AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-148
ANS is a free, weekly, news and information service of AMSAT North America, The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation. ANS reports on the activities of a worldwide group of Amateur Radio operators who share an active interest in designing, building, launching and communicating through analog and digital Amateur Radio satellites.
Please send any amateur satellite news or reports to:
In this edition: * AMSAT Submits NASA Edison Program Proposals * ARISS Call For Volunteers * North America Rare Grid EK69 Activation From Cayo Culebra Island * High Altitude Balloon Crossband Repeater Payload Northeast USA * Satellite Operations Planned for Worldwide Museum Ships Weekend * Dayton Hamvention Satellite Demonstration Area Videos Posted * UKube-1 is Taking Shape * Listen to HORYU-2 on the Web * ARISS Status - 21 May 2012
SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-148.01 ANS-148 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins
AMSAT News Service Bulletin 148.01 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. May 27, 2012 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-148.01
AMSAT Submits NASA Edison Program Proposals
This week the Board of Directors announced AMSAT was a partner in a pair of Phase-2 NASA Edison Program proposals that were successfully submitted on Tuesday May 22, 2012.
If selected, these proposals would provide AMSAT and its partners with the funds to construct and launch new amateur radio satellites. Due to the highly competitive nature of this program, no additional information can be released at this time.
NASA intends to announce the winning proposals in the Fall of 2012. More information will be released as it becomes available.
[ANS thanks the AMSAT Board of Directors for the above information]
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ARISS Call For Volunteers
During the Dayton Hamvention AMSAT and the ARRL announced opportun- ities for amateur radio satellite operators to join the ARISS Pro- gram (Amateur Radio on the International Space Station) in roles as Technical Mentors and Ground Station Operators.
On Friday and Saturday of the Hamvention AMSAT Vice President for Educational Relations Mark Hammond, N8MH took advantage of the ARRL Stage to explain these roles for radio amateurs who serve as an ad- vising and coordinating liaison between NASA, the school or group making the ARISS contact, and the Ground Station Operators, who set up the satellite station at the contact location.
This week the ARRL published the ARISS recruiting program on the web with a call for volunteers. The ARRL said, "Public awareness of the ARISS program is growing as a result of a new proposal process, and promotion by NASA through its broad outreach to schools and teachers. This presents the Amateur Radio community with an opportunity to reach out to even more schools in locations across the US through the ARISS program.
See the ARRL web for full details of the ARISS call for volunteers: http://www.arrl.org/ariss-volunteers
With the help of experienced Amateur Radio volunteers, and coordi- nation from the ARISS partnership team, crew members speak directly with large youth audiences in a variety of public forums --school assemblies, science museums, Scout camporees and jamborees and space camps-where students, teachers, parents, and communities learn about space, space technologies and Amateur Radio.
There are two ways to get involved:
Volunteer with a Ground Support Team ------------------------------------ We are recruiting clubs and individuals throughout the US who are able and willing to support the ARISS program in their local com- munities. Optimally, this means setting up direct Amateur Radio con- tacts with the ISS. Direct contacts provide the best opportunity to showcase Amateur Radio and offer students a firsthand experience. An ARISS event can open the door for an ongoing relationship between local ham radio clubs and schools, providing students with continuing opportunities to explore radio science, satellite communications and wireless technology with Amateur Radio.
Volunteer as an ARISS Technical Mentor -------------------------------------- ARISS is also seeking additional volunteers to train to support the program in the liaison capacity as US ARISS Technical Mentor who will serve as the coordinators between NASA operations and the local on- site support teams at the event site. They serve as advisors to the local Ground Support Volunteers and need the same skills as well as hands-on satellite communications experience. Technical Mentors com- municate with the other mentors on the ARISS international operations team to coordinate ARISS contacts via telebridge stations around the world. They assimilate and transfer this information to the local Ground Support Volunteers who complete all of the arrangements for a scheduled ARISS contact.
The ARISS program is a cooperative venture of NASA, the ARRL and AMSAT and other international space agencies. ARISS organizes and schedules contacts via Amateur Radio between ISS crew members and educational organizations.
