Category: Ham Satellite news

Följande nyhet kom bla. via Twitter och AMSAT-UK. Nytt avståndsrekord för QSO via FO-29. Se även videon längre ner!

Satellite friends and colleagues,

I’m happy to announce that at 1732UTC on August 27th, 2015, A QSO was
made between myself, KG5CCI, and F4CQA on Satellite FO-29. This was not
a scheduled contact, I simply answered Christophe’s CQ call. I knew it
was a good contact at the time, but as I was portable up on Arkansas’
Shinnall Mountain, I did not have the resources available to calculate
distances. After returning to my office I began to log the contacts I
had made, and noticed the “general” distance between EM34 and JN17 was
in excess of 7500km. About the same time I came to this realization, my
email chirped with a message from Christophe, who had came to the same
conclusion.

After some quick exchanges, and verifying 10 digit locators, we have
settled on an official distance of 7599.959km between my grid of
EM34ST11TL and Christophe’s grid of JN17EA22OT, using the
http://no.nonsense.ee/qth/map.html website for calculations.

To the best of our knowledge, referencing data found on Amsat-UK’s
website ( at http://amsat-uk.org/2015/05/06/uk-texas-extreme-dx-contact/
) this breaks the previous distance records of 7537.799km between W5CBF
and G4DOL, and the 7538.685km contact between K4FEG and DK1TB.

I had my camera setup to record the pass as well, and you can view a raw
clip of the contact here:

If anyone has any questions about the contact, I’ll be happy to answer
them. Special thanks and a solid *GOOD-DX* to Christophe  for the
contact, and here’s to many more.

73!

-Dave, KG5CCI

Dags för fler satelliter att släppas ut från ISS:

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) launch of its H-II Transport
Vehicle (HTV)-5 to the International Space Station on Wednesday, Aug. 19
included two cubesats. These satellites will then be deployed together into
space in the first half of September, with the involvement of Danish ESA
astronaut Andreas Mogensen. Both CubeSats originated from Denmark.

GOMX-3 is a 3U Cubesat. The mission and its payloads will be used for story
telling and teaching. It will include an ADS-B receiver, magnetometer data,
solar cells and green energy and radio operation. An experimental X Band
transmitter plus an SDR receiver will also be carried.

GOMX-3 downlink: 437.250 MHz with 1k2-9k6 GMSK data from a NanoCom AX100
using CSP protocol.

AAUSAT-5 is a 1 unit cubesat. The primary mission is to receive AIS beacons
from ships with a new design based on AAUSAT-3. In addition to that a
educational payload for high school outreach was designed by engineering
students. The AIS receiver payload is based on SDR principles. Once deployed
from the ISS it is expected to remain in orbit for approx 6 months.

AAUSAT-5 downlink:  437.425 MHz, GMSK telemetry.

Danish Ministry of Science and Education, House of Natural Sciences
http://nvhus.dk/house-of-natural-sceinces.aspx

ESA Cubesat launch announcement:
http://tinyurl.com/ESA-Gomx

SpaceRef.com article about AAUSAT-5:
http://tinyurl.com/AAUSAT-Article

Nu finns det en bokad uppskjutning för amatörradio-satelliten Fox-1B, men det är inte förrän november 2016 så det är över ett år kvar. Läs mer:

AMSAT has been notified by Scott Higginbotham, Mission Manager for ELaNa-12
(Fox-1A launch) and ELaNa-14 (RadFxSat/Fox-1B launch) in NASA’s Launch
Services Program at Kennedy Space Center, “The ELaNa-14 CubeSat complement
is scheduled to fly along with NOAA’s JPSS-1 spacecraft on a Delta II that
will be launching from VAFB on November 15, 2016. Due to a number of
CubeSats recently dropping off of the manifest for this flight, a door has
been opened, and it is my pleasure to inform you that your respective
CubeSats (RadFXSat, GoldenEagle-1, EagleSat, and MiRaTA) have all been
officially added to the manifest.”

AMSAT will begin working with Tyvak, the CubeSat Dispenser and Dispenser
Integration Contractor for this flight. Additional news regarding the
schedule milestones toward meeting launch requirements will be released as
more information becomes available.

In a message sent to AMSAT Vice President Engineering, Jerry Buxton, N0JY,
Higginbotham concluded, “Congratulations and welcome aboard!”

