SB NEWS @ AMSAT $SPC0209 * SpaceNews 09-Feb-98 * BID: $SPC0209 ========= SpaceNews ========= MONDAY FEBRUARY 9, 1998 SpaceNews originates at KD2BD in Wall Township, New Jersey, USA. It is published every week and is made available for non-commercial use. * BELIZE OPERATION IN MARCH * ============================= Frank Edwards, VE3ER, reports that he will be active on RS-12 from Cayei Caulker, Belize, from 03-Mar-98 to 16-Mar-98. His callsign will be V31FE, and he will be operating CW around 29.415 MHz and SSB around 29.440 MHz. * MIR AMATEUR RADIO STATUS * ============================ Mir Amateur Radio Status Feb 5, 1998 The cutoff date for submitting Sputnik-40 reception reports is 28-Feb-98. Please send reports to: Sergej Samburov PO Box 73 Korolev-10 City Moscow Area, 141070, Russia The FR5KJ Radio Club is also providing a Sputnik-40 diploma in return for reception reports. Their address is: FR5KJ Radio Club College Jules Reydellet 103 rue de la Republique 97 489 Saint Denis Cedex Reunion Island. The current Mir crew consists of Commander Anatoly Solovyev, Flight Engineer Pavel Vinogradov, Talgat Musabayev RO3FT, Nikolai Budarin, RV3DB and R4MIR, American Andy Thomas, KD5CHF, and Frenchman Leopold Eyharts, who is aboard Mir for a 3 week stay. The next shuttle docking mission is currently scheduled for 28-May-98. The Mir packet radio PMS and the SAFEX II repeater are both currently turned off for the time being. The Mir crew has just been too busy with other higher priority projects to spend much time adjusting parameters on the TNC. The Mir crew has information required to reconfigure the new TNC, and we are just waiting for the crew to find an open slot in their schedule to load in the correct parameters. While the Amateur Radio Station on Mir has been turned off, the crew may still turn it back on to make random contacts with groundstations. MIREX was informed by MAREX that the Mir crew is expected to be very busy until after crew 24 returns to earth. MIREX would like the stations monitoring the PMS to please be patient while proper adjustments are made to the packet radio terminal node controller. MIREX has created an Internet Web page containing information regarding Mir and the various Amateur Radio experiments proposed for the space station. The pages are still "under construction", but some good information can be gathered from what has been put together so far. URLs include the following: http://www.ik1sld.org/mirex.htm OR http://www.ik1sld.org/mirex http://www.geocities.com/~ik1sld/mirex.htm OR http://www.geocities.com/~ik1sld/mirex Some people have had problems using the some of the URL aliases, if so, try the long version of the home page address: http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/3431/mirex.htm [Info via Miles, WF1F, MIREX Director of Educational Resources] * VK0MAP ACTIVE FROM ANTARCTICA * ================================= Andre Phillips, VK0MAP/VK5AAP/ZL3AW has been active on KITSAT-OSCAR-25 from Antarctica. Andre is using a Kenwood TS-790A along with a PacComm Tiny 2 terminal node controller and a pair of Lindenblad antennas constructed from number 8 fencing wire. He reports at least 5 minutes of solid connect time per pass on KO-25, and mentions that UO-22, KO-25 and POSAT all rise to an elevation of 34 degress, and KO-23 gets as high as 12 degrees at his location. * FEEDBACK/INPUT WELCOMED * =========================== Comments and input for SpaceNews should be directed to the editor (John, KD2BD) via any of the paths listed below: WWW : http://www.njin.net/~magliaco/ PACKET : KD2BD @ KS4HR.NJ.USA.NA INTERNET : kd2bd@amsat.org, magliaco@email.njin.net SATELLITE : AMSAT-OSCAR-16, LUSAT-OSCAR-19, KITSAT-OSCAR-25 <<=- SpaceNews: The first amateur newsletter read in space! -=>> <<=- Serving the planet for 10 years -=>> /EX