September 8, 2009 by kb3ljm.

• The dates of the 2010 AMSAT-UK Colloquium will be the weekend of July 30 to August 1, 2010. The location will be the same as in 2009, the Holiday Inn, Guildford, Surrey, United Kingdom. (G3WGM)

• Please collect and send telemetry data you receive on 145.825 from the Pollux and Castor satellites to ande@juno.nrl.navy.mil. There was a laser ranging experiment this weekend from Maui to illuminate the retroreflectors on both satellites. If you include your address you can receive a QSL card. (KD4HBO)
• Photos of the night time launch of STS-128 can be viewed on-line: From 200 miles north on Jekyll Island, GA see: http://bit.ly/4uBi3N The view from Orlando can be seen at http://www.mydrive.ch/en. The username is plethra2. The guest password is aa4kn_1. They are found in the STS-128 folder.

http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/news/

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March 15, 2009 by kb3ljm.

The AO-7 UHF Beacon at 435.100 MHz has been reported as becoming operational. Satellite telemetry in RTTY format is being copied. The AO-7 70-cm beacon was monitored with very strong signals during February 28 passes and also since then. Some reported the beacon initially sounded as if it was in a two-state mode that sounded a bit like RTTY in idle. Successful RTTY decodes have been accomplished using “reverse, 45, 85″ parameters.

AO-7 Command Operator, Mike, N1JEZ says, “This is a pretty significant development. Every time I’ve tried to activate the RTTY system, all I would get is a solid carrier then the bird has reset indicating a lack of power.”

[ANS thanks Mike, N1JEZ for the above information]

http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/news/

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March 10, 2009 by kb3ljm.

In December, 2008 AO-27 went off the air. The control team members pursued a strategy to drain the batteries in the hopes of resetting the locked up modem. As of a week ago, the bird has rebooted into the primary bootloader.

During February, 2009 the control team has managed to upload the high level software (EOS) to AO-27 after several attempts. They took a week to collect data to check on the battery status and conduct an on-orbit checkout before returning to analogue mode.

As of March 1, 2009 the AO-27 control team reports that telemetry is looking good. During several passes over the US they turned on the Analogue Repeater. This week the control team will continue the data download schedule to collect as much whole orbit data to check on the health of the batteries. So far, it is looking like AO-27 will return to normal operations on or around March 7th.

AO-27 Uplink: 145.850 MHz FM
AO-27 Downlink: 436.795 MHZ FM
http://www.ao27.org

http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/news/

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October 13, 2008 by kb3ljm.

Michael Chen, BD5RV/4, reports that he recently received an update from Alan, BA1DU, on the progress of the first Chinese amateur satellite. Things are now going smoothly. This satellite was formerly named CAS-1 and is now XW-1. It carries a beacon and three cross band transponders: FM, linear, and digital.

The satellite is planned to be launched into a Sun synchronous orbit in June 2009 by a CZ-2C rocket in Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in North China.

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October 13, 2008 by kb3ljm.

The ARISS SSTV team announces the new ARISS SSTV Web Gallery and Blog.

A website has been established to enable amateur radio operators to share
their pictures received from the International Space Station’s SSTV system.
People wishing to view photos captured from the ISS or upload their own
captured pictures can go to http://www.amsat.com/ARISS_SSTV/. There is also
a blog in which the ARISS SSTV Team will post announcements and additional
information about the project. The blog can be viewed at
http://www.ariss-sstv.blogspot.com/.

To prepare for the upcoming SSTV operations, you are welcome to “try out”
the new Web Gallery by posting past SSTV images (on-orbit and terrestrial).
These will be deleted prior to the ARISS SSTV events that are planned for
this weekend and during ISS Expedition 17 and Richard Garriott’s flight (see
below).
Read the rest of this entry »

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August 13, 2008 by kb3ljm.

