[jamsat-news:2888] ANS-311 AMSAT Weekly Bulletins

AMSAT NEWS SERVICE
ANS-311

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:
* November AO-51 Schedule
* Hudson Valley SatCom Net
* November 15 Deadline for NASA CubeSat Initiative Proposal
* AMSAT-UK FUNcube Frequencies Now Confirmed
* FO-29 Status Update
* OSCAR-11 REPORT   31 October 2010
* ARISS Status - 1 November 2010


SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-311.01
November AO-51 Schedule

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 311.01
  From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
November 7, 2010
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-311.01

AMSAT-NA VP Operations, Drew KO4MA published the November schedule
for AO-51. Drew wrote, "This month we are catching up on several
requests for L, S and even 38k4 BBS time. In January AO-51 leaves
continuous illumination for many years and many of these modes may
not be possible due to power budget and battery condition. However,
if we find these modes under used this month, we may modify the sched-
ule as we go.

October 31 (late UTC)
FM Repeater, L/SU
Uplink: 1268.705 MHz FM (no PL tone)
Downlinks: 2401.200 MHz FM and 435.300 MHz FM (at low power!)

November 4 (late UTC)
FM Repeater, V/U
Uplink: 145.920 MHz FM (no PL tone)
Downlink: 435.300 MHz FM

9k6 Baud PBBS Operations, L/U
Uplink: 1268.705 MHz FM at 9600 baud
Downlink: 435.150 MHz FM at 9600 baud

November 14 (late UTC)
38k4 Baud PBBS Operations, L/U
Uplink: 1268.705 MHz FM at 9600 baud
Downlink: 435.150 MHz FM at 38,400 baud

November 18 (late UTC)
FM Repeater, L/SU
Uplink: 1268.705 MHz FM (no PL tone)
Downlinks: 2401.200 MHz FM and 435.300 MHz FM (at low power!)

November 21 (late UTC)
FM Repeater, V/U
Uplink: 145.920 MHz FM (no PL tone)
Downlink: 435.300 MHz FM

9k6 Baud PBBS Operations, L/U
Uplink: 1268.705 MHz FM at 9600 baud
Downlink: 435.150 MHz FM at 9600 baud

SO-67 is active over North and South America this month, according
to the schedule at http://www.amsatsa.org.za/ . V/U users of AO-51
are encouraged to try SO-67 while AO-51 is in mode L/US.

Read the latest AO-51 Control Team News on the AMSAT web at:
http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/echo/CTNews.php

[ANS thanks Drew, KO4MA for the above information]

/EX


SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-311.02
Hudson Valley SatCom Net

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 311.02
  From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
November 7, 2010
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-311.02

The next Hudson Valley Sat com Net will be Thursday Noveber 11 on
the Mt. Beacon ARC 146.970 MH repeater and on EchoLink via the
N2EYH-L node. Net starts at 8PM EST (UTC - 5). More information
is available at http://www.hvsatcom.org and wa2aqh@amsat.org.

[ANS thanks Stu, WA2BSS for the above information]

/EX


SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-311.03
November 15 Deadline for NASA CubeSat Initiative Proposal

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 311.03
  From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
November 7, 2010
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-311.03

NASA made the first open announcement to create an agency-prioritized
list of available CubeSat auxiliary payloads in April 2010. Additional
CubeSat launch capacity is still available in 2011 and 2012, so NASA
released a second announcement of CubeSat integration and launch oppor-
tunities. CubeSat mission proposers must still be educational institu-
tions and contribute to NASA strategic goals and outcomes.

Investigations proposed for this pilot project must address an aspect
of science, exploration, technology development, education or opera-
tions encompassed by NASA's strategic goals and outcomes as identified
in the NASA Strategic Plan and/or NASA's Education Strategic Coordina-
tion Framework.

Collaborators may be required to provide partial reimbursement of
approximately $30,000 per CubeSat. NASA will not provide funding to
support CubeSat activity or development. Selection does not guarantee
an availability of a launch opportunity.

The complete CubeSat Launch Initiative Announcement can be viewed
on-line at NASA.gov at http://tinyurl.com/2b97n6r.

[ANS thanks NASA for the above information]

/EX


SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-311.04
AMSAT-UK FUNcube Frequencies Now Confirmed

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 311.04
  From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
November 7, 2010
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-311.04

Trevor, M5AKA reported the IARU Amateur Satellite Frequency
Coordination panel has announced coordinated frequencies for
the AMSAT-UK FUNcube 1U CubeSat.

The frequencies are:

Inverting linear transponder:
Uplink 435.080 - 435.060 MHz Downlink 145.960 - 145.980 MHz

Beacon 145.955 MHz CW and 1200 bps BPSK

FUNcube website
http://www.FUNcube.org.uk/

FUNcube SDR Dongle
http://www.FUNcubeDongle.com/

FUNcube Yahoo Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FUNcube/

[ANS thanks Trevor, M5AKA and AMSAT-UK for the above information]

/EX


SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-311.05
FO-29 Status Update

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 311.05
  From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
November 7, 2010
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-311.05

Yutaka Murata, JA1COU reported news from the Japan Amateur Radio
League (JARL) FO-29 command team testing this past weekend when
continuous commands were transmitted to the satellite when it was
in range of Japan.

The current hypothesis of the recent shutdown of the satellite is
that the temperature aboard FO-29 is too high to allow continuous
operations and to accept commands or any other satellite operations.

