:31:13 UTC (if the HTV launches on time) Contact is a go for: Sat 2016-12-17 12:23:31 UTC (if there is a HTV launch delay) [ANS thanks ARISS, Charlie AJ9N and David AA4KN for the above information] [ANS thanks ARISS, Charlie AJ9N information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Satellite Shorts From All Over + Tigrisat , the Irak's first cubesat, is transmitting in 435 MhZ at 9K6 FSK G3RUH. It's modulation is very clear and easy to decode to anybody that wants to start to decode this type of satellite. Here you can find a live capture: https://youtu.be/_eo6rqb5EVY [ANS thanks Gustavo, LW2DTZ for the above information] + Tiny 'Black Magic' Satellite Packs Origami-Like Radar Dish NASA challenged engineers to pack an entire satellite dish into a cereal box with Radar in a CubeSat (RainCube), a technology- demonstration mission scheduled for launch in 2017 that will measure rain and snowfall on Earth from space. Read more at: http://www.space.com/34807-cubesats-pack-origami-radar-dish.html [ANS thanks Space.com for the above information] + 18th annual LI Section Convention "Getting Started..." Forum. The Long Island Section Convention takes place at Briarcliffe College in Bethpage, NY January 8th, 2017, there will be 30 forums. Peter Portanova, W2JV, will be doing a forum at 10 AM on ‘Getting Started with the Amateur Satellites”, AMSAT will have a table in the club room to answer your questions. We will be doing demonstrations on the air as time and weather permits, on both the FM and linear transponder satellites. Look for W2JV, or others on the air. Tom Gallagher, CEO, of ARRL will be the convention keynote speaker. [ANS thanks Peter W2JV for the above information] + Call for pictures In an effort to improve the AMSAT web site, Joe Fitzgerald, KM1P, requests pictures that are relevant to AMSAT, satellite operations and engineering. Pictures should include a short narrative identifying people and the subject of the picture. Including links to your photo sharing site would be greatly appreciated. Send photos and information to to Webmaster(a)amsat.org. [ANS thanks Joe KM1P 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

1 0

ANS-339 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins
by Joseph Spier 04 Dec '16

04 Dec '16

AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-339 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: * Past AMSAT-NA President Frank (Robin) Haighton, VE3FRH SK * Middle School Students’ Tancredo-1 TubeSat Scheduled for Launch * Radio Ham Awarded Space Achievement Honor * Receive Pictures from Space – ISS SSTV Dec 8-9 * Aussie HAM to make an impact on Mars * AO-7 Eclipses Return * W5RKN receives Satellite WAS, Satellite VUCC and WAC * ISS Packet Digipeater on 437.550 MHz * AMSAT Events * ARISS News * Satellite Shorts From All Over SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-339.01 ANS-339 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins AMSAT News Service Bulletin 339.01 >From AMSAT HQ KENSINGTON, MD. DATE December 4, 2016 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-339.01 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Past AMSAT-NA President Frank (Robin) Haighton, VE3FRH SK On behalf of AMSAT-North America, it is with great sadness that I announce the passing of Frank (Robin) Haighton, VE3FRH. Robin suffered a debilitating stroke earlier in this last week, was admitted to the hospital and became a silent key on the morning of December 2nd. Robin was a Past Executive Vice President, a past President and a long-time member of the Board of Directors for AMSAT-North America (AMSAT-NA). Over the years, Frank remained a strong Canadian voice for the organization. For example, as a founding member of the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) project, Robin served as one of two international delegates from Canada. Frank Bauer, KA3HDO, ARISS's International Chairperson said that he and Robin..."had a unique perspective and relationship that was very much appreciated". Frank went on to note: "Robin contributed significantly to ARISS through his ideas, guidance and wise counsel. He challenged members of our team to look at things in a different perspective. As a result of his sage advice, we were able work through these issues and arrive at a common approach, both in developing and delivering ARISS hardware as well as supporting the technical mentoring of schools and local hams." I first became fully aware of Robin's many leadership talents in the mid-1990s when I was then AMSAT's Executive Vice President. In 1997, Robin