SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-188.01 UNAMSAT-B LAUNCH INFORMATION HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 188.01 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD, JULY 06, 1996 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT BID: $ANS-188.01 The following was received from David Liberman XE1TU "The launching team is leaving for Moscow at the end of July. We will perform a set of tests including vibration and thermovac in a company called Lavochkin. Then we move to Plesetsk 10 days ahead of the start of the launch window (20 of August) and we integrate to the rocket and wait for the launch. The rocket this time is no military conversion or experimental. It is a Cosmos rocket produced by PILOT in the city of OMSK and has been launched 594 times with incredible good statistics. As a few interesting facts the primary load weights 380 Kg and UNAMSAT-B 10.7 Kg only. The rocket weight at the moment of launch will weight 109 TONS. The initial orbit data are 1000 Km of altitude and 83 degree inclination in a very circular orbit. We are flying attached to the main payload and we will have to wait for our separation till after they stabilize ( 4 to 8 hours ). Then they will command our separation. UNAMSAT-B will start sending telemetry just a few minutes after we separate. I want to thank all the messages send to me and my group wishing us a good launch. I hope everybody will enjoy working our sat and getting the meteor data. We will make available through AMSAT-NA some additional software to further analyze the meteor information. I have played with this info and I can assure you that it is fun. Just to measure the velocity of some meteors as they are burning in the atmosphere and trying to build a statistics of how fast they are reaching the Earth is fantastic. I hope to be able to give you good news after the launch. [ANS thanks David XE1TU of UNAMSAT for this exciting information.] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-188.02 MORE UNAMSAT NEWS HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 188.02 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD, JULY 06, 1996 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT BID: $ANS-188.02 The following was provided by Tom Clark W3IWI: Those who follow amateur satellites will recall that UNAMSAT-1 was destroyed when the 5-stage Russian "START" launcher blew up about the time of 4th stage ignition. The START launcher is a converted SS-25 ICBM. UNAMSAT-2 is a clone of UNAMSAT-1 and was built at the Autonomous Univ. of Mexico (UNAM) by students and staff at PUIDE (meaning University Program for Space Research). The basic spacecraft is a clone of the AMSAT MICROSATs (like AO-16, LUSAT, DOVE, WeberSat, EyeSat and ITAMSAT) with 5 module trays mounted in a 25 cm cube. The principal research experiment for UNAMSAT is a 41 MHz long-pulse meteor radar transmitter and DSP receiver mounted in the "TSFR" ("This Space For Rent!") module. The other 4 modules include 70 cm PSK downlink transmitters, 2M uplink receivers, V40 computer and the power module. UNAMSAT-2 has been operating "on the air" in Mexico City for several months, with the radar connected to a rooftop antenna. Meteors and aircraft are observed routinely. The final hardware for UNAMSAT-2 to be delivered are the Solar Panels being fabricated in Italy which are due in Mexico next week. The report is that the panels are Very! Good! with 19+% measured efficiency. Congratulations are in order for David (XE1TU) and the students and staff at UNAM for this good news. They have had a difficult time recovering from the "still birth" of UNAMSAT-1 but that have shown a lot of perseverance in keeping their program together. Personally, I am very proud to have had a small role in making the UNAMSAT program happen. It has been a source of pleasure to see the UNAM/PUIDE effort build from zero. [ANS thanks W3IWI for this information.] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-188.02 MONITORING AO-13 LAST WORDS HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 188.02 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD, JULY 06, 1996 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT BID: $ANS-188.02 Peter Guelzow DB2OS proposes an alternative to recent suggestion that a contest be staged to bid farewell to AMSAT-OSCAR 13. Peter suggests a different kind of contest, like encouraging people to listen to the PSK Telemetry beacon. Those who definitely recorded the last telemetry frames before the beacon goes quiet could be listed in the publications put out by the various AMSAT organizations or maybe even receive "a (very) small price". He believes that this may help to get people interested in listening and decoding the PSK telemetry for P3D, and might allow us to get a good coverage of the last telemetry before AO-13 ceases operation - especially if this happens over regions were the command stations do not have good visibility. Peter admits that he is not sure if such telemetry will be useful, but concludes that the exercise would be interesting nevertheless. [ANS thanks Peter Guelzow, DB2OS, for the inspiration for this bulletin and for this very interesting idea.] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-188.03 UNAMSAT-B LIST OF FREQUENCIES HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 188.03 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD, JULY 06, 1996 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT BID: $ANS-188.03 Downlinks: UHF TX1 437.206 MHz UHF TX2 437.138 MHz ( secondary ). Uplinks: VHF CHA 145.815 MHz VHF CHB 145.835 MHz VHF CHC 145.855 MHz VHF CHD 145.875 MHz The modulations are the same as in the previous microsats. On board we have also a 40.997 MHz pulse transmitter and a wide band receiver centered on the same freq. that will be looking for echoes produced on the ionized trails of meteors as they enter the atmosphere. You could use this signal to get echoes from meteors in your area when UNAMSAT-B is passing below your horizon. Polarizations are exactly the same as in PACSAT and all the equipment you have to work the existing microsats will work with UNAMSAT-B. [ANS thanks David, XE1TU UNAMSAT. For this update.] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-188.04 SURREY COLLOQUIUM DETAILS HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 188.04 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD, JULY 06, 1996 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT BID: $ANS-188.04 The 11th AMSAT-UK Colloquium will be held at Surrey University, Guildford, Surrey, U.K., from Thursday 25th to Sunday 28th July 1996. The Thursday will be devoted to international/IARU matters and other subjects will be structured across the following three days. There will also be the usual social events including: Command Station visits, the Annual Dinner and Auction, AMSAT-UK annual meeting, and other light-hearted fun. The full program is contained in a separate message appearing on AMSAT-BB. Colloquium application forms have been sent automatically to anyone who attended last year or in 1994. They were also included with the recent mailing of AMSAT-UK's bi-monthly publication "Oscar News". Anyone else who would like a form should contact the AMSAT-UK office at 94 Herongate Road, London, E125EQ, United Kingdom. Phone +44 181 989 6741; fax +44 181 989 3430. Travel and pricing information is included with this form. Price has been kept the same as last year but prices vary depending on which type of accommodation is booked Applications received later than 15 July will attract a surcharge. Send forms to the AMSAT-UK Office NOT to the University of Surrey. As usual, attendees will receive a free copy of the Colloquium Proceedings document which has now gone to the printers. In conjunction with this year's AMSAT-UK annual meeting (we call it the AGM, Annual General Meeting) Professor Martin Sweeting, G3YJO, Honorary (it means he doesn't get paid) Chairman of AMSAT-UK is pleased to announce the establishment of the G3AAJ AMSAT-UK Trophy to be awarded annually for "Outstanding Service to the Amateur Satellite Service". This Trophy has been kindly endowed by Ron Broadbent, G3AAJ. Nominations for the G3AAJ Trophy may reflect an individual and major technical contribution to amateur satellites or dedicated personal service to the AMSAT community. Nominations should be sent, in writing, to the chairman (currently G3YJO) by 1st July 1996 and annually by that same date thereafter. The recipient of the award from the nominees shall be selected by the Committee of AMSAT-UK. The recipient will have his/her name engraved on the Trophy accompanied with a citation. A replica of the Trophy will be presented at the AMSAT-UK Annual General Meeting. [ANS thanks Richard W L Limebear G3RWL for this information. Richard can be reached via E-Mail at g3rwl@amsat.org] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-188.05 SHUTTLE PACKET CONTACTS, EXPLAINED HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 188.05 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD, JULY 06, 1996 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT BID: $ANS-188.05 In answer to a question on AMSAT-BB about the difference between the QSL packet and the QRZ packet, Roger Snyder, KC4NHB, quotes the following from Gil Carman, WA5NOM of the Johnson Space Center Radio Club: "SAREX Packet Robot Operation Since it has been a few years since AMSAT has published Tom Clark's article with details of the SAREX packet tnc firmware operation, and there still seems to be some confusion and misconceptions, perhaps a re- iteration is in order. First of all, the SAREX working group has made the decision that a ground station's confirmed reception of a downlink QSO# frame addressed to them is sufficient for a 2-way QSL card. However, a complete SAREX packet robot worked contact consists of the following events in the sequence listed: 1. Ground station transmits a connect request (i.e. C W5RRR-1). 2. Onboard SAREX robot station receives the connect request, transmits an acknowledgment ( frame), and adds the callsign, date, and time to the heard list if it is not a duplicate within the current heard buffer of the last 35 calls. If the callsign is a duplicate, the corresponding date and time of that entry in the heard list is updated. 3. Ground station receives the ack and sees a *** CONNECTED message. 4. Onboard station transmits the QSO# frame. 5. Ground station receives the QSO# frame and transmits an acknowledgment frame. 6. Onboard station receives the ack of the QSO# frame and adds the callsign to the worked list if it is not a duplicate within the current buffer of the last 625 worked calls. 