ISS Amateur Radio Status: April 5, 2007
By Miles Mann WF1F,
MAREX-MG News www.marexmg.org
Manned Amateur Radio Experiment
ISS Crew Change April 2007
There will be a crew change taking place on ISS this month. The existing Expedition #14 currently consists of:
Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria Flight Engineer and Soyuz commander Mikhail Tyurin Flight Engineer Sunita Williams. Ms. Williams arrived via the Shuttle STS-116 mission last fall. She will also stay on ISS after the crew change in April and become part of the Crew #15. Launch dates, September 18, 2006 through April 20 2007
The new crew #15 will consist of: Spaceflight Participant Charles Simonyi, an American flying under contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency. Charles will return to Earth with Expedition 14 on April 20th with Lopez-Algeria and Tyurin. Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin Flight Engineer Oleg Kotov
Amateur Radio Status:
Voice and Packet: The Kenwood D700 celebrated its 3-year of service last December. However after three years of 24/7 usage has taken its toll. Last August the memory channels became too corrupted to be reliable. The procedures given to the crew to configure a channel combination did not always match the instructions and there were a few times when I heard the ISS crew calling for a school and ISS was on the wrong uplink frequency. The D700 was removed from Public access last August and is only being used for pre-arranged school schedules, etc.
The good news is that we may get an opportunity to reload the OS on the D700 during the upcoming crew change. The D700 on ISS is running a special OS and channels setup, created just for the ISS. If time allows, the D700 will get a fresh OS reload to set it back to the launch configuration. The OS reload, also includes a very complex channel configuration and other unique settings. The OS reload requires the removal of the covers and the installation of a special ribbon cable. See the attached link (bottom left Picture). As a back up plan, if the reload fails, a few basic channels may be hand keyed into the radio.
http://www.marexmg.org/hardware/kenwood.html
Ericcsons Systems: The Erriccson HT systems are not currently being used because of an intermittent cable issue. No date on when replacement parts will be flown at this time. The PacCom modems attached to the Ericcsons have not been activate in 3+ years and the memory batteries are probably not functional.
http://www.marexmg.org/hardware/ericcson.html
Slow Scan TV: The Marex Slow Scan TV project, SpaceCam1 was activated for a few weeks last August using a Borrowed Laptop. The amateur radio projects still do not have a dedicated laptop for the projects and there are no laptops scheduled for flight to be used for Amateur Radio usage on ISS in the foreseeable future.
http://www.marexmg.org/imagessstv/SpaceCamImages1.htm
Future Projects: Marex is working on keeping ISS accessible and affordable by keeping it on the air. We have submitted proposals for a new packet system, which has been initially approved. We are also working on other proposals, including proposals to replace most of the aging hardware with new state-of-the-art hardware. The goal is to keep it simple and kept it on the air. Your support is always welcome.
School Schedules: If you want to listen to ISS school schedules on the 145.800, then you should check the ARISS web page to seen when the next time ISS will be on the air in your part of the world. Listeners are encouraged to tune in and listing to the ARISS School down links.
Information about the next scheduled ARISS contact can be found at http://www.rac.ca/ariss/upcoming.htm#NextContact .
Marexmg Web page http://www.marexmg.org
ARISS Web page and other great Space projects http://www.rac.ca/ariss/
73 Miles WF1F MAREX-MG
Until we meet again
DOSVIDANIYA Miles WF1F
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