+ Again ... More details about volunteering to assist with ARISS can be found at the ARRL website at: http://www.arrl.org/ARISS-volunteers
+ Amateur radio operators interested in becoming involved as a ground support team or technical mentor are invited to send an email to: [email protected]
[ANS thanks ARRL, ARISS, and AMSAT for the above information]
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North America Rare Grid EK69 Activation From Cayo Culebra Island
Members of the Radioclub Cancun will be active as 4A3RCC from Cayo Culebra Island, Mexico (NA-200) between June 1-3. Activity will be on 80-6 meters and possibly the Satellites. Special attention will be on 6m. Operators include: Jose Angel, XE3PP; Guillermo, XE3RA; Zalo, XE3N; Julio, XE3PHM; Jorge, XE3PBL; and Julio, XE3JMA.
Cayo Culebra is located on Reserve of Biosphere of Siaan Ka'an.
For more details, see the following Web page at: http://www.radioclubcancun.org/culebra
The main contact is Jose Angel Yanez, XE3PP Presidente / President EMAIL: [email protected]
QSL via EA5FL: JOSE MIGUEL MONCHO ALCARAZ Apartado Postal : 252 03700 - DENIA Spain
[ANS thanks the Ohio/Penn DX Bulletin No. 1063 for the above information]
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High Altitude Balloon Crossband Repeater Payload Northeast USA Amateur radio operators in New England and northern Atlantic coast in the US and Canada are invited to listen and operate via the cross- band repeater payload on a high altitude balloon flight from Hermon, Maine. Launch is planned for June 2, 2012 at about 0830 EDT (UTC-4) by members of the Pine State Amateur Radio Club as one of the events during the 25th Annual Bangor Hamfest at Hermon High School. The club is working with the University of Maine Electrical and Computer Engin- eering Department to plan and execute the flight.
The crossband repeater frequencies are: Uplink: 147.570 MHz Downlink: 446.100 MHz
The payload will also include APRS for position and altitude track- ing. University of Maine tracking information can be found at: http://eece.maine.edu/umhab/
Coverage for the VHF/UHF repeater is estimated to be more than 450 miles. Stations as far away as western New York, Long Island, all of New England, and Maritime Canada should be able to work it.
The PSARC High Altitude Balloon team will award a certificate for the station furthest away from the balloon to make contact through the repeater. Please join in to help set a distance record for the repeater.
The latest launch information and more details are available on-line: http://www.n1me.org/Hamfest.php http://eece.maine.edu/umhab/ (which will be updated shortly before the launch.)
[ANS thanks Steve Jordan, KD1OM, President PSARC and Stuart Ballinger, WA2BSS for the above information]
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Satellite Operations Planned for Worldwide Museum Ships Weekend
Museum Ships Weekend Coming Up June 2-3, 2012 by Allen F. Mattis, N5AFV, n5afv at amsat.org
The worldwide Museum Ships Weekend Event (MSWE) will be held for two days, June 2-3, 2012. Last year 83 ships in 13 countries around the world participated in the event. Amateur radio operators make special event contacts from these museum ships on all amateur radio bands with most of the contacts taking place on the HF bands. In the past several years only two or three museum ships in North America have made satellite contacts during the event.
This year a number of Houston area AMSAT members, W5ACM, N5AFV and WC5WM, will participate with the Brazos Valley Amateur Radio Club (BVARC) operating club station KK5W from Seawolf Park on Pelican Island in Galveston, Texas. Seawolf Park is home to two Second World War vintage museum ships - the destroyer escort USS Stewart (DE-238) and the submarine USS Cavalla (SS-244). As a result, a contact with KK5W counts for two ships. Amateur radio operators who make contacts with 15 or more ships qualify for a handsome certificate.
The BVARC KK5W station plans to operate the afternoon passes of AO-27 and FO-29 on Saturday June 2nd and hope other AMSAT members will be operating from other ships. This will be their fifth year participat- ing in the MSWE and hope to make their first MSWE satellite contact with another museum ship this year.
If any AMSAT members are interested in this event they may visit the MSWE website: http://www.nj2bb.org/museum/index.html to find out if any museum ships near them are participating.
[ANS thanks Allen Mattis, N5AFV for the above information]
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Dayton Hamvention Satellite Demonstration Area Videos Posted
Patrick Stoddard, WD9EWK/VA7EWK recorded three videos of satellite passes that were worked from the AMSAT demonstration station at last weekend's 2012 Dayton Hamvention.