7. Onboard station transmits a disconnect frame. 8. Ground station receives and acknowledges the disconnect frame and displays *** DISCONNECTED. Every two minutes, the normal robot beacon is transmitted, which consists of the following three frames: 1. QRZ: The current buffer of the last 35 calls on the heard list. 2. QSL: The last 15 calls on the worked list, with their QSO numbers. 3. SAREX: Standard I.D. message. Every connect request heard is acknowledged and assigned a new sequential QSO#, whether or not it is from a station previously recorded. However, as mentioned in step 6 above, only the first QSO# acknowledged is recorded. In a majority of cases, this sequence proceeds through step 5, when the ground station sees a QSO# frame, but goes no farther because of weak signals, or qrm from other ground stations on the uplink. The onboard retry parameter is set to 3, so steps 4 and 5 are allowed to repeat only 3 times before retrying out if no ack is heard from the ground station, and that QSO# is not recorded in the worked list. If an incomplete or reject frame is heard onboard from the ground station, a "free" re-transmission of the QSO# frame is made which does not count against the 3 allowable retries (standard AX.25 protocol). On STS-59, there were 5030 connect requests acknowledged and QSO numbers transmitted, but only 567 of those completed the contact sequence through step 6 to make the worked list. The only ways ground stations have of knowing for sure that they have been added to the worked list are: 1. Receiving an automatic disconnect (step 8). 2. Receiving a QSL beacon containing their callsign. If neither of the two above events is observed, steps 6 and 7 MAY still have occurred, but the ground station will not know whether they have or not. However, as mentioned earlier, submission of your received QSO# frame(s) in this instance is sufficient confirmation for a QSL card. Also, in some cases, a station may notice that their QSO# in the QSL beacon will be higher than what they saw sent to them. This can be due to several things, including: 1. An incomplete sequence (through step 5) which was aborted and restarted. 2. Monitoring downlink packets while the connect attempt is in progress. This allows you to see packets sent to other stations while you are trying to connect; however, you may also see a QSO# frame that was transmitted to you before your tnc heard the ack to it's connect request (step 4 occurring before step 3). Since your tnc is not yet in connected mode, it will continue to transmit connect requests. If the QSO# frame has not been acknowledged after 3 retries, that QSO# is abandoned. However, most ground stations use a retry limit of 10 or more, so their connect attempt will continue. When step 3 finally does occur, it will be assigned the next QSO# in sequence. I have personally observed local stations continuing to transmit connect requests while the robot is sending them QSO# frames. It is highly recommended that you set your tnc to display all frames received, in both connected and disconnected modes, and use a frame ack time of at least 4 seconds (i.e. for an AEA tnc, MONITOR 6, MCON 6, FRACK 4). The FRACK 4 or larger is important because the SAREX robot operates in full duplex mode (FULLDUP ON), with a 3 second response delay. The 3 second delay starts when a frame is received, and it will transmit a reply 3 seconds later, ignoring the DCD (frequency busy) signal. If you are the first frame received in the 3 second response interval, and you are using FRACK 3 (typical of most terrestrial operation), the onboard station will "double" with you at the same time you are transmitting, because it does not wait for a clear frequency, and you will not hear the downlink. This "SAREX unique" full duplex mode is necessary because of the heavy uplink traffic of connect requests. In a majority of cases, it would never transmit at all during an entire U.S. pass if it was operating with the DCD holdoff active." [ANS thanks Roger Snyder, KC4NHB, for refreshing our memories by passing along Gils clear explanation. Roger can be reached via Internet at kc4nhb@iu.net or AX.25 packet at KC4NHB@N4XEO.#FTP.FL.USA.NOAM or vis the KO-23 or KO-25 satellites.] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-188.06 PBS SERIES TO INCLUDE AMATEUR SATELLITE SEGMENT HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 188.06 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD, JULY 06, 1996 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT BID: $ANS-188.06 The three-part PBS series "Signal to Noise" is scheduled to air beginning the week of July 8, 1996. The series is a history of "...the medium formerly known as television." In the third segment, there is a demonstration of amateur satellite communications on AO-10 and a telemetry capture from AO-13 by John Gordon KD2JF and Ken Ernandes N2WWD. The third segment containing the OSCAR demonstration is scheduled to air in the last week of July. Those interested should check the listings for their local PBS station. The amateur satellite demonstration was filmed on Sunday, March 19, 1995 at the residence of KD2JF in Huntington, Long Island. The production crew was quite impressed with the demonstration, and twice at their expense had an AMSAT Phase 3D model shipped to their studio in New York City for use as a prop for the Signal to Noise series. [ANS thanks Ken Ernandes N2WWD for this bulletin.] