[jamsat-news:2653] ANS-116 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins

AMSAT NEWS SERVICE
ANS-116

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.

Please send any amateur satellite news or reports to:
ans-editor@amsat.org


In this edition:

* Two Weeks and Counting for AMSAT at Dayton
* Maurice-André Vigneault, VA2MA Appointed as Canadian AMSAT Delegate to the
ARISS International Working Group
* Satellite News From India
* APRS Satellite Fleet Expansion Planned
* UT1FG/MM Wet Grids DXpedition in Range of Americas Now
* Satellite Shorts From All Over

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-116.01
Two Weeks and Counting for AMSAT at Dayton

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 116.01
>From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
April 26, 2009
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-116.01

A little over two weeks remain before AMSAT opens its 40 Years of
Amateur Radio in Space display at the Dayton Hamvention held on
May 15-17.

AMSAT's activities begin on Thursday, May 14 with setting up the
booth display. The traditional Thursday Night get-together will
be held in a new location, the 'Tickets Pub' in suburban Fairborn,
Ohio.

The AMSAT Forum will be held on Saturday, May 16 in Meeting Room 5 
from 11:15 to 13:30. The schedule includes:

+ AMSAT VP-Member & User Services and SuitSat-2 Systems Engineer Gould 
  Smith, WA4SXM will give a talk on "SuitSat-2 Status Report."
  Members of the SuitSat-2 team will have a complete operational SuitSat 
  prototype with an experiment at the AMSAT Booth.

+ AMSAT VP-Human Space Flight Will Marchant, KC6ROL, will give a 
  status on the ARISS program.

+ ARISS Hardware Manager Lou McFadin, W5DID, will give a talk on 
  "Antennas for the Columbus Module." 

+ Richard Garriott, W5WKQ, will speak at the AMSAT Forum about his 
  ARISS activities while onboard the ISS. He will talk about his 
  training, flight, and ham radio operations during the AMSAT Banquet.

Richard will also be at the AMSAT booth to meet members on Friday and
Saturday. Specific times will be announced soon.

The outdoor satellite demonstration area will be managed by Drew, KO4MA
and Keith, W5IU. It will feature two types of operational stations.
One will be the basic handheld station and the second will feature full
computer control.

Since this is the 40th Anniversary of AMSAT, we have a great new tee 
shirt design by Steve Kenwolf to celebrate the event. Forty years of
AMSAT memorabilia will be on display. As always there will be new pub-
lications, frequency chart, LVB Trackers and premiums for membership 
renewal.

Check out all the details, including making your AMSAT Banquet reser-
vations on the web pages:
http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/hamvention/2009/Dayton.php

[ANS thanks Gould, WA4SXM for the above information]

/EX


SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-116.02
Maurice-André Vigneault, VA2MA Appointed as Canadian AMSAT Delegate to the
ARISS International Working Group

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 116.02
>From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
April 26, 2009
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-116.02

AMSAT President Barry Baines, WD4ASW has appointed  Maurice-André 
Vignault, VA2MA/VE3VIG, as the Canadian AMSAT delegate to the 
ARISS International Working Group.   He replaces Stefan Wagener, 
VE4NSA who resigned due to personal reasons.  

Maurice-André was first licensed in 1990.  He served 38 years in 
the Canadian Air Force, Communications and Electronics Branch.  
He is an active amateur radio operator with satellite experience 
dating to 2001.  He has been conducting an ongoing satellite com-
munications course starting in 2006.   He conducted an ARISS School 
contact in January 2007.  He is active in demonstrating satellite 
communications at the Canada Science and Technology Museum.  

He is a member of the Radio Amateurs of Canada and AMSAT.  As a 
member of the AMSAT Field Operations Team, he serves as an Area 
Coordinator for Ottawa, representing AMSAT in his local community 
and serving as a mentor to hams wishing to learn about the satellite 
communications.

Barry noted in an e-mail to ARISS International Working Group Chair-
man Gaston Bertels, ON4WF, "AMSAT is proud to be able to send such a 
qualified member to serve with the ARISS Working Group.  AMSAT looks 
forward to many years of continued cooperative activities with ARISS 
in human space flight."

The ARISS International Working Group includes two delegates appointed 
by AMSAT.  Previously, AMSAT VP-Human Space Flight Will Marchant, KC6ROL 
was appointed the US AMSAT delegate to the ARISS International Working 
Group replacing Frank Bauer, KA3HDO.  Both Maurice-André Vignault and 
Will Marchant will be attending the upcoming ARISS International Working 
Group meeting taking place in June 2009 at ESA/ESTEC in the Netherlands.

[ANS thanks AMSAT President Barry, WD4ASW for the above information]

/EX


SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-116.03
Satellite News From India

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 116.03
>From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
April 26, 2009
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-116.03

This week India's ISRO Space Agency successfully launched RISAT-2 and 
ANUSAT from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR in Sriharikota. RISAT-2 
is a Radar Imaging Satellite with the capability to take images of the 
earth during day and night as well as cloudy conditions to enhance 
capability for earth observation, especially during floods, cyclones, 
landslides and in disaster management.

