[jamsat-news:2580] ANS-314 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins

AMSAT NEWS SERVICE
ANS-314

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:

* AMSAT President's Message
* Second European CubeSat Workshop
* Satellite Shorts From All Over
* ARISS Status Report for the Week of November 3, 2008
* 

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-314.01
AMSAT President's Message

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 314.01
>From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
November 9, 2008
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-314.01

I just arrived home on Monday night, Nov 3rd from my trip to the  
Southeast to attend the the AMSAT Board of Directors Meeting and the  
26th Space Symposium along with some personal travel.

As you probably know by now, AMSAT has undergone a change in  
leadership as a result of Rick Hambly's decision not to serve another  
one-year term as President.  At the  meeting in Atlanta, the Board  
voted to appoint me as President.  I am honored that the Board has  
placed their trust in my leadership and I look forward to working with  
the Board, the Senior Team, and our membership as we move forward into  
2009.

First, many thanks to Robin Cutshaw, AA4RC and his team of volunteers  
for putting together and hosting an excellent AMSAT Symposium in 
Atlanta.  Attendance was lower this year than in past years, probably  
due to the impacts of the slowing economy, relatively high  
transportation costs, and lack of news concerning Eagle.  

Those that did attend the Symposium, however, benefited from an excel-
lent weekend of presentations, discussions, interaction with fellow 
AMSAT members, and an opportunity to meet with the AMSAT leadership. 
The efforts of Robin's team, coupled with the contributions of Gould 
Smith, WA4SXM and Martha Saragovitz, resulted in a Symposium that ran 
very smoothly, with attendees enjoying the presentations, a Friday 
night President's Club social that was open to all Symposium attendees, 
the Saturday night banquet, and the Field Ops Breakfast on Sunday 
Morning.  

Dan Schultz, N8FGV was a masterful banquet speaker who through excel-
lent slides and dry wit explained the upcoming Hubble Repair Mission.   

Dan also was our editor for the "Proceedings of of the 26th Space 
Symposium" which is an excellent compilation of papers, most of which 
were presented at the Symposium. (I encourage you to order a copy of 
the Proceedings if you weren't able to attend.)  

In addition, for the first time that I can recall, there were TWO major 
prizes given away at the Dinner (Icom IC-910H and a Kenwood TS-2000), 
both of which were won by women who attended the banquet.  Judy 
Perkins, KE7ERI of Lilburn, GA won the IC-910 and Flo Bower of Pinson, 
AL won the TS-2000 (she is working on earning her ham license). Many 
thanks to both Icom and Kenwood for their support of AMSAT.  

The Symposium closed on Sunday following an excellent two hour "Intro-
duction to Digital Signal Processing" workshop conducted by Phil Harman, 
VK6APH that was well attended. Overall, AMSAT enjoyed an excellent 
weekend in Atlanta.

During the Board meeting on Thursday, Oct 23rd  and the Annual Meeting  
on Saturday morning, Oct 25, we took time to thank Rick Hambly, W2GPS  
for his four years of faithful and extensive service to AMSAT as  
President.  Rick tackled many difficult issues and sought to move  
AMSAT forward in a number of areas.  These included dealing with  
changes in the regulatory environment (Orbital Debris), establishing a  
relationship with University of Maryland-Eastern Shore that resulted  
in relocation of the AMSAT Integration Lab to Pocomoke, MD, working on  
the difficult issue of ITAR (International Traffic of Arms Regulations), 
revamping the AMSAT senior leadership team organizational structure, 
initial discussions with Intelsat on a possible 'rideshare' opportunity, 
and 'filling in' as our webmaster when we lost the volunteer who handled 
that function.  Much of what Rick did was 'behind the scenes' activities 
that took many hours, required dedicated followup, and received little 
fanfare.  Many thanks to Rick for his significant efforts to make AMSAT 
better. During the past four years, no one dedicated such a significant 
portion of their life to AMSAT as Rick.