hosted our AMSAT Board of Directors meeting and Space Symposium in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, one of the first (if not THE first) time that meeting was held outside of the USA. At about that same time, Robin stepped up to the plate to also become AMSAT's Canadian Liaison, working a number of AMSAT issues north of the US/Canadian border. Most notably, Robin was instrumental in coordinating AMSAT's consultant role with the Canadian MOST (Microvariability and Oscillations of STars) satellite project. Through his tireless, "hands on" efforts with the satellite's Canadian builders, AMSAT was able to bring critical analysis and mentoring skills to bear the project which also garnered a large monetary donation to AMSAT as a result. MOST was successfully launched in 2003 and satellite remains on orbit (and largely operational) to this day. Throughout my time as President, and then later when we switched roles and I once again became Executive Vice President when he went on to become AMSAT's President in 2000, I always sought out and very much appreciated his wise counsel. During his time as our AMSAT President and BOD member, Frank helped to successfully guide the organization through the launch and subsequent anomalies with the Phase 3-D satellite (which later became AMSAT-OSCAR 40 (AO- 40)) on orbit. He was also instrumental in the birth, development and launch of AMSAT-NA's AO-51 satellite. During its long lifetime, AO-51 became one of the most popular (if not THE most popular) of the so-called "easy-sats", providing countless newcomers (and others) with an introduction to our wonderful world of amateur radio satellites. Needless to say, his legacy will live on, both within the hearts and minds of children and family members that experience ARISS, as well as those of us who served with him during his many years as a senior officer of AMSAT. At press time, funeral arrangements for Robin were pending, but that information will be passed along just as soon as it becomes known. In them meantime, and during this festive holiday season, please take a few moments to keep Robin and his family in your thoughts and prayers. Robin… you will be sorely missed. May your spirit soar among the stars! [ANS thanks Keith Baker, KB1SF/VA3KSF, AMSAT-NA Treasurer and Past President, and Frank Bauer, KA3HDO, AMSAT-NA Vice President, Human Spaceflight for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Middle School Students’ Tancredo-1 TubeSat Scheduled for Launch The Tancredo-1 satellite, a small TubeSat built by middle school students in Brazil, is scheduled to be sent to the International Space Station on December 9, 2016. The satellite will be sent to the ISS inside the TuPOD TubeSat deployer onboard JAXA’s KOUNOTORI6 cargo ship (HTV-6 mission). The TuPOD is expected to be ejected into space by the J-SSOD satellite deployer on December 19th and on December 21st, Tancredo-1 is expected to be finally ejected from the TuPOD into space. Once in space, Tancredo-1 will start transmitting telemetry data. Tancredo-1 is the first satellite of the Ubatubasat project, a STEM project idealized by Prof. Cândido Oswaldo de Moura at Escola Municipal Tancredo Neves public school in Ubatuba, state of Sao Paulo, Brazil. The project is supported by the Brazilian Institute for Space Research (INPE) and the Brazilian Space Agency (AEB). Tancredo-1 will initially have the same orbit as the ISS, but it will slowly drift with time and will eventually reenter in the atmosphere and burn. The Ubatubasat project team and AMSAT-BR would like to kindly request radio amateurs around the planet to monitor and report any signals heard from Tancredo-1. Please send any reports (audio, AX.25 KISS files, etc) to py2sdr(a)gmail.com Tancredo-1 will transmit on 437.200 MHz using 1200 bps AFSK AX.25. Telemetry format and equations: https://goo.gl/qOK6qM For more information see: http://www.ubatubasat.com/en/ http://www.amsatuk.me.uk/iaru/finished_detail.php?serialnum=419 http://amsat-br.org/ [ANS thanks Edson, PY2SDR, AMSAT-BR, and AMSAT-UK for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Radio Ham Awarded Space Achievement Honor Cornwall Live reports that radio amateur David Honess M6DNT has been awarded a prestigious space achievement honor for his Astro Pi work with the Tim Peake GB1SS Principia mission. David Honess M6DNT was presented with a Sir Arthur Clarke Award, on behalf of the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation and the British Interplanetary Society, for Space Achievement – Industry/Project Individual. This