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-188.07 JAS-2 HOME PAGE ESTABLISHED HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 188.07 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD, JULY 06, 1996 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT BID: $ANS-188.07 A World Wide Web Home Page has been established by JARL to provide information on JAS-2, due to be launched in August. The URL is: http//www.jarl.or.jp/jarl/jas-2/ This information comes from Bruce Paige, KK5DO, who received it form Masa, JN1GKZ. [ANS thanks Bruce Paige, KK5DO, for this information. Bruce can be reached at ] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-188.08 WEEKLY SATELLITE REPORT HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 188.08 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD, JULY 06, 1996 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT BID: $ANS-188.08 MIR Mir's packet station has been confirmed as being inoperative by Shannon Lucid via voice on orbit 59150 at 1840z. RS-12: Operating normally. RS-10: Operating normally. AO-27: Operating normally. AO-10: Operating normally. OSCAR-11 Is now transmitting. Telemetry nominal. WOD dated 26 June chans 1,2,3,61 magnetometers. New bulletin (No 71) dated 22nd June, about Ariane 5, and IO-26. AO-13: Operating normally. *** AO-13 TRANSPONDER SCHEDULE *** 1996 Jun27 - Sep 02 Mode-B : MA 0 to MA 140 | Mode-BS : MA 140 to MA 240 | Mode-B : MA 240 to MA 256 | Alon/Alat "220/0" Omnis : MA 250 to MA 140 | Move to attitude 180/0, Sep 02-??? Please note that the higher powered engineering beacon 145.985 MHz is currently ON for two periods: MA 0-40 and MA 160-170. Eventually, this will be turned on full time for the duration of AO-13's functional existence. The drag effects at perigee are causing the ALAT to rise slightly each orbit. The initial orientation for this period will more accurately be ALON/ALAT 220/-10 with ALAT progressively rising during this time period. At the end of this two month session, perigee height will be 170 km and re-entry (drag) effects will be even more noticeable. For a limited time after Sep 02, it MAY BE POSSIBLE to move AO-13 back to the 180/0 orientation. However, maintaining this orientation will become increasingly difficult. If this move takes place, the following schedule will be placed in effect. By October but perhaps earlier, it will become necessary to move AO-13 to ALON/ALAT 90/0 to provide limited protection of the omni antenna from perigee heating and to reduce the drag associated deflection of the ALAT. >From this point until the demise of the electronics AO-13 will be Mode-B only, full-time omni antenna, much as with AO-10. The next few months will be an interesting time, and the command team welcomes suggestions to make use of this unique opportunity to observe an amateur spacecraft as it approaches re-entry. Full details of re-entry, around 1996 Dec 05-19, can be found in: Up-to-date information about AO-13 operations is available on the AO-13 general (GB) and engineering (EB) beacons. The GB (145.812 MHz), when active, transmits bulletins and telemetry at 400 bps PSK, alternating with CW at 0 & 30 minutes past the hour, and RTTY at 15 & 45 minutes past the hour. The EB (145.985 MHz), when active, transmits exclusively at 400 bps PSK. The current EB schedule is listed above. It may also be intermittently activated by command stations at other times to facilitate command functions. Eventually, the EB will be activated full time for the remainder of AO-13's functional life. These bulletins are also posted to Internet, ANS, Packet, PacSats etc., and many international newsletters. Internet users wanting the latest AO-13 information should always check: ftp://ftp.amsat.org/amsat/satinfo/ao13/ http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ Telemetry is archived at: ftp://ftp.amsat.org/amsat/satinfo/ao13/telemetry/ The active command stations are listed below, and constructive feedback about operations is always welcome. Peter DB2OS Graham VK5AGR Ian ZL1AOX James G3RUH Stacey WB4QKT They may be reached via Internet (callsign@amsat.org) and KO-23. Please remember to state a return address clearly. WeberSat-OSCAR-18: (WO-18) has experienced many software crashes recently. Efforts are underway by the command team to identify the cause, and make the appropriate corrections. Controllers all hope that WO-18 will be operational again very soon sending telemetry, photos, weekly whole orbit data (WOD), and light spectra of the Sun or Earth. ITAMSAT-OSCAR-26 returned to the air on 01-Jun-96. The satellite was copied on Friday 07-Jun-96 at KD2BD in New Jersey transmitting telemetry, WOD, LSTAT, BCRXMT, TIME, and STATUS frames. In addition, the satellite was sending the following text message: IY2SAT-1>AMSAT : ** 5th June 1996 ** IHT 3.1 is running. Digipeater is ON. WOD is underway. 73 de ITAMSAT Command team. The satellite was using its 435.820 MHz downlink transmitter, and digipeating was possible via ITMSAT-1 using any one of its four uplink frequencies (145.875 MHz, 145.900 MHz, 145.925 MHz, or 145.950 MHz). [Please send your Satellite reports to bjarts@uslink.net or to wt0n@amsat.org] /EX