Satgen 27 4th Oct 89 Corruption test
Cosmos 1686     For more than 4 years this space tug has been attached
to the old Salyut 7 Space Station, and its 24 hour a day transmissions on
19.955 MHz have served as a most reliable far ranging, HF Propagation
beacon. Nothing has been heard from it for several weeks, so its beacon is
probably no longer operative. This is a sad loss. 1686 has been the most
useful HF beacon ever placed in orbit, but papers and experiments will
continue to be published for some time, as its recent exploits continue to
be reported. Indeed RadCom may be publishing a paper shortly describing
how the beacon on 1686 was used for some Non Great Circle ( bent, not
straight line), HF propagation studies which have important results for 50
MHz users and HF Contest men ,in particular.

Space Beasties      During the Shuttle Challenger Flight 51F of
July/August 1985 , a Very Low Frequency ( 20Hz to 20KHz ) receiver was 
deployed in space by the Shuttle. The output of this receiver modulated a
400 MHz FM downlink which unlike the VLF was audible on the ground. The
commonest signal heard in the 3 days the experiment lasted, sounded like "
A bunch of demented parrots, all chirping out of sync and out of tune ".
Unfortunately this "poetic" description has now been demolished. As the 
Voyager II craft flew through the outer edges of Neptunes rings, it too
produced similar signals, and the conclusion has to be that the very
chirpy signals are simply the product of small particles ionising and
obliterating themselves as they collide with the VLF aerial and any
adjacent structures. Pity really, I rather liked the idea of Space Beasts
made of plasma who talked to one another via VLF radio.

Setting Up for Packsat     Having changed the local set up and got the RUH
Fuji modem box firmly connected to one port of a dual port TNC 320
modified as per GM4JJJ (no need to disconnect to revert to terrestrial
packet), I was anxious to test it on Fuji. Unfortunately however nothing
was heard of Fuji 30 Sep/1 Oct, so no full test has so far been possible ,
although the reception side has been checked using the strong UFO 432.881
sat and the much weaker 435.974 Polar Bear sat. When Polar Bear goes into
noise the lock is lost, but the modem does a great job on any signal just
above noise. Please note that Packsat launch now delayed to about 23 Nov.

Sat TV      Have not yet heard the band edge beacons on the BSB sat though
I have been told it is already on station with solar panels unfurled and
may transmit at least one TV test channel in a few weeks time.  The
German Kopernikus Pal TV and Data sat at 23.5E ( just 4 degs or so further
east than Astra), is putting out at least six signals just above the Astra
band on 11477, 11525, 11625 (ARD German national chan ),and 11674 all with
horizontal pol, plus 11550 (SAT1 German commercial chan), and 11602 (3SAT)
pol vertical. All channels are German language and their signal strength
in UK is much weaker than Astra ( but copyable on a 1.2m dish ), although
the transmissions are I understand intended for cable tv master station
reception, not direct home reception. 73 de GM4IHJ@GB7SNE on 4th Oct 89.