came after Mr Honess and his Astro Pi project which installed two Raspberry Pi’s (Izzy and Ed) on to the International Space Station as the platform for students to run their own code in space and speak with Major Tim Peake GB1SS. Mr Honess has been “the driving force” behind getting two UK designed and manufactured Astro Pi computers onto the International Space Station to provide a unique facility to inspire children and adults to learn to code. Read the full story at http://www.cornwalllive.com/west-cornwall-man-wins-award-for-space-achievem… after-project-with-tim-peake/story-29893608-detail/story.html Sir Arthur Clarke Awards Winners http://www.bis-space.com/2013/04/05/9719/sir-arthur-clarke-awards-winners You can follow the two ISS Astro Pi’s Izzy and Ed at https://twitter.com/astro_pi_ir https://twitter.com/astro_pi_vis [ANS thanks AMSAT-UK for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Receive Pictures from Space – ISS SSTV Dec 8-9 Slow-scan television (SSTV) transmissions are planned from the International Space Station (ISS) on December 8-9, 2016. The SSTV images will be transmitted as part of the MAI-75 Experiment on 145.800 MHz FM using the Kenwood TM-D710 transceiver located in the Russian ISS Service module. The MAI-75 activities have been scheduled for the Russian crew on Dec 8 from 12:35 to 18:00 GMT and Dec 9 from 12:40 to 17:40 GMT. Note the ISS transmissions on 145.800 MHz FM use the 5 kHz deviation standard rather than the narrow 2.5 kHz used in Europe. If your transceiver has selectable FM filters try the wider filter. The ISS Fan Club website 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/ ARISS-SSTV Images http://ariss-sstv.blogspot.co.uk/ Listen to the ISS when it is over Russia with the R4UAB WebSDR http://websdr.r4uab.ru/ Listen to the ISS when in range of London with the SUWS WebSDR http://websdr.suws.org.uk/ If you receive a full or partial picture from the Space Station your Local Newspaper may like to know http://www.southgatearc.org/news/2016/july/now-is-a-great-time-to-get-ham- radio-publicity.htm Scheduled ARISS Contacts and APRS Operations will utilize the Ericson UHF transceiver in the Columbia Module to allow multiple use of ARISS equipment onboard the ISS. [ANS thanks AMSAT-UK and ARISS for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Aussie HAM to make an impact on Mars On a salt lake in Central Australia early next year a radio amateur will conduct tests of a wide area radio network destined for the planet Mars. Robert Brand VK2URB, of Thunderstruck Aerospace, reports that it is an essential part of a project to develop the Mars Nano-Lander and Methane detection system called MEDIAN, set to land in 2025. Approval will be sought from the Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority for use of the air space for the test. The project calls for 10 separate penetrators to be ejected from the jettisoned heat shield at about 6km from the surface of Mars. They are to spear into the surface of Mars and form a ring about 8km wide. The radio systems will begin measuring distance between the other landers and map the network. Robert VK2URB says they will then switch to a random packet mode and begin sending messages to an orbiting craft. Even the orientation of each probe covering an area around the size of a small city, will be detected and used to calculate the direction that wind, and hopefully any methane, on the thin Martian atmosphere. Robert VK2URB says that the audacious mission is a joint project with the UK Methane detection group at the University of Central Lancashire, and the Australian Thunderstruck Aerospace team. Robert is the design architect of the landing system, the mapping, orientation, communications, data relay, and the on-going non-methane science package. He says that never before has a network of probes been landed anywhere outside of earth and have impactors with the intention of surviving the process. The possibility of microbial life on Mars has been discussed by scientists since the presence of methane gas on the red planet was found several years ago. MEDIAN will map possible methane vent locations for a rover to investigate. If the rover fails to land, the project will still relay local weather and subsoil information back to earth. It's expected that the tests in Central Australia will demonstrate the essential role that radio will play in mapping, locating, orienting the network and then relaying data around the network. The tests will involve dropping a simulated heat shield from 3km altitude and having the impactors fire