[HamSat] ANS-226 AMSAT Weekly Bulletins

[Tim Pickett]

AMSAT NEWS SERVICE
ANS-226

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:

ans-editor at amsat.org

In this edition:

* ISS PCSAT2 PSK-31
* PCSAT2 Telemetry
* ARISS Status
* MRO Electra SDR
* AMSAT Awards

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-226.01
ISS PCSAT2 PSK-31 Transponder is enabled

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 226.01
 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
Aug 14, 2005
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-226.01

PCSAT2 will operate in conjunction with all of the other exciting  
modes on the
ARISS system such as voice, packet, repeater and SSTV modes.  But  
because these
are all multiple transceivers all on the same station, their  
operation have to
be coordinated so there is no mutual interference.

It looks like PCSAT2 can best contribute at this time by operating in  
PSK-31
mode for the near future.  This is a very exciting new transponder  
mode which
solves the congestion problem on FM repeaters by letting multiple  
stations all
communicate at the same time.

PSK-31 users are welcome to try out the new PCSAT2 PSK-31 transponder  
on ISS
with an uplink on 29.402 +/- 1 KHz and downlink on 435.275 +/-  
Doppler using
FM.

The FM downlink lets everyone operate full duplex and everyone to see  
the same
view of the passband as everyone else.  THus you can see exactly what  
your
signal looks like to everyone else.

Help Wanted: PCSat2 PSK-31 Operations Coordinator Needed
--------------------------------------------------------
To save power and to avoid any potential interferece to any ISS  
School contacts,
the PSK-31 transponder is only on when a respons- ible PC2PSK control  
station in
the ISS/PCSat2 footprint turns it on.

If you are interested in PSK-31 operations and want to volunteer to  
coordinate
all the other operators and operations, then we have a job for you.   
This PSK-31
operations coordinator, who has become fully familiar with ARISS  
operations,
can next start to organize the pass-by-pass PSK-31 control ops.

Contact Bob Bruninga, WB4APR, at wb4apr at amsat.org if you wish to  
volunteer as
the PCSat2 PSK-31 coordinator.  Until the PCSat2 team is able to  
introduce the
new coordinator please do not volunteer as a pass control operator.

Refer to this page:

http://www.ew.usna.edu/~bruninga/pec/pc2ops.html

For information about the PCSat2 PSK-31 transponder and a diagram  
showing a
basic configuration for PSK-31 earth stations.

[ANS thanks Bob, WB4APR and the U.S. Naval Academy Satellite Lab
for the above information.]

/EX


SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-226.02
PCSAT2 Telemetry

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 226.02
 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
Aug 14, 2005
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-226.02


The PCSat2 team sends a, "Thank You!", to all of the AMSAT and APRS  
stations
feeding science and telemetry data from 437.975 to the APRS-IS.  This  
data feeds
the live telemetry page and lets everyone see how the spacecraft is  
doing around
the world:

     http://www.pcsat2.info

We do, of course, need more stations feeding telemetry, especially  
from those
stations in unusual footprints such as Hawaii and remote areas of the  
USA,
Europe and downunder.  More stations capable of receiving and  
forwarding 9600
baud data would be especially helpful.

The PCSat2 telemetry team plans to write-up a set of turn-key  
instructions on
how to set up a satgate so that others not familiar with APRS can  
easily join
this satgate network.  In the interim, stations that wish to  
experiment and
learn can begin using any version of APRS or download the stand-alone  
ALOGGER
2.02 program from http://www.billdiaz.dynip.com/.

To set up a satgate, just tune a radio and TNC to one of these channels:

437.975 9600 bd for PCSAT2 data
437.975 1200 bd for PCSAT2 telemetry
145.800 for ARISS packet data
145.825 for the original PCsat

You will need to run your favorite APRS software and connect to
satgate.aprsca.net:10150.  ALOGGER, mentioned previously now has  
serial port
support for a TNC as a satgate monitoring station.

For the overall PCSAT2 Operations system, see

     http://www.ew.usna.edu/~bruninga/pec/pc2ops.html

[ANS thanks Bob, WB4APR and the U.S. Naval Academy Satellite Lab for  
the above
information.]

/EX

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-226.03
ARISS Status

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 226.03
 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
Aug 14, 2005
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-226.03

ARISS Contact Schedule and Successful school list updated 2005-08-11  
23:00 UTC

Well done STS-114!  Welcome  back!

