[jamsat-news:1828] ANS-222 AMSAT Weekly Bulletin (corrected bulletin IDs

AMSAT NEWS SERVICE

ANS-222

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.

In this edition:
*  AMSAT-NA August President's Letter
*  AMSAT-NA Membership Contest Update
*  AO-40 FEC Telemetry Soundcard Decoder
*  Satellite DX news
*  UO-14 Makes a Quick Recovery
*  Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule
*  This Week's News in Brief


SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-222.01
AMSAT-NA August President's Letter

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 222.01 From AMSAT HQ
SILVER SPRING, MD.  August 10, 2003
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-222.01

At the end of July I visited the AMSAT-UK  18th Colloquium, held at the
University of Surrey in the City of Guilford near London.  I am pleased to
report that as Usual the Colloquium was a great success and provided me to
talk with the Presidents and leaders of other AMSATs.  In general most
AMSATs have much the same concerns as we do in North America, and revolve
around frequency loss and intrusion into the Amateur Frequencies of
services that probably should be elsewhere.

AMSAT - UK provided many good papers for thought, and two in particular that
I would like to bring to your attention. These are a paper by Jerry Brown
K50E on his working portable with AO-40, and a paper given by James Miller,
G3RUH, on working FEC telemetry with AO-40.  Jerry is becoming a fixture at
AMSAT-UK, his papers are  amusing, Practical and technical in nature. I have
asked Jerry to repeat his paper in Toronto - If for any reason he cannot do
so then we will find a person to read it for him.  James' paper on the use
of Forward Error Correction (FEC) with AO-40 telemetry was another paper
that I had great pleasure  in listening to for James went out of his was to
thank Phil Karn  K9AQ for his persistence in "pushing" FEC as the right
system to ensure better copy of the AO-40 telemetry under very adverse
conditions. To quote James "It is one of the best things, for Amateur
satellites, to be developed in the past 20 years.  My congratulations to
Phil, James and the whole implementation team that
helped bring this about  and another thank you to AMSAT VP of Operations,
Stacey Mills, W4SM, for modifying his telemetry program, so that we all may
use the FEC operation.

Now is the time for selection of four members of the Board of Directors or
just over half of the BoD.  Please do Vote and use only the Yellow voting
card, the Black and White one is not Valid and if sent in will not be
counted.  However it is important that you do vote and carefully select the
people who you want to be your representatives on the BoD.  I am looking for
a record turn-out this year in ballots cast, - but please do not vote for
more than four or your ballot would again be invalid.

Tom Clark W3IWI, has put out an E-mail with his observations concerning
ECHO, Tom explains the status of the Satellite and advises that it is
anticipated that it will be launched on March 31 2004
some 6 weeks earlier than I had expected.  So if you wish to fly your call
sign on the satellite you had better get in
touch with Martha ASAP (301-589-6062) and advise her of the details as well
as paying the modest fee.

You, the members, had requested a membership competition and we are
providing one, but so far very few of you are participating.  Remember it is
to get New Members into AMSAT not old ones who are
returning. If there is a sudden upsurge in interest then I will donate an
additional prize of an Arrow antenna  in addition to the First Prize of a
tri-band Hand-held ...... All equipment to use on ECHO.  Can you resist the
offer?.  See the July /August issue of the AMSAT Journal for details.

I am pleased to advise that Barry Delong (VA3BJD) and his crew are in the
final stages of  developing the AMSAT -NA annual meeting and Space Symposium

(the 21st). Details of the Hotel and Registration can be found both on the
AMSAT web site and in the latest AMSAT Journal.  Toronto is now effectively
SARS free as was demonstrated on July 30 when
over 400,000 people attended an out door Concert in Toronto with many
attendees from the USA. We are all looking forward to seeing you in Toronto
on October 17, 18, and 19.  In addition to the normal papers etc. that are
expected at AMSAT meeting there is a great program for spouses.  On the
Sunday Morning there is a visit to the Hammond Radio Museum, one of the top
rated museums of it's type in the World.  Please refer to the Journal and
the web site for details  - Book early to get the best prices.

In closing , I once more ask you to VOTE for your BoD representatives.  The
more people that vote the more sure we are, that the elected people are your
representatives.