• Congratulations are in order for Rafael, XE2RV on attaining VUCC number 164 in satellite mode.
• John, KD6PAG will be in Scotland from 13 August - 2 September, with 16 August - 21 August 08 in the Shetland Islands. He’ll primarily be trying to work the eastern Canada and northeastern parts of the US via satellite. He’ll include European passes time permitting. John will be running QRP with a portable antenna similar to an Arrow antenna.
• The Mid-Atlantic States VHF Conference on Saturday September 27 in Blue Bell, PA will include a presentation by Bob, N4HY to discuss Software Defined Radio Advancements. Also included in this weekend is the HAMARAMA hamfest on Sunday, September 28. For more information see http://www.packratvhf.com.
• AO-51 ground controllers have been able to boost the downlink power due to increased solar illumination. Both repeaters were reported to be operating at around 400 mW this week in dueal V/U mode.
• AMSAT area coordinator, Clint Bradford, K6LCS, demonstrated operating via AO-51 and gave his “How to Work Ham Satellites with your HT” presentation in Tarzana, CA, on Saturday morning, August 9. Clint has a 4 page satellite operating tutorial available on-line at: http://homepage.mac.com/clintbradford/Menu3.html.
• AMSAT received the sad news that Doug Beckwith N4CZT, an avid fan and supporter of Amsat, passed away Sun. July 27 2008. He was 1 day from his 65th birthday. His son, Douglas, wrote to AMSAT, “Thanks for helping him follow his dream.”
• RA3OE reported the first QSO between Russian and Eurasia via DELFI-C3 (DO-64) on August 3 when he had a QSO with Anatoly, UA9UIZ.

http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/news/

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June 30, 2008 by kb3ljm.

• Paul, 2E1EUB plans to be active on satellites from grid IO87rj near Aberdeen, Scotland starting June 28 for 7 days. He will be using the callsign 2M1EUB/P. There may be some low elevation opportunities to work North America via AO-7. The QRZ.com web page 2M1EUB provides QSL information.
• The NanoSail-D satellite mentioned in prior ANS reports was featured this week in a NASA web release: “This summer, NASA engineers will try to realize a dream older than the Space Age itself: the deployment of a working solar sail in Earth orbit. It is scheduled for launch on-board a SpaceX Falcon 1 rocket as early as July 29, 2008″. See:
  http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/26jun_nanosaild.htm?list958901
• The EE Times ran an article about Suitsat and SuitSat-2. The SDR transponder aboard SuitSat-2 is based on the High Performance Software Defined Radio “Odyssey” system. For the article see: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml;?articleID=208403999 (Via Graham, KE9H on the HPSDR Discussion List at http://hpsdr.org)

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March 28, 2008 by kb3ljm.

• AMSAT Field Day rules have been uploaded to: http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/awards/amsatfd.php They will appear in the next issue of the AMSAT Journal. Field Day will be June 28/29, 2008. Start preparing your Field Day stations and offer assistance to local clubs in assembling a station and instruct them in the best ways to operate the satellites.

Read the rest of this entry »

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March 28, 2008 by kb3ljm.

This week marked the passing of Arthur C. Clarke, author of more than 100 published books in which he foresaw the future of technology, promoted the possibilities of human innovation and exploration and combined these with the ability to explain these to non-scientific readers.

The most famous example is from 1945, when he first proposed the idea of communications satellites that could be based in geostationary orbits, which keep satellites in a fixed position relative to the ground.
Read the rest of this entry »

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March 19, 2008 by kb3ljm.

Slow Scan TV from Space Station Mir, 10 years later. On December 12, 1998 the crew members of the Russian Space station Mir activated the Marex SSTV system. Over the next two years the system broadcasted over 20,000 SSTV images back to earth via Amateur Radio. For the 10 year anniversary of the successful imaging project, the Marex team is planning on upgrading their web page system to accommodate the many images that were transmitted during the project’s 2 year run. In 1998 we just did not have the resources in place to handle the hundreds of images coming in every day. As a result only a small select on of the images were ever posted for public enjoyment.

73 Miles WF1F MAREX-MG
[AMSAT]

http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/news/

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