AMSAT NEWS SERVICE
ANS-214

The AMSAT News Service bulletins are a free, weekly news and infor-
mation service of AMSAT North America, The Radio Amateur Satellite
Corporation. ANS publishes news related to Amateur Radio in Space
including 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.

The news feed on http://www.aus-city.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/r/RADIOCOMM_LIST/044091336432/list.admin/aus-city.com/ publishes news of Amateur
Radio in Space as soon as our volunteers can post it.

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

In this edition:

* Fox-1A Mated to the Centaur for Launch
* AMSAT 2015 Symposium Papers
* PCSAT Default Beacon Transmissions on 144.390 MHz
* 2015 AMSAT-UK Colloquim Videos Aavilable Online
* FUNcube Certificate of Achievement and QSL Card
* Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule



SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-214.01
ANS-214 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 214.01
From AMSAT HQ Kensington, MD.
August 2, 2015
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-214.01

Fox-1A Mated to the Centaur for Launch

AMSAT-NA's Fox-1A satellite which will launch on a NASA ELaNa flight from
Vandenburg AFB has been mated to the Centaur upper stage which will
carry it to
orbit. A photo of the NPSCuL mated to the Centaur with the P-POD containing
Fox-1A, BisonSat, ARC1 and 7 other P-PODs can be seen on the AMSAT website.
http://www.aus-city.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/r/RADIOCOMM_LIST/719112231119/list.admin/aus-city.com/

[ANS thanks Jerry, N0JY, for the above information]


---------------------------------------------------------------------


AMSAT 2015 Symposium Papers

The 2015 AMSAT-NA Annual Meeting and Space Symposium to be held on the
weekend
of October 16-18, 2015. Proposals for papers, symposium presentations
and poster
presentations are invited on any topic of interest to the amateur satellite
community. We request a tentative title of your presentation as soon as
possible. The final copy must be submitted by September 15 for inclusion
in the
printed proceedings. Abstracts and papers should be sent to Dan Schultz
at n8fgv
at amsat.org

The 2015 AMSAT Space Symposium and Annual Meeting will be held October
16, 17,
18, 2015 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, 33 East 5th Street, in Downtown, Dayton,
Ohio.

[ANS thanks the 2015 Symposium Committee for the above information]


---------------------------------------------------------------------

PCSAT Default Beacon Transmissions on 144.390 MHz

An FM APRS signal has been received in England causing interference to
the MGM
frequency and weak-signal Meteor Scatter (MS) operation which is just below
144.390 MHz. A MS DXpedition was disrupted by such activity earlier in
the month
and interference has been occurring at various times since.

Bob Bruninga, WB4APR, explains that the beacon was planned over 15 years
ago for
operation only when PCSAT is over North America based on published band
plans at
that time. Now, after 14 years on orbit, the ability to turn that backup
beacon
off has been lost.

PCSAT (now 14 years old) had a backup fail-safe beacon on 144.39 that
would activate after any unknown spacecraft reset to give a backup comm
link in case the primary 145.825 channel died. Being on the North
American APRS frequency with hundreds of IGates there would always be at
least one that would hear this "emergency call home" from PCSAT even
though the channel is generally saturated. It worked.

The problem is, that now PCSAT resets on every orbit due to negative power
budget and so, on every orbit that beacon comes back on. Even if we did
get a command up to reset it, that setting would last only 15 minutes to
the next eclipse.

We learned our lesson! That was our FIRST amateur satellite and we sure
learned NOT to use a "connected-packet-command link" that needs ACKS and
Retries and logon passwords just to LOGON before you can even send a
SHUTUP command. All our satellites since, operate without the multiple
Send, connect, ACK, retry, ACK, command, ACK overhead.... just to get one
command understood. Now, only the receiver on the spacecraft has to be
functional to command it to silence in a single packet. But too late for
PCSAT.

We are sorry that we have no good answers. But we hope we can mitigate
this instance of "friendly fire" collateral damage so that we don't cause
an overall black-eye to amateur radio overall friendly operations?

