Re: [amsat-bb] ISS Astronaut Schedule

[AJ9N@xxxxxxx]

Hi all,

Several things you need to keep  in mind about making contact with the ISS.

1.  Namely the crew is  very busy and so they do have limited hours.  Keep 
trying, you never  know.  They are not favoring any part of the world over any 
other.   They do need to be over ground, awake, and be in their free time 
period.   Bill has been perhaps the most active astronaut/ham that we have had and 
he is  trying to make as many contacts as his time permits.  Everyone needs to 
 remember it is ISS first, ham radio a distant second.

2.  So far we  have not had an Alaskan school have a ARISS contact.  The 
reason?  No  school has applied (I keep track of everything for all of the ARISS  
mentors).  ARISS takes applications from any school that wants to try and  has 
only turned down a few for technical reasons (and even those got on the  
waiting list after cleaning up their application).  So my suggestion is to  
contact a local school, ask if they would like to apply, fill in the  application, 
email it in, and get on the waiting list.  Current waiting  time is about 2 
years.  Applications are available  at:

English:  http://www.rac.ca/ariss/  
French:   http://c.avmdti.free.fr/ariss/index.htm  
ARISS Europe:   http://www.ariss-eu.org/  
ARISS Japan:   http://www.jarl.or.jp/ariss/  

3.  Don't forget that I have had  posted for quite some time to the ARISS 
website a complete chart for doing the  Doppler correction.  The spreadsheet 
shows examples for various frequency  step size radios.

Frequency chart for packet, voice, and crossband  repeater modes showing 
Doppler correction as of 2005-07-29 04:00  UTC
http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/ISS_frequencies_and_Doppler_correction.r
tf

Do  not forget that the ground station must do all of the Doppler correction. 
  The ISS radio is channelized and is not set up to do Doppler correction.   
The listed frequencies are the zero Doppler frequency that the ISS radio needs 
 to see.  So at the beginning of the pass, the ground station must transmit  
about 3kHz low so that at the ISS the +3kHz Doppler shift makes the radio see  
the 0kHz Doppler frequency.

Doppler correction must be done if you are  using the crossband repeater.

Good luck with making  contact.

73,
Charlie Sufana AJ9N
One of the ARISS mentors  
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