[sarex] ISS Ops

["Frank H. Bauer" <frank.bauer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

All,

The ARISS team were informed that the crew would probably leave the ISS 
amateur radio gear turned on during docking ops.  The operations you have 
seen the past few days have confirmed this.

Several people have asked when the crew will be operating.  The ARISS team 
cannot predict this.  The best way to understand the Expedition 2 schedule 
is to follow the operations on this reflector.  In the US, it appears that 
for now, 1700-2100 UTC appear to be good times.  It is also not clear as to 
why the packet system is enabled or disabled from one pass to the next.  We 
are fairly sure that the several day shutdown of the packet system was due 
to an overflow issue that was cleared after we asked the crew to cycle the 
packet system power.

Those that are still unclear on how to work the ISS amateur radio system 
are encouraged to carefully review the ARISS web page located at:

http://ariss.gsfc.nasa.gov/

No guarantees, but don't be surprised if you hear one of the Shuttle Crew 
members on the rig in the next few days.  FYI, Chris Hadfield from Canada 
is a ham and he used the SAREX gear on the Space Shuttle during his last 
flight.

International QSLs:  Right now, we just have QSL distribution in the US and 
Canada.  SASEs or IRCs with a self addressed envelope is 
required.  Eventually, we expect to expand QSL distribution to several of 
our other international partners.  The ARISS team will be discussing this 
at our next meeting which will be held the first week of May at ESA ESTEC 
in the Netherlands.  QSLs are not ready yet.  We expect to finalize the 
design at the upcoming ARISS meeting.

Enjoy ISS ops!

73,  Frank Bauer, KA3HDO


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