What you may hear will be 2 one-second packets per minute, one at 1200
baud and one at 9600 baud, trying to "call home".

[ANS thanks Bob, WB4APR, for the above information]


---------------------------------------------------------------------


2015 AMSAT-UK Colloquim Videos Aavilable Online

Thanks to the cooperation between the BATC and AMSAT-UK, this years
colloquium footage is becoming available online already.

The BATC and AMSAT-UK teams are working to upload all video material on to
the AMSAT-UK YouTube account. (http://www.aus-city.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/r/RADIOCOMM_LIST/952886868331/list.admin/aus-city.com/)

Video's will become available as soon as uploading is complete. Since the
high-definition files are rather large, please allow for some time for
editing and uploading.

For convenience, if you wish to watch the entire colloquium, go to the
playlist at
http://www.aus-city.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/r/RADIOCOMM_LIST/631315547107/list.admin/aus-city.com/


[ANS thanks Wouter, PA3WEG, for the above information]


---------------------------------------------------------------------


FUNcube Certificate of Achievement and QSL Card

As announced at the AMSAT-UK International Space Colloquium 2015, a
‘Certificate
of Achievement’ and/or an amateur radio style ‘QSL’ card are now available
online. Only those who have successfully received telemetry from
FUNcube-1 and
uploaded it to the Data Warehouse are able to download these documents.
AO-73 (FUNcube-1)

The Certificate of Achievement is aimed at educational establishments
such as
schools, and the QSL card at radio amateurs who would like confirmation
of their
report. However, station operators are welcome to download both if they
wish.

Each is personalised with the callsign/name which has been previously
registered
with the Warehouse, and the date and time of the first packet to be
uploaded by
the requesting station is also added.

Download your Certificate or QSL card from
http://www.aus-city.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/r/RADIOCOMM_LIST/031960393695/list.admin/aus-city.com/

FUNcube-1 (AO-73) Telemetry:
• Dashboard App
http://www.aus-city.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/r/RADIOCOMM_LIST/442433476637/list.admin/aus-city.com/
• Data Warehouse Archive http://www.aus-city.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/r/RADIOCOMM_LIST/526566447464/list.admin/aus-city.com/
• Whole orbit data http://www.aus-city.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/r/RADIOCOMM_LIST/168252968524/list.admin/aus-city.com/

BBC News video about FUNcube-1
http://www.aus-city.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/r/RADIOCOMM_LIST/787828617194/list.admin/aus-city.com/

FUNcube website http://www.aus-city.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/r/RADIOCOMM_LIST/407874913931/list.admin/aus-city.com/

FUNcube Yahoo Group http://www.aus-city.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/r/RADIOCOMM_LIST/120635611024/list.admin/aus-city.com/

[ANS thanks AMSAT-UK for the above information]


---------------------------------------------------------------------


Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule as of 2015-07-31 23:30 UTC

ESA Space Camp, Külsheim, Gemany, via W6SRJ
The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be NA1SS
The scheduled astronaut is Kjell Lindgren KO5MOS
Contact is a go for: Mon 2015-08-03 10:47:58 UTC 67 deg

Maroochydore State School, Maroochydore, Queensland, Australia, telebridge
via W6SRJ
The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be NA1SS
The scheduled astronaut is Kjell Lindgren KO5MOS
Contact is a go for: Thu 2015-08-06 10:10:15 UTC 59 deg via LU1CGB


Space Jam 9, Rantoul, IL, telebridge via IK1SLD
The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be OR4ISS
The scheduled astronaut is Kjell Lindgren KO5MOS
Contact is a go for: Sat 2015-08-08 16:57:49 UTC 33 deg


*************************************************************************

From 2015-12-20 to 2016-01-04, there will be no US Operational Segment
(USOS) hams on board ISS. So any schools contacts during this period
will be
conducted by the ARISS Russia team.


/EX


David Cottle

UBB Owner & Administrator