73,
Robin Haighton, VE3FRH
President,  AMSAT-NA

[ANS thanks Robin, VE3FRH, for the above information]

/EX


SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-222.02
AMSAT-NA Membership Contest Update

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 222.02 From AMSAT HQ
SILVER SPRING, MD.  August 10, 2003
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-222.02

After a little more than 2 weeks, the figures are as follows: 3 current
members  have each brought in 1 new member. People,  we have a wonderful
opportunity here.  Remember  an AMSAT member has generously offered to match
the income for the first 100 NEW members.

To receive credit for a new member, the recruiter's name and callsign must
be supplied.

* If the new member joins by phone, they must mention your name and call
* If they join by post, they must write your name and call
* If they join by e-mail, your name and call must be sent.

The contest will run until the end of September.  The prize - a tri-band
hand-held.  The winner will be announced at the AMSAT Annual Meeting in
Toronto.

We need to take advantage of this special matching donation.  Let's all get
out there and talk to friends, family, clubs, etc.  Let US ensure the future
of AMSAT

[ANS thanks Martha for the above information]

/EX


SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-222.03
AO-40 FEC Telemetry Soundcard Decoder

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 222.03 From AMSAT HQ
SILVER SPRING, MD.  August 10, 2003
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-222.03

A soundcard demodulator for Windows that will capture both regular and
experimental FEC coded telemetry from AO-40 is now available. StaRCV can be
downloaded from here:

http://www.amsat.org/amsat/sats/ao40/fec.html

This is a work in progress, ... bug reports to vp9mu@amsat.org

The name StaRCV reflects its heritage, ... "Sta" from "The Station Program",
and "RCV" from "AO40RCV" upon which it is largely based (great code Moe!).

[ANS thanks Paul, VP9MU, for the above information]

/EX


SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-222.04
Satellite DX news

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 222.04 From AMSAT HQ
SILVER SPRING, MD.  August 10, 2003
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-222.04

Wayne Estes, W9EA,  reported working 5 new entities on AO-40 during the
month of July.  Wayne says this brings his  total number of entities worked
up to 128.

The five new ones during the last month were:
5T6M   Mauritania DXpedition
YL2LW   Latvia
7P8NK   Lesotho DXpedition
CT3/CT1EAT   Madeira DXpedition
3DA0WC   Swaziland DXpedition

There was a lot of interesting DX on AO-40 this month:

GD6LVP/P (Isle of Man) during the first weekend in July
KH2 (Guam) by a Japanese ham
A22BP (Lesotho) Nori operated portable to have windows with N. America
8J1RF (Antarctica) operated one pass for the eastern U.S.
SV5BHR (Rhodes, Dodecanese Islands) very active
EX8MLT (Kyrgyzstan)
VU2MKP (India)
9Y4AT (Trinidad and Tobago) I'm still looking for him!
HL2JFN (South Korea)
5N0EVR (Nigeria) I'm still looking for him!

Shawn, N1HOQ, summarized it pretty well when he reported a "DX feast" on
AO-40 the morning he worked 7 new countries.

During the month of August we can look forward to TZ (Mali) on AO-40
courtesy of Doug N6TQS.  In late September there is a good chance that HC8
(Galapagos
Islands) will be on AO-40.  They way things are going I imagine some other
rare ones will pop up on AO-40 during the next two months.  Then in October
will be the Christmas Island and Cocos-Keeling Island expeditions just as
AO-40 begins the "bad squint" season.

[ANS thanks Wayne,W9AE, for the above information]

/EX


SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-222.05
UO-14 Makes a Quick Recovery

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 222.05 From AMSAT HQ
SILVER SPRING, MD.  August 10, 2003
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-222.05


On 5 August 2003 UO-14 suddenly failed to make its scheduled appearance over
the Western Americas.  Several stations confirmed that UO-14 was silent.
Unfortunately it would be several hours before UO-14's orbit carried it back
into range of the Command Station at Surrey.  The following day Chris,
G7UPN, announced that, "UoSat-3 (UO-14) has been reset and is now operating
again."  He reported that, "Good signals were received from it from the west
coast of the USA at Surrey."

