AMSAT.ORG Internet Services =========================== revised: 7 May 1998, kb5mu AMSAT-NA (the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation in North America) operates the Internet host AMSAT.ORG to provide for efficient communications between people interested in the amateur satellite program. At this time two email services are provided: 1. a message remailing service, and 2. a mailing list service. In addition, the Internet host WWW.AMSAT.ORG provides interactive access to a variety of information related to the amateur radio satellite program. Use your Web browser program to access the URL http://www.amsat.org/ Anonymous FTP is available on FTP.AMSAT.ORG. This archive contains not only software for amateur satellite enthusiasts, but also Keplerian elements, documents, presentation materials, press releases, and so forth. This archive does specialize in amateur radio satellite materials, though, so look elsewhere (ftp.ucsd.edu or oak.oakland.edu, for example) for general-interest amateur radio software and information. The message remailing service permits users to send each other mail on the Internet without keeping track of each other's Internet address. The remailing service allows each user to receive mail sent to the address callsign@amsat.org (a "mail alias"), where callsign is that user's amateur radio callsign. Mail sent to that address will be routed first to the AMSAT.ORG host at UCSD in San Diego, then remailed from AMSAT.ORG to the network address specified by the user. In most cases, this process delays the message by only a very few minutes. The mailing list service groups subscribers into mailing lists to receive certain types of messages. There are public mailing lists available to anyone, and private mailing lists available only to certain people (for example, AMSAT Board of Directors members or PACSAT command stations). Currently the following public mailing lists exist: ANS AMSAT News Service This mailing list carries official news releases from the AMSAT News Service, plus the weekly SpaceNews bulletin from KD2BD. These messages are posted in a form suitable for direct posting to a packet radio BBS system, but individual subscribers are welcome too. If your local packet BBS doesn't seem to get the bulletins reliably, you are encouraged to post them to the BBS yourself. Only authorized AMSAT News Service personnel should send messages to the ANS mailing list. AMSAT-BB AMSAT bulletin board This mailing list carries general AMSAT information and discussion. The purpose of this mailing list is to provide an open forum for exchange of information on any subject related to amateur radio satellites. This information may NOT be suitable in content for transmission via amateur radio, so automatic reposting of AMSAT-BB messages to packet radio BBS's is discouraged. Anyone may send messages to the AMSAT-BB mailing list. Simply address your message to amsat-bb@amsat.org, and it will be automatically forwarded to all subscribers to the AMSAT-BB mailing list. Editors of publications should ask permission of the sender before publishing anything seen in AMSAT-BB elsewhere, unless the posting was obviously a public press release. However, posters should realize that anything posted to AMSAT-BB is essentially public. KEPS Keplerian Elements mailing list This mailing list carries official postings of Keplerian element sets for satellites of interest to radio amateurs. Like the ANS bulletins, these messages are posted in a form suitable for direct posting to a packet radio BBS. Only authorized AMSAT News Service personnel should send messages to the KEPS mailing list. SAREX Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment mailing list This mailing list contains information and press releases pertaining to SAREX missions. It also carries discussion of manned space activities, including SAREX, Mir, and the planned International Space Station. AMSAT-DC District of Columbia area AMSAT mailing list This mailing list contains information and discussion of special interest to amateur satellite enthusiasts in the Washington, DC area. AMSAT-NE New England area AMSAT mailing list This mailing list is used to plan and coordinate AMSAT activities in the six state region: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. The NASAINFO mailing list has been deleted. To obtain any of these services, just send an Internet email message to the address: listserv@amsat.org For the moment, the maintenance of the AMSAT.ORG mailing lists and remailing aliases is done manually. Yes, I know that's dumb, but I'm still doing it that way. Soon, I hope, this service will be automated and you will have to follow a strict message format. For now, you may send requests in free format. They will usually be processed within a few days; please be patient. In general, you will not receive an explicit reply to your request for mailing list changes, since you'll see the mail start or stop when the request is processed. Mail alias requests are always acknowledged. Be sure you specify: 1. Which mailing list(s) you want to receive 2. Your callsign, if any 3. The Internet address to be used, if different from the one in your From: header. You should not send messages about your subscriptions to any of the mailing lists. Send them to listserv@amsat.org instead. This includes questions, requests for changes, requests for information about mailing services, and complaints. Please