At the Annual Meeting on Oct 25,  I gave a presentation that briefly  
reviewed where things stood within AMSAT,  discussed some of  
organizational issues that effect our ability to get projects  
completed, and mentioned some of the 'outside factors' that have  
impacted AMSAT.  I also outlined some goals for 2009.  You can  
download the presentation (in PDF format) off the AMSAT website. There  
is a link on the main page.   While the 'bullet points' provide key  
comments, the presentation doesn't have the 'talking points' that I  
made during each slide, so please be aware of this limitation when  
reviewing the material.  We made the Annual Meeting available via  
EchoLink, and we did have members listening 'live' and submitting  
questions during the meeting.  Thank you to those individuals who  
participated in the Annual Meeting.

In upcoming 'Apogee View' columns of the AMSAT Journal, I will discuss  
some of the challenges facing AMSAT and what is happening in a number  
of areas.  Some of these issues were discussed at the Annual Meeting.

Please don't forget that we need volunteers in a number of technical  
and non-technical areas.  The July/August issue of the AMSAT JOURNAL  
had a brief 'We Want YOU' ad that highlighted some of the areas where  
AMSAT needs assistance.  Please review that list and if you're  
interested in helping AMSAT, contact Gould Smith, WA4SXM as noted in 
the ad.

Finally, please don't hesitate to contact me directly if you have  
suggestions, comments, or concerns that you would like to share. I  
will make every effort to respond to e-mails that I receive, but  
please keep in mind that I travel extensively which may limit my  
ability to respond quickly. Please know that I read every e-mail that  
I receive from AMSAT members and that I appreciate every person's  
willingness and time spent to share their thoughts and suggestions.

73,
Barry Baines, WD4ASW
AMSAT President

[ANS thanks Barry, WD4ASW for the above information]

/EX


SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-314.02
Second European CubeSat Workshop

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 314.02
>From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
November 9, 2008
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-314.02

Following on from the successful "Vega Maiden Flight CubeSat 
Workshop" held at ESA/ESTEC in January 2008, which was the 
first CubeSat workshop to be held at European-level, the ESA 
Education Office is pleased to announce the Second European 
CubeSat Workshop one year later as planned.

This Second European CubeSat Workshop will take place in ESA/
ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands on 20-22 January 2009.

Since the first workshop, the ESA Education Office in the 
Directorate of Legal Affairs and External Relations in con-
junction with the Directorate of Launchers has selected nine 
CubeSats (plus two backups) from European universities for 
launch on the maiden flight of the Vega launcher, now sched-
uled for November 2009.

The nine CubeSats will be deployed from three different deployment 
systems mounted on the support structure of the main payload, 
LARES (LAser RElativity Satellite), into an orbit of 350 km by 
1450 km at an inclination of 71 degrees.

The launch opportunity is offered by ESA to the selected CubeSats 
free of charge, and recognises the growing importance of the CubeSat 
as a powerful hands-on space education tool. It is intended as a 
first step to boost student hands-on development of CubeSats in 
Europe, thus providing a suitable and qualified space workforce 
for the future in complement with other education project activities.

The ESA Education Office solicits abstracts to be submitted for oral 
or poster presentation from both European and non-European partici-
pants.  The amateur radio based CubeSat Ground Segment and Operations 
(GENSO network) along with new ground station technologies and oper-
ational methods/techniques/software are planned for discussion.

[ANS thanks ESA and SpaceDaily.com for the above information]

/EX


SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-314.03
Satellite Shorts From All Over

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 314.03
>From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
November 9, 2008
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-314.03

+ Congratulations to Joe, K3SZH for reaching 7000 contacts as
  recorded in the informal AO-7 log.  Joe's presence and patience 
  has helped countless hams in learning the personality of this 
  unique satellite. See http://www.planetemily.com/ao7/ao7log.php
  to review the AO-7 log pages.