As to what happened, Chris says, "Since the flight computer is not
operating, we have no way of knowing why this event occurred and can only
hope that it is not a sign of more problems
to come!"

UO-14 was launched in January 1990 so has been in orbit for over 13 1/2
years.

[ANS thanks Chris, G7UPN, for the above information]

/EX


SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-222.06
Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 222.06 From AMSAT HQ
SILVER SPRING, MD.  August 10, 2003
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-222.06

Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule as of 2003-08-07 03:00 UTC

The ARISS (a joint effort of AMSAT, the ARRL, NASA, the ARISS international
partners including Canada, Russia, the European Partners, and Japan)
operations team wishes to announce the following very tentative schedule for
ARISS
school contacts.  This schedule is very fluid and may change at the last
minute.
Remember that amateur radio use on the ISS is considered secondary.  Please
check the various AMSAT and ARISS webpages for the latest announcements.
Changes from the last announcement are noted with (***).  Also, please check
MSNBC.com for possible live retransmissions
(http://www.msnbc.com/m/lv/default.asp).  Listen for the ISS on the downlink
of 145.80 MHz.

ISS Expedition 7 crew:
Ed Lu KC5WKJ
Yuri Malenchenko RK3DUP

Next up Expedition 8 crew:
Mike Foale KB5UAC
Alexander Kaleri U8MIR

Tentative schedule:
2003-10-18 Soyuz launch
2003-10-20 dock
2003-10-28 undock

Neston Primary School, Corsham, England
Contact was successful Wed 2003-08-06 16:46 UTC (***)
Congrats to Ed and Neston Primary!  (***)

Soar Valley College, England
Contact is a go for Fri 2003-08-08 16:26 UTC  direct via M0SVC

The latest ARISS announcement and successful school list is now available on
the
ARISS web site.  Several ways to get there.

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

or
http://ariss.gsfc.nasa.gov

If you can not get into the GSFC site, then go directly to the RAC site.
(***)

click on English (sorry I don't know French)
you are now at http://www.rac.ca/ariss/
click on News

Currently the ARISS operations team has a list of over 60 schools that we
hope will be able to have a contact during 2003.   As the schedule becomes
more solidified, we will be letting everyone know.  Current plans call for
an
average of one scheduled school contact per week.

[ANS thanks Charlie, AJ9N, for the above information]

/EX


SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-222.07
This Week's News in Brief

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 222.07 From AMSAT HQ
SILVER SPRING, MD.  August 10, 2003
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-222.07

**  The cost of getting a vanity call sign is going up again this fall.
This as the FCC announces that the ten year license term fee for a vanity
call will rise to $16.30 for as of September 9th.  --ARRL

**  Amateurs in Denmark have been given permission to operate on the 70 MHz
band.   This, according to OZ2M who says that three frequencies are
available at 70.025, 70.050 and 70.100mhz. The 70 MHz allocation is
available to all license classes in Denmark and all modes may be
used.  --Newsline

**   Sea Launch vessels have returned to the central Pacific Ocean for the
consortium's tenth mission -- the deployment of a "combo" communications
satellite that will be shared by two different companies. Liftoff of the
Zenit 3SL launcher was at 11:31 p.m. EDT Thursday (0331 GMT Friday) from
the Odyssey launch platform, a converted Norwegian oil platform that is now
the starting point for all Sea Launch missions.  --SpaceFlightNow

**   Boeing's Delta 4 rocket carrying the last Air Force DSCS communications
satellite will be delayed until August 28, the company said.  The Air
Force-controlled Range is currently booked with tests in advance of the
Titan 4 rocket launch with a classified national security payload. That
liftoff will occur sometime between 11:40 p.m. August 17 and 5 a.m. August
18. Launch of NASA's Space Infrared Telescope Facility aboard a Boeing Delta
2 rocket then has the Range for liftoff August 23. If the Delta 2 flight
goes before the Delta 4, the SIRTF mission will take the distinction of
being the 300th Delta launch.  --SpaceFlightNow
/EX


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73,
This weeks ANS Editor:
Lee McLamb, KU4OS, ku4os@amsat.org

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