remember this one simple rule: all administrative requests and questions should be sent to listserv@amsat.org ONLY. The list of amateurs who may be reached via the message remailing service may be obtained by requesting the "address book". Note that the address book as distributed contains only the callsigns of the available addressees, not their actual Internet addresses. The address book is updated occasionally, and does not necessarily contain the very latest information. It is also available by anonymous FTP from ftp://ftp.amsat.org/amsat/listserv/addrbook.txt. You may request to be assigned a new mail alias, to have your existing mail alias deleted, or to change the real email address to which your mail alias is to be forwarded. Please include your callsign if you have one. If you don't have a callsign, you can still subscribe to the mailing lists, but you won't be eligible for a mail alias. If you have more than one Internet address, you have several options. If you wish, you can have all your mail (mail sent to your mail alias and mail sent to the mailing lists you subscribe to) send to all your accounts. Or, you can divide your mail up any way you wish. You can have more than one mail alias, too. Your second mail alias would look like w1aw-i@amsat.org, then w1aw-ii@amsat.org, and so on. Some of the older mail aliases used special suffixes like w1aw-cis@amsat.org for a CompuServe account; these are no longer being issued. You may also subscribe or unsubscribe to any of the public mailing lists described above. Send a message to listserv@amsat.org, specifying clearly which mailing list(s) you want to add or drop, and giving your callsign if you have one. When you subscribe to a mailing list, you will automatically be added to the remailing service as well, because the mailing lists are maintained by callsign. If you have more than one address listed in the remailing service, please indicate which one(s) you want the mailing list messages sent to. Additional mailing lists, public or private, can be set up as needed. Send mail to listserv@amsat.org for details. Questions about any service offered by AMSAT.ORG may be directed to listserv@amsat.org as well. Frequently-asked Questions and Complaints (and Answers): 1. Why did the mailing list messages suddenly stop coming to me a few weeks ago? Something may have been temporarily wrong with mail delivery to your site. If a message to you bounces back to the list maintainer, you may be removed from the mailing list without notice. If you think this has happened to you, send a message to listserv@amsat.org and ask. Be sure to specify which mailing lists you were receiving, so your subscriptions can be restored if necessary. 2. I never get an answer from Joe when I send him mail via AMSAT.ORG. If his mail isn't getting delivered, you *should* receive some kind of automatic message indicating there has been a delivery problem. These so-called "bounce messages" are not completely reliable either, but if you don't get such a message within a few days of sending your message, chances are that your message made it to the addressee's mailbox. However, the addressee may be behind on reading email, or may simply not bother to reply, and there isn't much we can do about that. Another possibility is that the message you sent contains a bad "From:" address. This will prevent the recipient from replying to your message. If you suspect this may be happening, include your real Internet address in the text of the message. If you find that this is happening, please complain to your system administrator. 3. My computer says "unknown host" whenever I try to reach AMSAT.ORG. This indicates a problem with domain name service. AMSAT.ORG *is* a fully official domain name, and your host should be able to find it. Check with your local network administrator (tell him to check the nameserver at ucsd.edu). As a workaround, you may be able to use an address of the form callsign%amsat.org@ucsd.edu to force the message to pass through the UCSD mail host on its way to AMSAT.ORG. If your local system can't find ucsd.edu, you're in trouble! 4. I have an important announcement I'd like to make. Can I send it to the ANS mailing list? Not unless you're an official ANS station. You may send it to AMSAT-BB, and/or submit it to the ANS editor (ans-editor@amsat.org) for possible inclusion in the next issue of ANS. And no, the computer doesn't enforce this rule. You're on your honor. 5. What are my options for getting Internet service? If you don't already have access to the Internet at work, your best bet is probably to sign up with an Internet Service Provider or ISP. An ISP provides a dial-up (modem) connection to the Internet for a fee. The fee may be a monthly flat fee, or it may be based on a number of hours of usage, or some combination of the two. Most of these companies are small local firms, but there are a few that provide service over a wide area. The local firms can be found in the yellow pages of your phone directory. Most of the big online services like CompuServe and America On-line now offer Internet connections too. If you can't afford to sign up with an ISP, you can sign up with a free email service. These services are supported by advertising, which is displayed on your screen while you read email. To make sure you see the advertising, they require you to run their special software to access the system. If you don't mind that, and if the service has a local phone number in your area, you can enjoy email at no cost. One such service is: Juno 120 W. 45th Street New York, NY 10036 6. There's too much XYZ being posted to mailing list ABC! It's not possible for the mailing lists to contain exactly what you find interesting. If we are to share information freely, all subscribers must be prepared to cope with a certain amount of traffic they find boring or useless. Sometimes it becomes a clear problem, with one subject generating so much traffic that it becomes a burden on a more general mailing list. In those cases, a new mailing list can be created to make it possible for only those who are interested to receive the information. However, there is a practical limit. 