Due to the STS-114 operation and planned ISS EVAs, ARISS  school  
contacts were
canceled or postponed.  We are back, the next contact is set for  
2005-08-17.

There was also a rumor that the ISS was  having contacts on the 40  
meter band.
There is no HF equipment available  yet.

Expedition 11 crew is now on the ISS.
John  Phillips KE5DRY
Sergei Krikalev U5MIR

Expedition 12 crew is expected to dock 2005-10-03.  This means that  
there will
probably not be  any ARISS contacts from the week before docking  
until the week
of 2005-10-24.

Expedition 12

William McArthur, KC5ACR up on 11S Soyuz, scheduled launch 2005-10-01
Valery Tokarev  up on 11S Soyuz, scheduled launch 2005-10-01
Thomas Reiter DF4TR up on STS-121, scheduled launch 2005-09-22

The schedule page has been updated as of  2005-08-11 23:00 UTC.

Look for the updated and enhanced frequency  chart for packet, voice,  
and
crossband repeater modes showing Doppler  correction.

http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/ 
ISS_frequencies_and_Doppler_correction.rtf

Several schools will be live simulcasted via the world wide web.   
Check out the
instructions for each school on the schedule page to get to the audio  
streaming.

Additional instructions have been added on how to listen  in when the  
streaming
audio is provided by MCI.

Also,  please monitor the IRLP and Echolink webpages for possible  
upcoming
contacts  that will be simulcast.

IRLP website at:

     http://www.discoveryreflector.ca

This new site will have the links  for simulcast contacts that have  
IRLP and
Echolink.

The successful school list has been updated as of  2005-07-21 04:00 UTC.

Check out the link on the schedule  page to download a video that  
Mike Fincke
KE5AIT and Gennady Padalka RN3DT have  produced of life on the ISS.

The latest ARISS application,  announcement and successful school  
list is now
available on the ARISS web  site.  There are several ARISS web sites:

English:   http://www.rac.ca/ariss/

French:   http://c.avmdti.free.fr/ariss/index.htm

ARISS Europe:   http://www.ariss-eu.org/

ARISS Japan:   http://www.jarl.or.jp/ariss/

Other locations  include:

Latest ARISS announcements and news
http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/arissnews.txt

Successful  school  list
http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/Successful_ARISS_schools.rtf

The  ISS Fan Club website  is:
http://www.issfanclub.com

K1ELA has a website  at:
http://members.aol.com/k1ela/index.html

ON6SAT has a website  at:
http://on6sat.com/links/

A listing of ARISS related magazine  articles:
http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/ARISS_magazine_articles.rtf
Currently  the list includes articles from CQ, CQ VHF, QST, and The  
AMSAT
Journal.   Please contact me directly if you have additional  
suggestions.

[ANS thanks Charlie Sufana, AJ9N and SAREX for the above information]

/EX

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-226.04
MRO Electra SDR post-lauch checkout

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 226.04
 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
Aug 14, 2005
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-226.04

Advance information, subject to change:

Post-launch checkout of the Electra software-defined UHF radio aboard  
the Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter will be conducted on or about 26 September  
2005.  These
tests will include CW transmissions during spacecraft turns to verify  
the UHF
quadrifilar helix antenna pattern. Interested radio amateurs and  
amateur and
professional radio-astronomers in North America with sensitive receiving
capabilities at 437.1 MHz can attempt to receive the UHF signal from  
MRO during
this test.

More details will follow.

Jan
WB6VRN

Electra Integration and Test Engineer
Flight Communications Systems Section
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

[ANS thanks Jan, WB6VRV for the above information]

/EX

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-226.05
AMSAT Awards

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 226.05
 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
Aug 14, 2005
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-226.05

This week, congrats go out to all of the following.

Greg Higgins, KB5GLV, Satellite Communicators Club
Wadhah Al-Tailji, AE6QG, Satellite Communicators Club

Aruni Perera, VE4WMK, 51 on 51 Award #32

To see all the awards visit http://www.amsat.org or http:// 
www.amsatnet.com

73...bruce

[ANS thanks Bruce Paige, KK5DO 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 additional benefits.
Application forms are available from the AMSAT Office.

73,
This week's ANS Editor,
Dave Johnson, G4DPZ
G4DPZ at amsat dot org