Eclipse of FO-29 is:
November  1   0% (full illumination)
November 20  14%
November 30  17%

It is expected that the temperature aboard FO-29 will drop as the length of
eclipse increases. FO-29 is designed to work over a wide temperature range.
Because of degradation over time in orbit it is possible that some components
may have lower performance. The JARL Command Team hopes that FO-29 will accept
commands and resume operation when the temperature cools down during increased
eclipse.

[ANS thanks Yutaka Murata, JA1COU for the above information]

/EX


SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-311.06
OSCAR-11 REPORT   31 October 2010

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 311.06
  From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
November 7, 2010
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-311.06

This report covers the period from 30 September to 31 October
2010. During this time the satellite has been heard from 09 to
19 October and from 30 October. At the time of writing it is
transmitting and is expected to continue until 09 November.

Excellent signals have been reported from stations located
around the world, and good copy obtained from decoded telemetry
frames.

The satellite is now transmitting during eclipses, although
signals are weaker at those times. This indicates that there is
still some capacity remaining in the battery.

The on-board clock is now very stable.  It gained only ten
seconds in 33 days. This is comparable with its accuracy when the
satellite was fully operational, when it gained approximately one
minute per year. However, there is still an accumulated loss of
309 days, which has occurred during eclipses of the last few
years.

Operation during eclipses and stability of the on-board clock
suggest that some part of the system may have recently failed
'open circuit' thus reducing the overall power drain of the
system, and allowing more power to be available during eclipses.
There was an unexplained current drain observed when analogue
telemetry was last transmitted. This fault might have cleared.

The Beacon frequencies are -

   VHF 145.826 MHz.  AFSK FM  ASCII Telemetry

UHF 435.025 MHz.  OFF

S-band 2401.5 MHz. OFF

Reception reports have been received from Jeff N3QO, Rod CX2ABP
and Ian KI4HLV/6Y5 (G4JMM) . Many thanks for those and to
everyone who posted reports on the satellite status website. This
is a very convenient and easy to use facility, which shows the
current status of all the amateur satellites. Strongly
recommended for future reports! Reports around the expected times
of switch-on and switch-off are of special interest. The URL is
http://oscar.dcarr.org/index.php

OSCAR-11 transmits on 145.826 MHz., set receiver to NBFM. The
satellite has a characteristic sound, rather like raspy slow
morse code, sending "di di dah dah dah dah dah dah dah" sent over
a period of five seconds. If you are receiving a very weak
signal, switch the receiver to CW or SSB. You should hear several
sidebands around the carrier frequency and should be able to hear
the characteristic 'morse code like' sound on at least one
sideband.

Please note that you need a clean noise-free signal to decode
the signals, and your receiver must be set to NBFM mode, for a
decoder to work.

If you need to know what OSCAR-11 sounds like, there is an audio
clip on my website www.g3cwv.co.uk/ which may be useful for
identification and as a test signal for decoding.

The current status of the satellite, is that all the analogue
telemetry channels, 0 to 59 are zero, ie they have failed. The
status channels 60 to 67 are still working. The real time clock
is showing a large accumulated error, but is now incrementing
accurately to within a few seconds per month. The day of the
month has a bit stuck at 'one' so the day of the month may show
an error of +40 days for some dates. The time display has
switched into 12 hour mode. Unfortunately, there is no AM/PM
indicator, since the time display format was designed for 24 hour
mode.

The spacecraft computer and active attitude control system have
switched OFF, ie. the satellite' attitude is controlled only by
the passive gravity boom gradient, and the satellite is free to
spin at any speed.

The watchdog timer operates on a 20 day cycle. The ON/OFF times
have tended to be very consistent. The average of many
observations have shown this to be 20.7 days, ie. 10.3 day s ON
followed by 10.4 days OFF.

Listeners to OSCAR-11 may be interested in visiting my website.
If you need to know what OSCAR-11 should sound like, there is a
short audio clip for you to hear. The last telemetry received
from the satellite is available for download. The website
contains an archive of news & telemetry data which is updated
from time to time. It also contains details about using a
sound card or hardware demodulators for data capture.  There is
software for capturing data, and decoding ASCII telemetry.  The
URL is www.g3cwv.co.uk .

If you place this bulletin on a terrestrial packet network,
please use the bulletin identifier $BID:U2RPT150.CWV, to prevent
duplication.

73 Clive G3CWV   xxxxx@amsat.org (please replace xxxxx by g3cwv)

[ANS thanks Clive, G3CWV, for the above information]

/EX


SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-311.07
ARISS Status - 1 November 2010

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 311.07
  From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
November 7, 2010
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-311.07

1. Successful ARISS Contact with Funakata Elementary

On Friday, October 29, an Amateur Radio on the International Space Station
(ARISS) contact was held between students from Funakata Elementary School in
Nagoya, Aichi, Japan and astronaut Shannon Walker, KD5DXB on the International
Space Station (ISS). The youth were able to get in 16 questions before the ISS
went over the horizon. Approximately seventy students, guests and media were
present.


2. Astronaut Training Status

Astronauts Joe Acaba, KE5DAR and Aki Hoshide, KE5DNI participated in simulated
ARISS school contacts with students attending Ralph McCall School in Airdrie,
Alberta, Canada on Tuesday, October 26. The training sessions were
terrestrial-based amateur radio contacts using ARISS equivalent equipment.

Acaba, who is slated to fly with Expedition 31, also had an ARISS refresher
course on Wednesday, October 27 for his upcoming mission in 2012.

[ANS thanks Carol, KB3LKI, 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.

73,
This week's ANS Editor,
Lee McLamb, KU4OS
ku4os at amsat dot org

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