Planned Frequencies for the Fox-1 FM Series Cubesats
————————————————————–
Uplink FM (67 Hz tone) Downlink FM
—————————- ———–
Fox-1A 435.180 MHz 145.980 MHz
RadFxSat/Fox-1B * 435.250 MHz 145.960 MHz
Fox-1C* 435.300 MHz/1267.300 MHz ** 145.920 MHz
Fox-1D* 435.350 MHz/1267.350 MHz ** 145.880 MHz

* Pending IARU Coordination, Changes will be announced
** Switchable by command station, not operational simultaneously

Download the Fox-1A Operating Guide from the AMSAT Station and
Operating Hints page: http://www.amsat.org/?page_id=2144

[ANS thanks NASA and Jerry Buxton, N0JY, AMSAT Vice President Engineering
for the above information]

Det har visat sig att PcSat skickar ut beacon på 144.390 MHz vilket Bob Bruninga, WB4APR, förklarar varför här:
An FM APRS signal has been received in England causing interference to the MGM
frequency and weak-signal Meteor Scatter (MS) operation which is just below
144.390 MHz. A MS DXpedition was disrupted by such activity earlier in the month
and interference has been occurring at various times since.

Bob Bruninga, WB4APR, explains that the beacon was planned over 15 years ago for
operation only when PCSAT is over North America based on published band plans at
that time. Now, after 14 years on orbit, the ability to turn that backup beacon
off has been lost.

PCSAT (now 14 years old) had a backup fail-safe beacon on 144.39 that
would activate after any unknown spacecraft reset to give a backup comm
link in case the primary 145.825 channel died.  Being on the North
American APRS frequency with hundreds of IGates there would always be at
least one that would hear this “emergency call home” from PCSAT even
though the channel is generally saturated.  It worked.

The problem is, that now PCSAT resets on every orbit due to negative power
budget and so, on every orbit that beacon comes back on.  Even if we did
get a command up to reset it, that setting would last only 15 minutes to
the next eclipse.

We learned our lesson!  That was our FIRST amateur satellite and we sure
learned NOT to use a “connected-packet-command link” that needs ACKS and
Retries and logon passwords  just to LOGON before you can even send a
SHUTUP command.  All our satellites since, operate without the multiple
Send, connect, ACK, retry, ACK, command, ACK overhead…. just to get one
command understood.  Now, only the receiver on the spacecraft has to be
functional to command it to silence in a single packet.  But too late for
PCSAT.

We are sorry that we have no good answers.  But we hope we can mitigate
this instance of “friendly fire” collateral damage so that we don’t cause
an overall black-eye to amateur radio overall friendly operations?

What you may hear will be 2 one-second packets per minute, one at 1200
baud and one at 9600 baud, trying to “call home”.

[ANS thanks Bob, WB4APR, for the above information]

AMSAT-NA rapporterar att det kan finnas en möjlighet till en kommande Phase-3E uppskjutning. Detta innebär att den satellit som ligger på “lager” i Tyskland kanske kan komma upp i alla fall!

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 206.01
From AMSAT HQ KENSINGTON, MD.
July 25, 2015
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-206.01

AMSAT-NA, AMSAT-DL, and Virginia Tech Announce Potential Phase-3E
Opportunity

Virginia Tech has approached the US Government to fly the Phase 3-E space
frame into High Earth Orbit (HEO) in order to support scientific payloads as
well as serve as an amateur radio satellite. During the AMSAT-DL Annual
Meeting on 4 JUL 15, the AMSAT-DL membership approved the concept, agreeing
to allow the Phase 3-E space frame that is currently stored in Germany to be
shipped to Virginia Tech in the USA for further construction, testing and
preparation for eventual launch to HEO should the US Government formally
agree to fund such a mission.

Should the project move forward, AMSAT-NA will apply for frequency
coordination from the IARU Satellite Advisor and satellite licensing from
the FCC as the satellite’s initial operator.

Stay tuned to the AMSAT-DL Journal, the AMSAT-NA Journal, and the AMSAT-NA
News Service for further developments and details as they become known.

Hej!

Länge sedan jag avgav någon rapport från satellitnätet på 3740 KHz.

Dagens deltagare:
SM4EFW
SM4JLX
SK6SAQ
SM6NZV
SM7WSJ

*Lite nytt om P3E  (Man skall aldrig ge upp…)  Se denna notis.

*ISS synlig på nätterna

*Amsat-UK  konferens

http://batc.tv/live/events/amsatuk/

Vi hpppas att vara igång även nästa söndag     Med vänlig hälsning  Håkan SM7WSJ