7. I posted a message to mailing list ABC, and I got a bunch of bounce messages back. Most automatically-generated problem report ("bounce") messages should be automatically routed to the list administrator. These messages usually signal a transient problem somewhere in the network. Often, the problem is at the receiving end. If a particular subscriber generates repeated bounce messages, that subscriber will be removed from the mailing lists. If by some mischance a bounce messages comes back to you, the poster of a message to one of the mailing lists, please forward the bounce message (or a sample if many arrive) to listserv@amsat.org. Please forward the entire message including headers as received. If the echoed text is large, you may edit it down, but preserve all headers and bounce message text. 8. How do I get a password for AMSAT.ORG? You don't. There are no user accounts on AMSAT.ORG. When you get an alias on AMSAT.ORG, that only allows others to send mail to you as yourcall@amsat.org. It doesn't mean you have an account on AMSAT.ORG. You log on to your local email system the same way you always have, and find your email in your existing mailbox. 9. How do I log in to AMSAT.ORG? You don't. There are no interactive services on AMSAT.ORG. 10. Now that I have my mail alias w1aw@amsat.org, how should I set up my email program? You should leave your email program's configuration the way it is. There is no need to change any set up. If your email program has a way to automatically add a "signature" at the bottom of each message you send, you might want to set up your signature to give your mail alias address instead of, or in addition to, your real address. You might wish to set up your mail program so that your mail appears to come "From: w1aw@amsat.org" instead of your real email address. You may do so, but I don't recommend it. If anything goes wrong with your mail alias, people who need to reply to your email will not be able to reach you. This is especially bad if you subscribe to mailing lists (not on AMSAT.ORG) using your mail alias - when something goes wrong with the mailing list, the mailing list supervisor will not be able to determine what happened. You might be tempted to set up your mail program to send mail through AMSAT.ORG (that is, use AMSAT.ORG as your SMTP host). Please don't do that. Your Internet provider should make a local SMTP host available to you, and you should use it. 11. Is there anonymous FTP on AMSAT.ORG? Anonymous FTP service is provided on FTP.AMSAT.ORG. At the moment, this happens to be the same machine as AMSAT.ORG, but please get in the habit of using FTP.AMSAT.ORG for FTP. 12. Do I have to be a member of AMSAT to take advantage of the services of AMSAT.ORG? No, the services are available to anyone. Of course, you're encouraged to join your national AMSAT organization. 13. Is there any charge for AMSAT.ORG services? No, these are free services for the amateur satellite community. Donations are cheerfully accepted, however. Send them to AMSAT-NA headquarters (see next item). 14. Please send me info on AMSAT. Please change my mailing address or phone number on AMSAT's records. Please send me X. The AMSAT office is separate from mailing list maintenance. You may address requests like these to martha@amsat.org, or send them by mail, phone, or fax to AMSAT headquarters: AMSAT-NA 850 Sligo Avenue Silver Spring, MD 20910 USA voice: +1 (301) 589-6062 fax: +1 (301) 608-3410 15. How do I join AMSAT? Membership is $30/yr in the US, $36/yr in Canada, $45/yr elsewhere. Life membership is available for $600. Send your name, address, callsign if any, and daytime (Eastern Standard Time) phone number to the address or phone number above. The AMSAT-NA office is set up to accept Visa and Mastercard. 16. How do I join AMSAT on-line? At this time, we don't have any secure way to accept payment from you over the Internet. We don't want to encourage you to send your credit card numbers unprotected over the net, so for the time being there is no facility for joining AMSAT on the Web. If you feel that the Internet is safe enough for your credit card numbers, you may email your application to martha@amsat.org. 17. How can I donate to AMSAT-NA or the Phase 3D fund? Thanks for asking! Please send any donations to the AMSAT HQ, address above. 18. I only have email access to the Internet. How can I get access to the files on FTP.AMSAT.ORG? There is now an FTPmail service available for this purpose. To get the help file on how to use it, send a message containing just help quit to the address ftpmail@amsat.org. 19. Where can I learn more about AMSAT or amateur satellites? Check http://www.amsat.org on the Web.