[amsat-bb] FM Satellite status

[Bob Bruninga <bruninga@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Here is a beginner's one line summary of currently active FM birds that
you can receive on your Mobile FM rig and mobile vertical whip antenna.  
THe change from last week is that KO23 was back on this morning

SAT   DOWNLNK UPLINK  S MODE                 COMMENTS
----  ------- ------- - -------------------- ----------------------------
MIR   145.985 145.985 9+FM voice to/fm crew. Vice and SSTV activity rptd
UO14  435.070 145.975 5 FM Voice repeater    lots of fun
AO27  436.795 145.850 3 FM Voice repeater    days only but fun
SO35  145.825 436.290 8 FM Voice repeater    on scheduled passes only
UO22  435.120 145.900 3 9600 baud FSK packet ON
KO23  435.170 145.900 4 9600 baud FSK packet ON again as of abt 1000 UTC 
KO25  436.500 145.980 3 9600 baud FSK packet ON
TO31  436.925 145.925 5 9600 baud FSK packet ON

Between the hours of about 6 AM to noon and 6 PM to midnight local SUN
time there is usually one of these birds in view for a few minutes to keep
you entertained while traveling.  UHF requires +/- 5 or 10 KHz Doppler
tuning.  The "S" column is a subjective signal strength assessment.  A
20" vertical whip in the center of your car roof  will give you success as
shown below.  This acts as a 3/4 wave on UHF giving almost 8 dBi above 
30 degrees over a good groundplane.         
                                                SIG RECEIVE RANGE
                                                --- ------------------
As a rough approximation consider this table     9  Horizon to Horizon
which  I have subjectively  determined after     8  5  deg and above
3 months  of daily monitoring. Home stations     7  10 deg and above
with 50' of RG 8  should subtract abt 3 from     6  15 deg and above
the signals and 5/8  or dual band, or "gain"     5  20 deg and above
antennas  should also subtract about 2.          4  25 deg and above
                                                 3  30 deg and above
The PACSATs  do not  currently  digipeat  UI     2  3 ele beam required
packets,  but  you can still  see status and     1  6 ele beam required
telemetry and the USER lists on your Kenwood
data radios or any radio with 9600 baud TNC.  For more info on mobile
satellite operations see http://web.usna.navy.mil/~bruninga/astars.html

NOTES:  We anticipate hearing of SSTV, and PACKET activity from MIR any
day now.  Miles Mann reports Cosmonauts sleep between 1900z to 0400z.

Errors, omissions, corrections welcome.  I will re-post this when ever I
hear of changes in status.  For more detail, of course, read the AMSAT
News Service bulletins and AMSAT WEB pages http://www.amsat.org

de WB4APR, Bob





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