at 2.5km feet to simulate the impact that each would have on Mars. Even the orientation of each probe will be detected and used to calculate the direction that wind is coming from in the thin Martian atmosphere. The penetrators will stay vertical and elevate the science and radio package about a meter off the surface allowing for better radio connectivity and clear wind profile. A meter diameter solar panel will provide adequate power and the network is expected to survive for at least six months on Mars relaying weather and sub-surface information. An expected seven of the 10 spikes will survive the impact. Ham radio will provide essential communications for the tests and for the event. It is hoped a special event around the testing will attract the interests of ham operators worldwide, and focus attention of the role that Australia is playing in Space Missions. [ANS thanks Jim Linton VK3PC and the VK1WIA wireless news for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- AO-7 Eclipses Return The AMSAT satellite status page at http://www.amsat.org/status/ indicates that as of the morning of 11/25/2016, AO-7 is once again entering eclipse each orbit. This means that the 24 Hour mode change timer is interrupted each orbit, and the satellite will be found primarily in Mode U/v (aka Mode B). As the satellite is powered solely by the now 42 year-old solar panels, it is very sensitive to strong uplink signals, particularly CW. Users should closely monitor their downlink for excessive chirp, warbling or "FM'ing" and reduce power as necessary. More information including frequencies can be found at http://ww2.amsat.org/?page_id=1031 [ANS thanks Drew, KO4MA, AMSAT Vice President, Operations for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- W5RKN receives Satellite WAS, Satellite VUCC and WAC In October 2016, Ron Parsens, W5RKN received the ARRL award for Satellite WAS #345 and Satellite VUCC #286 with 100 grids with 100 more grids ready to submit. Ron commented, "I would urge everyone to use LoTW for these awards as that makes applying for the awards so much simpler. I also received the IARU WAC award using a satellite contact for Asia with JF2WXS on March 13, 1994 on AO-13. I had a paper QSL card but since he was still listed on QRZ.com, I emailed Ban and he uploaded the contact to LoTW. Much thanks to all that provided the contacts, QSL cards and LoTW entries. It was a lot of work, but a lot of fun." [ANS thanks Ron, W5RKN for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- ISS Packet Digipeater on 437.550 MHz The Ericsson UHF HT is using the ARISS 70cm frequency of 437.550 MHz. With the move to 70cm, this means users of the packet digipeater will have to make adjustments for Doppler on both the uplink and downlink. Even with the change in frequency, the digipeater operates exactly as it did on 145.825 MHz. For HTs or FM mobile transceivers, and possibly other radios capable of operating on 70cm FM, programming a group of 5 memory channels which compensate for Doppler will allow for 70cm packet operation. Use the following group of memory channels for the ISS packet digipeater on 437.550 MHz: Channel Receive (MHz) Transmit (MHz) Offset 1 437.560 437.540 -0.02 MHz 2 437.555 437.545 -0.01 MHz 3 437.550 437.550 (no offset, simplex) 4 437.545 437.555 +0.01 MHz 5 437.540 437.560 +0.02 MHz Memory channels in some radios will accept separate receive and transmit frequencies, while others will accept the receive frequency and the offset size/direction. Be ready to flip-flop between the first two memories after a minute or so into the pass, and near the end flip-flop between 4 and 5. There could be moments near AOS and LOS - and maybe other points in the middle - where the signal is just in between the two RX frequencies, and your TNC or software won't decode it. More useful advice for working the ISS packet digipeater is available from K9JKM’s document “Add ISS Packet Operation to Your Satellite Operation”, available from the AMSAT Station and Operating Hints page at: http://www.amsat.org/?page_id=2144 [ANS thanks AMSAT-NA and Patrick, WD9EWK/VA7EWK for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- AMSAT Events Information about AMSAT activities at other important events around the country. Examples of these events are radio club meetings where AMSAT Area Coordinators give presentations, demonstrations of working amateur satellites, and hamfests with an AMSAT presence (a table with AMSAT literature and merchandise, sometimes also with presentations, forums, and/or demonstrations). *Saturday, 14 January 2017 – Thunderbird Hamfest 2017 in Phoenix AZ *Saturday, 4 February 2017 – Palm Springs Hamfest in Palm Springs CA *Friday-Sunday, 10-12 February 2017 Orlando HamCation in Orlando, FL *Friday and Saturday, 17-18 February 2017 – Yuma Hamfest in Yuma AZ *Friday-Sunday, March 31, April 1 & 2, 2017, NVCON in Las Vegas, NV [ANS thanks AMSAT-NA for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- ARISS News Successful Contacts * A telebridge contact via LU1CGB with students at Michel LOTTE Junior High School in Belle Isle, France was successful Mon 2016-11-28. * A telebridge contact via W6SRJ with students at Salesian High School in Wroclaw, Poland was successful Fri 2016-11-25. Upcoming Contacts * Collège Jean Charcot, Saint Malo, France, telebridge via IK1SLD The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be OR4ISS The scheduled astronaut is Thomas Pesquet KG5FYG Contact is a go for: Thu 2016-12-08 15:19:45 UTC 74 deg This contact might be on the downlink of 437.525 MHz * The Museum of Innovation and Science (miSci), Schenectady NY, direct via W2IR The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be NA1SS The scheduled astronaut is Shane Kimbrough KE5HOD Contact is a go for: Sat 2016-12-10 19:49:54 UTC 85 deg Watch http://www.ariss.org/upcoming-contacts.html for information about upcoming contacts as they are scheduled. [ANS thanks ARISS and Charlie, AJ9N for the above information] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Satellite Shorts From All Over South African SDR Workshop Completed Phase 1, Now Planning Phase 2 Last Saturday it was hi-tech amateur radio at the National Amateur Radio Center when Cor Rademeyer, ZS6CR and Anton Janovsky, ZR6AIC presented the Software Defined Radio Workshop. Known by its initials SDR, it is a software way of creating a receiver and transmitter. During the workshop which included two videos introducing the SDR concept, the two speakers created a two metre to 70cm FM repeater using a dongle and a Raspberry Pi. The workshop, presented by AMSAT SA in cooperation with the SARL was attended by 37 radio amateurs and electronic hobbyists. A follow up workshop is planned for 18 February when Cor and Anton will take delegates through the steps of creating a satellite receiver using the RTL dongle and software. The workshop registration fee will include a dongle and memory stick with the required software. Full details will become available on amsatsa.org.za in the next few weeks. The various presentations and videos presented last Saturday, including how to build a repeater with a Raspberry Pi will be posted on www.amsatsa.org.za this weekend. You will also be able to follow the links from www.sarl.org.za. [ANS thanks SARL weekly news in English 2016-12-3 for the above information] FUNcube-1/AO73 Celebrates 3 Years in Space Monday, November 21, 2016, marked the third birthday in space for the 985 gram spacecraft FUNcube-1 / AO73. FUNcube-1 was launched at 07:10 UT on November 21, 2013 and its first signals were received immediately after deployment over the Indian Ocean by amateurs in South Africa. Since then it has been operating continuously in either its education mode or, with the transponder active, in amateur mode when in eclipse and at weekends. The FUNcube team are very grateful to everyone who has been contributing their telemetry records to the Data Warehouse and also to those who are using FUNcube- 1 for educational outreach to schools and colleges around the world. This important part of our mission is intended to encourage young people to develop an interest and passion in all STEM subjects for their future. The spacecraft is operating nominally – the telemetry indicates that all the sub-systems are fine. The battery voltages, solar panel charge currents and on board temperatures are virtually unchanged since launch. In addition to FUNcube-1, there are now similar FUNcube transponders operating in low earth orbit on the UKube-1 and EO79/QB50p1 CubeSats. The team has recently contributed to the development of Nayif-1, which is presently awaiting launch, and is currently working on a number of further CubeSat and microsat projects. Happy Birthday AO73! Get your 73 on 73 Award, details at https://amsat-uk.org/funcube/73-on-73-award/ AO-73 (FUNcube-1) website https://amsat-uk.org/funcube/funcube-website/ FUNcube Yahoo Group https://amsat-uk.org/funcube/yahoo-group/ https://amsat-uk.org/2016/11/21/funcube-1-ao73-celebrates-3-years-in-space/ [ANS thanks AMSAT-UK 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, Joe Spier, K6WAO k6wao at amsat dot org

1 0