[HIham] ANDE and RAFT satellites available for limited use during the Christmas holidays

[Ron Hashiro]

The Space Shuttle Discovery on mission STS-116 recently deployed four 
satelites. Two of them, RAFT and ANDE are of interest to the general 
amateur radio community. Here is a recent posting from Bob Bruninga, WB4APR.

 From Bob Bruninga, WB4APR.

Subject: [amsat-bb] Limited USER operations authorized.

* From: "Robert Bruninga" <bruninga at xxxxxxxx>
* Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2006 00:10:55 -0500

Now that ANDE has deployed and we have been away from family for too 
long. We are declaring ANDE a success even though we have a few more 
steps to complete in the checkout process. But due to the holidays, we 
are going to secure testing for a few days and open them up to limited 
USER access:

LIMITED USER digipeating is authorized:
1) ATTENDED operations ONLY
2) Low Dutycyle only. Say once per minute per station
3) NO DIGIPEATING VIA RAFT AT NIGHT
4) Use only the path UNPROTO APRS VIA ANDE-1 or VIA RAFT
5) DIGIpeating via any other aliases on 145.825 not authorized

*) UNATTENDED BEACONS ARE NOT AUTHORIZED.

If you cannot hear these sateliltes PLEASE do not transmit. You are only 
adding QRM and destroying others ability to use them.
Beam antennas appear to be required. Please work on your receive 
capablity and measure your success by how many packets
you can RECEIVE, not by how many times you can hit the bird.

Pace yourselves
Enjoy.

Bob Bruninga, WB4APR
USNA Satellite Lab

-------------------

Earlier, the ANDE satellite was stuck in the deployment canister, 
threatening to end its mission. However, on Friday, it worked loose from 
the canister and appears to be operating normally.

Four stations in Hawaii are serving as ground stations helping Bob test 
out the satellites and providing additional field observations. Many 
thanks to KH6DT, AH6GR and F5IDM. Here is a report filed from the 12:46 
am pass this morning.

--------------------

53 degree 0045z pass over Honolulu
AH6RH – December 23, 2006 – 08:56

Here's the result of the 1046z, 53 degree descending pass on Dec 23 west 
of Honolulu.

1) Operations were from a car, parked at a beach park at Waikiki, with 
excellent visibility to the northwest, west, and south.
2) For transmit, used an Icom IC-28H, 45W, into the 3 element Arrow beam 
mounted on a photo tripod. Turned the antenna manually during the pass.
3) For receive, used a 18-inch whip, quarter wave antenna mounted on the 
trunk of the car and attached to a Kenwood TM-D700.

4) At about 15 degree elevation, heard ANDE come back on the vertical on 
the TM-D700 in the car. Weak sig, but could hear the Bell 202 tones well.
5) Kept digipeating ocassionally to measure the characteristics of the 
pass and signal.
6) The signal remained weak at S0 on the transceiver meter, never 
getting stronger, but the audio was there.
7) Was unable to capture telemetry or downlink packets, so am unable to 
decode the results.
8) The Igates did not receive and relay the downlink packets for some 
reason.
9) After it hit the peak at 53 degrees, and travelled south, lost the 
signal from ANDE around 15 degrees elevation.
10) The maximum range of operation for this pass was estimated at around 
1,100 km, or about 680 miles.

11) ANDE is transmitting a two watt signal into a dual hemisphere antenna.
12) Best to improve your receive antenna and receiver capabilities.

Next attempt, will use the Arrow 3 element beam for both transmit and 
receive.

73 and aloha, and have a Merry Christmas! Now to hit the shopping malls 
for one last time......

Ron Hashiro, AH6RH
Honolulu, HI

---------------------

Next good pass for ANDE is 2:07 pm, Sunday, Dec 24, about 50 degrees in 
elevation..

Due to the low altitude of RAFT and ANDE, it is not possible to digipeat 
to the mainland. However, it is possible to digipeat within Hawaii and 
also to maritime mobile stations nearby.

Further up-to-date information can be gotten at this website.

http://eng.usna.navy.mil/~bruninga/ande-raft-ops.html