SB NEWS @ AMSAT $SPC0907 * SpaceNews 07-Sep-98 * BID: $SPC0907 ========= SpaceNews ========= MONDAY SEPTEMBER 7, 1998 SpaceNews originates at KD2BD in Wall Township, New Jersey, USA. It is published every week and is made available for non-commercial use. * AMSAT-BDA WEB SITE MOVE * =========================== The Station Program setup and patch files have been moved and are now located on the AMSAT-NA web site: http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ftpsoft.html#win-tsp Thanks to Paul, KB5MU for finding AMSAT-BDA and Station a new home. [Info via Paul Willmott, VP9MU, AMSAT-BDA] * TMSAT NEWS * ============== Chris Jackson reports that TMSAT is still undergoing testing by controllers. Most of the systems have been tested and are operational. The downlink was still only on over Europe and Bangkok last week. The imaging system has been utilized quite considerably to calibrate the cameras. Controllers downloaded the first multispectral image of San Francisco Bay area last Tuesday, and it was really quite impressive. Images received from TMSAT wil be posted to the Web when controllers have finished analyzing the results of the camera offset calibration. * RS-12 NEWS * ============== Rusty, NM1K, reports that Jody, VP5JM, is scheduling RS-12 contacts. Rusty contacted Jody via RS-12 in the latter part of August. Rusty also reports that he, in fact, did work TF3TK in Iceland on RS-12. * RS-15 NEWS * ============== John Heath, G7HIA, in central England reports recently trying RS-15 on a near overhead pass on 1998-Sep-05 at 2100 UTC. John heard no beacon, but his return signal was very strong and suffered little from QSB between an elevation of about 30 degrees up to TCA. Just after TCA as the bird was going away, his signal went right down to about S3, and then quickly disappeared into the noise. Calling CQ with a downlink frequency of 29.377 MHz yielded no takers. John is running about 20 watts to a 5 element RHCP yagi to access RS-15. * FO-20 NEWS * ============== Peter, NH6VB in Hawaii reports that several Hawaiian stations are making extraordinary efforts to give mainland stations a chance to work KH6. At 18:40 UTC on 1998-Sep-06, AH6HH, WB6FZH/KH6, and NH6VB were all active on FO-20. Peter reports that besides the usual stations working KH6 daily, no one else was around from the West Coast or Alaska. KH6 is now very well represented on all analog satellites. All you have to do is listen and talk to the stations currently active * MICROSCOPIC VACUUM TUBE DEVELOPED * ===================================== Ian Gill, ZL3TGK reported in a recent QNEWS report that a microscopic electron tube has successfully been constructed by a researcher in the Netherlands. The triode measures less than 5 micrometers across and is etched in silicon using the same process used to produce integrated circuits. The tube uses a pin-point field emitter rather than a filament heater to generate its electron flow. * 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 over 10 years -=>> /EX