The videos are now available on Patrick's YouTube channel: http://youtube.com/va7ewk
Two of the three videos were from VO-52 passes last Friday (18 May) and Saturday (19 May). Later on Saturday, the third video from an SO-50 pass was recorded.
You will see Keith Pugh, W5IU; Doug Papay, KD8CAO, and Roger Ley, WA9PZL taking care of the antenna. Keith's equipment is used for the demonstration station is two Yaesu FT-817s, two homebrew an- tennas (3-element 2m Yagi, 6-element 70cm Yagi), and a laptop run- ning SatPC32 to control the radios. The radios and laptop are powered from a large 12V battery.
[ANS thanks Patrick Stoddard, WD9EWK/VA7EWK for the above information]
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UKube-1 is Taking Shape
AMSAT-UK is reporting UKube-1, the UK Space Agency's first Cubesat mission, has reached an important milestone. Two payloads have now undergone pre-integration testing at Clyde Space's facilities in Glasgow.
UKube-1, is a collaboration between the UK Space Agency, industry and academia. Open University payload C3D and University of Bath payload TOPCAT were the first of the four payloads selected to be tested. These workshops provided the first opportunity to carry out physical and functional testing between the protoflight payloads and platform subsystems.
The tests confirmed physical, electrical and operational interfaces between the subsystems. The tests represent the successful handover to flight integration and delivery from the interface emulator (sup- plied to payload teams by Clyde Space at the start of the program to facilitate rapid parallel development of subsystems).
C3D is a small imager which will take pictures of the earth and investigate radiation damage effects in space. It uses new sensor technology developed for space conditions.
TOPCAT (Topside Ionosphere Computer Assisted Tomography) will meas- ure space weather conditions to inform users of the Global Position- ing System (GPS) users using a dual-frequency GPS receiver designed especially for use in space.
With the remaining payloads due to be tested over the coming few weeks, the program continues confidently towards full integration in July.
UKube-1 will also take an educational subsystem called FUNcube, de- veloped by the voluntary organisation AMSAT-UK, to encourage young people to learn about radio, space, physics and electronics. It con- tains a 1200 bps BPSK telemetry beacon and a 435/145 MHz linear transponder.
See these links to AMSAT-UK for more information: UKube-1 on BBC TV http://www.uk.amsat.org/5983 UKube-1 to launch in 2013 http://www.uk.amsat.org/5933
[ANS thanks AMSAT-UK for the above information]
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Listen to HORYU-2 on the Web
Andrei YO8SSQ and Cezar YO8TLC have made available a web based receiver to enable listeners to hear the new amateur radio satel- lite HORYU-2 when it's within range of Romania.
The WebSDR receiver is located at the Astronomical Observatory Department of "Stefan cel Mare" University in Suceava, Romania, latitude 47.6417N longitude 26.2453E, grid locator KN37cp. The height ASL is 350m.
The hardware consists of two SDR receivers which are fed into 48 kHz sound cards on an AMD Sempron 2600+ computer running Vec- tor Linux.
The web page displays a track showing the current position of HORYU-2 and also provides coverage of the 3.5 MHz (80m) band.
Listen to the HORYU-2 and 80m WebSDR at http://sdr.opt.ro:8901/
More information about HORYU-2 437.375 MHz (+/- 9 kHz Doppler shift) at http://www.uk.amsat.org/7404
[ANS thanks AMSAT-UK for the above information]
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ARISS Status - 21 May 2012
1. ARISS International Team Meeting Held
The ARISS International Team monthly meeting was held on May 15. Discussions included a status of the Ham TV project. Minutes have been posted: http://ariss.rac.ca/arisstel2012-05-15.htm
2. Astronaut Training Status
Chris Hadfield, KC5RNJ/VA3OOG and Thomas Marshburn, KE5HOC, both slated to fly with Expedition 34, acquired their preflight training during a session on May 14. Alexander Gerst, KF5ONO (Expedition 40) took his introductory/ basic operations class on May 9.
Kevin Ford, KF5GPP is scheduled for a preflight session on May 22. He is scheduled to launch with the Expedition 33 crew in October 2012.
[ANS thanks Carol, KB3LKI, for the above information]
/EX
In addition to regular membership, AMSAT offers membership in the President's Club. Members of the President's Club, as sustaining donors to AMSAT Project Funds, will be eligible to receive 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