SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-152.01
Jerry Schmitt KK5YY - SK

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 152.01 From AMSAT HQ
SILVER SPRING, MD.  June 1, 2003
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-152.01

Jerry's wife, Barbara KD5CGU, contacted me via email and informed me
that he
has become a Silent Key.  Jerry KK5YY (ex KC5EGG) passed away on Friday
May
23 due to a sudden heart attack.  As many of you know, Jerry was a very
influential and valuable asset to all of Ham Radio.  He was a known icon
in
the Amateur satellite and APRS communities, a net control operator for
the
New Mexico Swapnet, an efficient communicator during the Cerro Grande
fires,
the designer and main promoter of the Arrow Antenna used for satellite
work,
and a developer to improve the operation of many popular radios, such as
the
Icom IC-706MkIIG, Yaesu FT-100, Kenwood D7A --- with those companies'
support after noting what he was capable of making them do. Jerry
organized
the International Space Station QSO that took place in 2001 at the
Museum on
Natural History for a bunch of school children, too.  Above all, Jerry
was a
great friend, and elmer (especially to me since I was 12) and a fun
person
to chat with on the radio and in person.

Jerry was on the verge of retirement from Los Alamos National
Laboratories
and planning to move with Barbara to Alaska, a place he has always
loved.
Ham Radio has lost a mighty fine person, and he has left some mighty big
shoes
to be filled.  

Please pass this sad word on to all the Hams you know.

73, KK5YY.

[ANS thanks Brian, N5ZGT, for the above information.]

/EX

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-152.02
Another Launch Opportunity...

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 152.02 From AMSAT HQ
SILVER SPRING, MD.  June 1, 2003
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-152.02

Roger, WA1KAT asks:
Does anyone have an  "off-the-shelf" unit that's ready for
"qualification"? 
This might be an opportunity to fly it...

This is based on a report from [amsat-India] (Ed.):
Following is the status of various transponders considered for vusat: 

1.Dutch transponder by William, PE1RAH
    Flight model delivered to ISRO.
    Will have to be qualified for various environmental tests.
    Will fly, if qualified and accepted by ISRO 2. 

2.Indian Transponder by Amsat-India
    Demonstration model fabricated. 
    On-the-air tests reported.
    Flight model fabrication yet to start. 

3. Italian Transponder by Amsat-Italy
    Difficulty in delivering the flight model.
    May not fly.

[ANS thanks Roger, WA1KAT, for the above information.]

/EX

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-152.03
Klem South School ARISS contact

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 152.03 From AMSAT HQ
SILVER SPRING, MD.  June 1, 2003
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-152.03

Klem South School in Webster, New York had a very successful contact
with 
Ed Lu on board the ISS. The contact was handled by Nancy Rocheleau WH6PN
via 
the ARISS telebridge system. Nancy was up at 3:00 am her time in
Honolulu to 
be the ground station.  The contact time was May 27, 2003, at 13:01 UTC.

Ed (an alum of the school) was able to answer questions from 13 of the
planned 
16 students.  

When Bobby Semmler (grade 5) asked what zero gravity felt like, Ed
likened it 
to going over the top on a roller coaster.  Terese Caiazza (grade 2)
wondered 
if he had any pets on board but Ed said unfortunately no. John Wiseman 
(grade 4) inquired about meals on board, Ed said much of it was a
Russian 
(which he liked) and that he got to bring some of his own favorites
(including 
Oriental).

Congratulations to Ed on his first ARISS contact and Klem South!

[ANS thanks Charlie Sufana AJ9N, for the above information.]

/EX

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-152.04
PCSAT2 (prototype) on AIR

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 152.04 From AMSAT HQ
SILVER SPRING, MD.  June 1, 2003
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-152.04

PCSAT2 prototype is on the air in Annapolis, Maryland (USA) and may be
workable out to about 10 miles.  We invite anyone in range to
please experiment with its three transponders:

 * APRS/UI digipeater  (145.825 up and down)
 * PSK-31 transponder  (10m ssb up 435.250 down) (see note below)
 * FM Voice repeater.  (145.800 up 437.975 down)

See:     http://web.usna.navy.mil/~bruninga/pcsat2.html

We need your help to test it thoroughly so we can fix any bugs now
instead
of living with them later.  Like PCsat, PCSAT2 has no control system
other
that the basic KPC-9612+ TNC.  Thus we used the CONNECT LED as the
simple means for USER control of the transponders.  This way, anyone can
turn on a transponder and the connection-time-out process gives us an
automatic time out 8 minues later to save power when it is not in use.

NOTES ABOUT THIS TEST:

1) To provide some signals for the PSK-31, the HF uplink is not on 10m
  but is being fed by an external 20m receiver listening to 14.070.
  We do not expect you to try to transmit, but just have something to
  RX..

2) TELEMETRY is running at 4 times the rate we will use on flight.

3) To give you something to do, we activated the PBBS.  Its call is
  PC2BBS.  This is NOT normally going to be used on PCSAT2.  But
  is an easy way to test the packet system.

4) Next week, I will release a telemetry decoding and display program.

Again, see the web page above for details

de WB4APR, Bob

[ANS thanks Bob, WB4APR, for the above information.]

/EX

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-152.05
PCsat Triple hop!

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 152.05 From AMSAT HQ
SILVER SPRING, MD.  June 1, 2003
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-152.05

During today's PCsat pass over the east coast, we saw N4ZQ relay a
packet
via PCsat, then PCSAT2 (on our workbench) and then back to PCsat.  The
PCSAT2 was connected through 180' of coax to a WHIP antenna on the roof!
THe range between satellites was about 1000 km.

PCSAT2 is on the workbench connected to an outside antenna to burn it
in.
We are waiting to see when it's 96 hour fail-safe timer times out.  I
had
forgotten about the possibility of a dual hop test and in fact was just
about to go disconnect PCSAT2, because its packets were interfering with
my demo of PCsat I was showing to a new faculty member.

Anyway, too bad PCsat will probably not be around when PCSAT2 finally
gets
to orbit at the end of this year.  THis ability to do multiple satellite
hops via multiple APRS satellites has long been a dream of the APRS
comnmunity.  We had previously demonstrated this capability between
PCsat
and ISS several months ago, but only for a week, because it required ISS
to QSY to the PCSAT frequency.

But if every satellite that does UI digipeating operated on 145.825,
then
we would have a mutually supporting constellation of satellites...

[ANS thanks Bob, WB4APR, for the above information.]

/EX

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-152.06
VK6 - QRN

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 152.06 From AMSAT HQ
SILVER SPRING, MD.  June 1, 2003
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-152.06

You may not hear many VK6 hams on AO40 for a while. Many of us are 
suffering from interference from some form of wide band data 
transmission centred on 2.4GHz.  The signal covers much of the Perth 
metro area and is very strong. So strong in fact that it does not matter

where you beam you can still hear it - mainly from reflections I expect.

The signal, which runs continuously,  sounds like a 100Hz buzzing sound 
and has a bandwidth of about 4MHz.  Looking at the signal on a spectrum 
analyser it has a flat top and very steep sides.  The signal started 
about 6 weeks ago and one suggestion is that it might be an image 
response of our S band down converters to the 2.1GHz G3 mobile phone 
service that have just started tests.

I'm organising a DF party this weekend where many of the VK6 AO40 
operators will try and take a bearing so we can attempt to locate the 
source.  I'll let you know what we find, in the mean time if anyone has
any idea what this signal may be please email me. (pharman@ddd.com, Ed.)

[ANS thanks Phil, VK6APH, for the above information.]

/EX