SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-327.01 AO-40 Status Update AMSAT News Service Bulletin 327.01 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. November 23, 2003 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-327.01 As of 18 Nov 2003 AO-40 has almost reached ALON=45 deg. Shortly the Command Team will begin to raise ALAT to just above 20 degs. This will take approximately a week to 10 days. When they are confident that ALAT exceeds 20 degs, the passbands will be shut off. During this time only the beacon will be on and AO-40 will begin drifting toward ALON ~315 degs. The drift process with the passbands off will take approximately 4 weeks. The length of time that it will take to drift with the passbands off will be little more specific after the final spin rate is known. M QST AMSAT OSCAR-40 2003 Nov 18 ALON ~ 40, ALAT rising to 20 degs. When ALAT >= 20 degs [~7 days], passbands will be shut off for ~ 4 weeks. The AO-40 team would like your telemetry files! Please "zip" compress your daily telemetry files and e-mail to: ao40-archive@amsat.org This is a good opportunity to sincerely thank everyone who does uplink to the Goddard server. This is MUCH appreciated by the AO-40 command team. Thank you! [ANS thanks Stacey, W4SM, for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-327.02 AO-40 Birthday Bash log reminder AMSAT News Service Bulletin 327.02 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. November 23, 2003 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-327.02 The AO-40 Birthday Bash has ended (November 17, 2003 0000z) for this year. Those of you that participated, I hope you had fun. Those that did not participate, there is always next year. If you would like to submit your log, you may do so via email to kk5do@amsat.org Complete rules are available at http://www.amsat.org or http://www.amsatnet.com [ANS thanks Bruce, KK5DO, for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-327.03 ARISS Status 18 November 2003 AMSAT News Service Bulletin 327.03 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. November 23, 2003 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-327.03 * Upcoming Schools An ARISS contact has been scheduled with Renmark Primary School in Renmark, South Australia. The contact will take place on Tuesday, November 25. * TIM in Moscow A contingent of U.S. ARISS team members recently attended the Technical Interchange Meeting which was held in Moscow (November 10 -20). Equipment is being tested at the KIS facility at Energia. * U.S. Astronaut to get Ham Radio License ARISS team members are working with astronaut Mike Fincke (Lieutenant Colonel, USAF), who is scheduled to be a crew member of Expedition 11, to enable him to get his Ham radio license. Nick Lance at NASA JSC will provide the training. * ARISS International Team Teleconference The ARISS International Team held a teleconference on Tuesday November 4, 2003. Agenda items discussed included the next two face to face meetings. The first is to be held at ESA ESTEC, Netherlands from March 25 - 28, 2004. The second meeting will be held in the Washington, D.C. area in October, 2004, following the AMSAT- NA's annual meeting which will also be held in the D.C. area. Joint activities are being planned. Also discussed was the KIS certification testing in Energia, RSC and the upcoming Moscow trip. * Phase 2 Hardware Shipped to Moscow Two Yaesu FT-100 radios and tuners are being shipped from California to Moscow. Shipment may take 2 - 4 weeks. Certification testing will take place in Energia, Russian Space Center. * Website Project to Enable Students to Speak with ESA Astronaut by Radio Dutch ESA astronaut Andre Kuipers is scheduled to serve as flight engineer on the next Soyuz flight to the ISS. ESA has organized a Dutch website project which will allow students to talk to Kuiper by radio while on board the ISS. [ANS thanks Carol Jackson and Charlie Sufana for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-327.04 FCC expands C-Band Part 15 allocation AMSAT News Service Bulletin 327.04 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. November 23, 2003 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-327.04 The FCC has amended its Part 15 rules to make another 255 MHz of spectrum available in the 5.470-5.725 GHz band for unlicensed National Information Infrastructure (U-NII) devices, including Radio Local Area Network (RLAN) devices. In its Report and Order (R&O) in ET Docket 03-122 released November 18, the FCC said it was taking the action to alleviate crowding in existing allocations and to align U-NII bands in the US with bands elsewhere in the world. The FCC turned down an ARRL request to keep U-NII devices out of the 5.650 to 5.670 GHz segment to avoid interference with the Amateur Satellite Service. Amateur Radio has a secondary allocation from 5.650 to 5.925 GHz. "We are not persuaded that we should either add or modify our proposed rules as requested by ARRL," the FCC said, adding that its dynamic frequency selection (DFS) and transmitter power control (TPC) requirements "will in fact protect amateur operations," although they're not specifically designed to do so. [ANS thanks ARRL for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-327.05 Operating AO-40 mobile AMSAT News Service Bulletin 327.05 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. November 23, 2003 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-327.05 Pedro, EB4DKA, recently announced success in completing his first AO-40 QSO while operating mobile. Pedro says, "On 15 November 2003 I worked AO-40 while mobile when the bird was 32,000 km from me and with 7.5¼ squint from IM78." For his uplink Pedro was using a Kenwood TM-455 with a comet SBB-5 dual band mobile antenna fixed on the roof of the car. The downlink part of the station was a Kenwood TH-F7E HT with a pair of earbuds + Wimo PA-13R-20 Flat Panel Antenna (33cm x 33cm) with a DB6NT converter. Describing the operation, Pedro says, "The car was stopped in the side of the road and I was seated in my car with the flat antenna behind the window (the antenna is smaller than the window) and the signals were very strong. I tried to uplink to the satellite and I could hear my own downlink strong." Pedro says, "I have worked only one station because when I started my mobile operation the bird was near to MA 230, and I had only a few minutes." He also adds, "I 'll try to work mobile via AO-40 more times because I travel a lot" [ANS thanks Pedro, EB4DKA, for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-327.06 This Week's News in Brief AMSAT News Service Bulletin 327.06 >From AMSAT HQSILVER SPRING, MD. November 23, 2003 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-327.06 ** US Federal government entities have been authorized to purchase and operate radios certified by the FCC in the Family Radio Service. This, according to the May 2003 Manual of Regulations and Procedures for Federal Radio Frequency Management. The manual says that pursuant to Part 95 Subpart B of the FCC Rules and Regulations, government users will be accorded the same privileges as non-federal users. Also, since FRS users must share each channel and no user is assured protection from interference caused by another authorized user, federal entities may not purchase and operate F-R-S radios for planned communications operations that safeguard human life or property. --Newsline ** The President of Columbiad Launch Services Inc. , Mr. Richard Graf, announced today Columbiad's has begun accepting requests to launch Scientific and Memorial flights into space from their new, advanced technology, ballistic launch system. Columbiad Launch Services Inc. is a dynamic new commercial space launch company dedicated to providing affordable access to space for everyone. Columbiad is currently developing a fully portable Industrial Sounding System (ISS) which uses advanced ballistic propulsion technology to propel a variety of low cost launch vehicles into space for scientific research and memorial space lights. --SpaceDaily ** The spate of solar storms to hit Earth in recent days may be caused by the sun's iron-rich interior, says a UMR researcher who theorizes that the sun's core is made of iron rather than hydrogen.Dr. Oliver Manuel, a professor of nuclear chemistry, believes that iron, not hydrogen, is the sun's most abundant element. In a paper accepted for publication in the Journal of Fusion Energy, Manuel asserts that the "standard solar model" -- which assumes that the sun's core is made of hydrogen -- has led to misunderstandings of how such solar flares occur, as well as inaccurate views on the nature of global climate change. --SpaceDaily /EX