+ Kudos, a hearty handshake, and a pat on the back are in order
  to Robin, AA4RC who got on the air this weekend to demonstrate
  amateur radio and amateur satellites to 10,000 Scouts camped out
  at the Talladega Speedway.  Robin also lead the team hosting
  the 2008 AMSAT Space Symposium in Atlanta.

+ Fernando, EC1AME has put 3 videos of Monday school contact in 
  Spain at: http://www.ea1uro.com/isstation.html.

+ The 35th Eastern VHF/UHF Conference is scheduled for April 17-19,
  2009 in Enfield, CT.  Additional information and call for papers
  will be available soon.

+ Mineo, JE9PEL reports that the most recent photos received from
  the Cute-1.7+APDII camera (CO-65) can be viewed on-line at:
  http://www.ne.jp/asahi/hamradio/je9pel/cut17ap4.htm
  http://lss.mes.titech.ac.jp/ssp/cute1.7/blog/1_25_rev2%20_Caption.jpg

+ UniverseToday.com announces Space Lifestyle Magazine. Its a free,
  digital magazine, with a full color layout just like a print maga-
  zine, but its all online. SLM has feature articles about all as-
  pects of space - NewSpace, NASA, military, science and astronomy - 
  but mostly it's about the people that make the space sector tick.
  See: http://www.newforks.net/spacelifestyle.html.  The subscription
  is free but they do ask for e-mail, home address, phone number in
  the registration process. (source UniverseToday.com)

[ANS thanks everyone for the above information]

/EX


SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-314.04
ARISS Status Report for the Week of November 3, 2008

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 314.04
>From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
November 9, 2008
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-314.04

1. School Contacts

An ARISS contact was held with St. Thomas' Primary School in Brisbane, 
Queensland, Australia on Tuesday, November 4. The school has its own 
radio club and has been using packet radio prior to the contact. Topics 
of space, science and technology have been taught and students, ages 
4-12, have participated in related activities such as building models 
of space stations, using a telescope to explore the night sky, building 
crystal radios, producing a video and creating an ARISS Web site for 
the school.

An ARISS contact was held with Dibrugarh University in Assam, India on 
Friday, November 7 via telebridge station W6SRJ in California. The 
university considers this event a great achievement with planned media 
coverage.   

Anderson's Creek Primary School in Warrandyte, Victoria, Australia has 
been scheduled for an ARISS contact on Monday, November 10. Telebridge 
station VK5ZAI will assist with the contact. Students have researched 
the International Space Station and its experiments and determined the 
long term impact of these studies.  They have studied the history of 
space exploration and the reasons why humans seek to broaden their 
horizons.  The school has hosted evening sessions to introduce stu-
dents to astronomy. 

The Newcomers Club in Saitama, Japan has been scheduled for an ARISS 
contact on Saturday, November 15 at 10:22 UTC.  Community involvement 
and media coverage is expected.

2. Italian Students Question Astronaut via Radio  

On Tuesday, October 28, students attending Scuola Media Statale Donato 
Forlani in Conversano, Italy participated in an ARISS contact with Mike 
Fincke, KE5AIT. To prepare for the event, the students made satellite 
contacts and received SSTV pictures, sent from the ISS by Richard Garr-
iott W5KWQ.  On the day of the contact, twelve students were able to 
pose one question each to Fincke as an audience of more than 500 stu-
dents, parents, teachers and visitors watched. Fincke spoke to the 
students in Italian at the beginning and end of the contact. Two tele-
vision stations (CANALE 7, TeleNorba) and three newspapers (L'Informa-
tore, Il Levante, Il Fax) covered the event.

