Satgen 41  10th Jan 90   Microsats, Space Listeners, Jamsat

As I type this I hear that Arianespace has indefinitely postponed
the launch of Spot II and the Microsats. When eventually the launch takes
place ,G3RWL will run a net starting at 0100 ut just below 3780 LSB, and
Amsat UK will hold evening nets near 3780 for the first few days. When
heard for the first time the individual satellites will be broadcasting
telemetry ,( Pacsat Lusat Weber 1200 BPSK ,Uosat D and E ,and Dove 1200
AFSK ). It will be some time before operational status is fully checked
and normal flight operations commence. Uosat downlinks may be ,one minute
ON, next minute OFF,pattern,and will be 1200 not 9600 bps to start with.

Jamsat may now be up first with launch schedule for JAS1-B of 0125 to 0200
ut on 1st Feb 90, into an orbit of mean height 1200 kms approx, and an
inclination of about 99 degrees. This is a very different orbit from that
of JAS1-A. This new orbit is nearly Sun Synchronous, and it is Polar, not
Mid Latitude. This will make the satellite a much better target from UK,
than its predecessor, with 11 orbits in range northern UK between 0640 and
0100 ut .Its best orbits will coincide with those of Microsat Eg 2100 ut
approx north going, 1100 ut approx south going, but it is much higher than
microsat ,with some orbits in range for 18 minutes. If it copies JAS1-A ,
JAS1-B should transmit on its first orbit north east of UK approx 0642

Space Radio Listeners. One aspect of these new sats is the wealth of
facilities for Listeners. Most downlink traffic on Pacsat, Lusat , Dove
etc will be broadcast bulletins or telemetry. Equiped with a micro ,a Rx,
tnc, and a modem, the Listener has source data for a thousand experiments.
Will try to report these Listener features in forthcoming Satgens

Miscellaneous Microsat Features . Aside from Packet Store and Forward,
Pacsat and Lusat feature between them both L/S band transponder(Pac),S
band beacon( Pac + Lusat ?) and a UHF CW beacon (Lusat ). Webersat has TV,
impact sensors, spectrograph, magnetometer and  voice synthesiser
experiments, and Dove has a telemetry beacon. If all goes well we are in
for a feast.

Salyut 7 and Cosmos 1686 have not been heard for some time on 19.955 MHz
It's possible that they are saving battery power. It could come on briefly
73 de GM4IHJ @ GB7MAC 10th Jan 90