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[jamsat-news:1927] ANS-165 AMSAT Special Bulletin - ECHO Arrival


AMSAT NEWS SERVICE - Special Bulletin


SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-165.07
ECHO arrives in Baikonur

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 165.07 From AMSAT HQ
SILVER SPRING, MD.  June 13, 2004
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-165.07

Chuck Green, N0ADI, who is travelling with ECHO to do the final testing and
integration at the launch site, reports that they both arrived safely at the
hotel on Saturday, 12 June 2004.  Since 12 June is the Russian Independence
Day holiday, further work on ECHO had to wait until the following day.

On 13 June 2004 Chuck reports, "This is our first day working on ECHO to get
it ready for launch.  It is about 40 km to the integration facility.  The
bus took almost 1.5 hours to get there today.  We went
slow today because we were carrying lots of satellites.  Each day we will go
to the integration facility and return to the hotel on the bus so we must
manage our work to match the bus schedule.  We leave the hotel at 8am and
return at the hotel about 7pm.  Most days the trip will take about one hour
each way"

Once the team arrived at the launch site they were then given a safety
briefing.  During the briefing the shipping containers were cleaned and
placed in the clean room.  With the team was dressed in clean room garb and
in the clean room, ECHO was taken out of it's shipping case and set it up on
our table.  The bottom antennas were installed along with the bottom solar
panel, magnet, and corner reflectors.

Chuck said, "Then we turned ECHO on and successfully communicated with it
over the umbilical from my computer."  He continued, "We then went through
most of the test procedure and everything looks good so far."

The four two meter receivers and the two 70 cm transmitters were
successfully tested.  Tomorrow, 14 June 2004,  there will be additional
testing of the SQRX.

[ANS thanks Chuck N0ADI for the above information]

/EX


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