Building the First US ARISSAT-1 Flight Unit Begins

Gould Smith, WA4SXM writing on behalf of the ARISSAT-1 team said construction of the flight unit begins in early February when Tony Monteiro, AA2TX begins electronic assembly of the first US flight unit for ARISSat.

The ARISSAT-1 team has had prototypes working for months. The enclosures have been painted by NASA and the cables prepared by Larry Brown, W7LB. The flight boards were built by the Microchip ARISSat team and Chuck Green, N0ADI, with Chuck checking all the flight units.

Lou McFadin, W5DID has nearly assembled a complete flight structure (see photo above) designed by Bob Davis, KF4KSS. Lou expects to exhibit the structure in the AMSAT Booth at the upcoming Orlando HamCation. The first two flight TX/RX/Command receiver modules from Bill Ress, N6GHZ are due to arrive in February.

We just found out that ARISSat will receive a new callsign and some additional Russian greetings will be added. We will have more than 25 international greetings from around the world in twelve languages broadcast on the FM downlink. In addition to the greetings will be voice ID, voice telemetry values, SSTV images, CW signals, a new 1k BPSK signal by Phil Karn, KA9Q sending full telemetry and experiment data and a 16 kHz wide transponder. Kurst State University in Russia is providing the experiment and the Silver-Zinc battery for the mission.

The ARISSAT-1 team will start system testing and Flight Safety reviews soon and plans to ship two flight units to Russia in the spring. Visit the ARISSAT-1 web page for more photos and information.

How's Satellite DX? Pretty Good, Thanks for Asking

• January 16 - WC7V had a contact with RN1NW via AO-7 Mode B over a distance of 7659 KM. Kerry, WC7V said, "I have hoped to make this contact for over 30 years. The satellite was ascending at my QTH and was at about 3 degrees elevation at the end of our QSO."
• January 18 - ZS6BB had a contact with EA6SA via AO-7 Mode B over a distance of 7,766 KM. This contact was conducted via SSB.
• January 23 - N3TL and KL7XJ had a contact on HO-68 in FM. Tim, N3TL said, "At the time, the satellite was below 4.5 degrees and descending for me. I'm thrilled to put state No. 49 in the log with my handheld station."
• January 24 - Piraja PS8RF had a contact with EA4CYQ in SSB via the linear transponder through HO-68. This is believed to be the first SSB contact between South America and Europe on this satellite over a distance 7,477 KM. Juan Antonio, EA4CYQ wrote, "After that I worked Canada VE2DWE and several USA stations KB1RVT, K3SZH and KC9ELU.
• January 25 - K3SZH with PY2OV on SSB via AO-7. The distance between the two stations was 7738 KM. PS8RF recorded the contact and posted a short video online.
• Schedule update for VP8 South Shetland Islands AO-51 operation. The DNXL Newsletter #1660 (Jan 27, 2010) reports that XR9JA will now be active between February 1 - 28. This operation was originally planned for January but has been re-scheduled. Their QTH will be the Chilean naval base "Arturo Prat" on Greenwich Island belonging to the South Shetland archipelago (AN-010). Their QSL manager is CE5JA (via bureau or direct) and more information can be found on their website.
• January 28 - ZS6WB in Pretoria, South Africa copied a double-hop signal from I8CVS in Italy. Dom, I8CVS was uplinking to AO-7 on 432.158 MHz which translated out on 145.940 MHz on AO-7. The signal on 145.940 from AO-7 was received as an input on FO-29, and translated to 435.840 MHz output on FO-29. Hal, ZS6WB said hecopied a good signal via 435.840 MHz for several minutes.

Updated: 01 Feb, 10