ANUSAT is the first experimental communication satellite built by an 
Indian University under the over all guidance of ISRO and will demon-
strate the technologies related to message store and forward operations.
ANUSAT specifications have mentioned amateur radio uplink and downlink
frequencies will be used but no user information has been released at
this time. The satellite is designed for digital store-and-forward
operation.

ANUSAT has a telemetry beacon on 137.400 MHz. David, VK5DG reported,
"I just heard AnuSat go over with a loud carrier on 137.400 MHz but no 
modulation detected.  I am using keps for space track object 34808."
Additionally, Rodney, KC0ZHF reported, "I also monitored the frequency 
on orbits 48 and 49 of the satellite and heard a very strong carrier.
I scanned UHF frequencies but did not hear any additional downlinks."

In other Amateur Radio news from AMSAT-India Nitin, VU3TYG says the
April 2009 newsletter is available at:
http://www.amsatindia.org/Newsletter 

AMSAT-India Secretary, Pop, VU2POP says, "We have received many appli-
cations for the VO-52 operating award from several different countries.
Certificates will be posted by end of May 2009." The certificate is
available to Amateur Radio operators who establish two way contact 
through VO-52 between January 26, 2009 until May 10, 2009.

If you find yourself in India remember to attend the AMSAT-India 
Workshop on 10 May 09 at the Little Lilly English School, Vidyar-
anyapura, Bangalore.

[ANS thanks Space Daily Express, Pop VU2POP, and Nitin VU3TYG for 
 the above information]

/EX


SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-116.04
APRS Satellite Fleet Expansion Planned

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 116.04
>From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
April 26, 2009
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-116.04

Writing from the US Naval Academy Satellite Development Lab this
week Bob, WB4APR reported on new satellites with the same APRS 
packet relay as PCSAT and the ISS that are in the works.

Bob said their design will use the new Byonics all-on-a-board Packet 
TNC/Radio/Telemetry system.  This makes it possible to build a packet 
satellite out of a single 3.4" square board and 5 NiCd batteries and 
that is all you need for a tiny APRS satellite.

Bob said, "We are ordering a bunch of them on the APRS Space Channel 
of 145.825 MHz and hope to encourage other schools and universities 
to consider including one of these packet transponders in their 
missions. If we can get up to a dozen of these in space, we will have 
almost global coverage 24 hours a day from anywhere on the planet!"

These systems are still under development. No launch dates have been
announced at this time.

[ANS thanks Bob, WB4APR for the above information]

/EX


SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-116.05
UT1FG/MM Wet Grids DXpedition in Range of Americas Now

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 116.05
>From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
April 26, 2009
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-116.05

Captain Yuri of the MV Bluebill is now operating as UT1FG/MM from his 
ship through June, 2009. His sea voyage will take him from Northern 
Europe, across the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico up to the Miss-
issippi River, then southward toward Mexico and Central America. 

Yuri says his current plans are to operate on AO-27, AO-51, SO-50, 
VO-52, FO-29, and AO-7. Over the past two years he already has logged 
many North American stations from his ship operations in the Atlantic 
and Pacific Oceans. QSL via home call UT1FG.

This week Angelo, N5UXT reported working UT1FG/MM in GM24 via FO29. 

[ANS thanks Yuri, UT1FG/MM and Angelo, N5UXT for the above information]

/EX


SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-116.06
Satellite Shorts From All Over

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 116.06
>From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
April 26, 2009
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-116.06

+ Check out William's, PE1RAH design for an ultra-small linear 
  satellite Mode-UV transponder with 23dBm PEP output on 2 meters. 
  He made a video which can be seen at: 
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5j60SJroodg

+ The PS8DX Teresina DX Group is on the air this week from Brazil's
  Canary Island GI97bf on AO-7, FO-29, AO-51, VO-52, SO-50, and ISS
  (if available).

+ Remember the Hudson Valley Satcom group Net 8 PM EST on Thursday
  evenings on Echolink node n2eyh-l.

+ Insight as to future amateur satellites in planning can be gleaned
  from the IARU coordination data available at: 
  http://www.amsat.org.uk/iaru/

+ The ISS will be on the air with an ARISS contact with the National Air 
  and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. on Space Day, May 2 at 15:23 UTC. 
  This will be a telebridge contact via station W6SRJ in California. Stu-
  dents will be pre-recruited, but Space Day participants will also be 
  invited to ask questions.  Visitors will participate in hands-on activ-
  ities, meet astronauts and learn about space from experts and museum 
  displays.

[ANS thanks everyone for the above information]

/EX

In addition to regular membership, AMSAT offers membership in the
President's Club. Members of the President's Club, as sustaining donors
to AMSAT Project Funds, will be eligible to receive additional benefits.
Application forms are available from the AMSAT Office. With that recall
the incident of the bicycle that could not stand up because it was two
tired.

73,
This week's ANS Editor,
JoAnne Maenpaa, K9JKM
K9JKM at amsat dot org


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