3. School Contact in Rome, Successful

Students attending Santa Teresa del Bambin Gesin Rome, Italy exper-
ienced an ARISS contact on Thursday, October 30.  Mike Fincke, KE5AIT, 
answered twelve questions. More than 150 students, parents, teachers 
and guests were present. Also present were ESA representative Mr. 
Dieter Isakeit, Head of the ESA/ESRIN Corporate Communication Office 
(LEX-COR) and Mr. Daniele Giannini, President 18ー District of City Hall 
Rome. Mr. Isakeit translated the astronaut's answers, provided infor-
mation and offered souvenirs. Four television stations (Regional RAI 3, 
SAT2000, Telelazio, Rete Blu) and RADIO RAI 1 covered the event. The 
audio was fed into the EchoLink AMSAT and JK1ZRW servers and received 
6 connections from stations in the U.S., U.K. and Belgium. It was also 
fed into D-Star net and was repeated to 40 nodes in Europe, 70 nodes 
in USA and 20 in the rest of the world.

4. Budbrooke School Contact Update

Students attending Budbrooke Primary School in Warwick, England spoke 
with Richard Garriott, W5KWQ, during an ARISS contact on Friday, 
October 17.  The British Amateur Television Club posted video of the 
event. Go to: http://www.batc.tv/channel.php?ch=1 and select "Richard 
Garriott HD" or "Richard Garriott SD."

5. ARISS Simulated Contacts Scheduled

Chris Hadfield, KC5RNJ/VA3OOG, and Cady Coleman, KC5ZTH, have been 
scheduled for ARISS simulated contacts on Thursday, November 6 at 
approximately 14:30 UTC. The astronauts will speak to two groups of 
students at a Canadian school for these events. These training ses-
sions are terrestrial-based amateur radio contacts using ARISS-
equivalent equipment.  Hadfield and Coleman are currently assigned 
as back-up Expedition 19 crew members.

6. Training Sessions Successful

ESA astronaut Frank De Winne, ON1DWN, participated in a successful 
simulated ARISS contact with students at Technopolis in Mechelen, 
Belgium on Monday, October 27. He answered twenty-two questions 
posed to him by the students.

ESA astronaut Andre Kuipers took part in an ARISS review session on 
Friday, October 31. He is currently back-up for Frank De Winne.

7. Amateur Radio Newsline Reports on Garriott's Mission

On Friday, October 24, the Amateur Radio Newsline Report 1628 posted 
a story on Richard Garriott's participation in ARISS activities 
during his ISS mission. The article, "Ham Radio in Space:  Richard 
Garriott, W5KWQ, Mission a Success for Ham Radio," covered Garriott's 
involvement in the Scout Jamboree on the Air (JOTA), SSTV, and his 
contact with Owen Garriott, W5LFL.

8. NASA HQ Cites Stories on Garriott

NASA Headquarters News Service picked up on reports of Richard Garr-
iott's mission, citing articles from CTV (Canada) and the Bennington 
Banner (Vermont). Both stories are about amateur radio operators who 
made radio contacts with Richard Garriott, W5KWQ, while onboard the 
ISS. To view the articles, go to:

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20081025/space_radio_081
025/20081026?hub=Canada
http://www.benningtonbanner.com/ci_10813257

9. AMSAT Symposium held 

The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT) held its Annual Meeting 
and Space Symposium on October 24-26 in Atlanta, Georgia.  ARISS (Amateur 
Radio on the International Space Station) Chairman Frank Bauer, KA3HDO, 
attended and gave a talk on the ARISS program. ARISS Hardware Manager 
Lou McFadin, W5DID, presented an update on SuitSat-2. The presentations 
have been posted to the AMSAT Web site.  
See:
http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/Presentations/AMSAT%20Symposiums/2008%20Sym
posium/

10. ARRL ARISS Program Manager Interviewed

The ARRL (American Radio Relay League) ARISS (Amateur Radio on the Inter-
national Space Station) Program Manager Rosalie White, K1STO, was inter-
viewed on QSO, a ham radio interview and talk show. White spoke about 
Richard Garriott's flight, the ARRL, ARISS and AMSAT (Radio Amateur Satel-
lite Corporation).  The interview took place on Friday, October 24 and 
ran three times over the weekend on the Nashville station and again on 
a Miami station. 

[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.

And with that remember, that no matter how much you push the envelope, 
it is still stationery.

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



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