SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-088.01 2004 AMSAT Space Symposium and Annual Meeting - Call for papers AMSAT News Service Bulletin 088.01 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. March 28, 2004 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-088.01 This is the first call for papers for the 2004 AMSAT Space Symposium and Annual Meeting to be held October 8-10 in Arlington, Virginia. This symposium will be held in conjunction with the ARISS International Meeting that is planned for October 10-13. Proposals for papers, symposium presentations, and poster presentations are invited on any topic of interest to the amateur satellite program. An emphasis for this year is AMSAT's educational outreach activities, including our educational outreach efforts with universities and the International Space Station. In particular, papers on the following topics are solicited: Students & Education, ARISS, Echo, Eagle and other satellite-related topics. We request a one-page abstract by June 1, 2004. Camera ready copy on paper or in electronic form will be due by August 1, 2004 for inclusion in the printed symposium proceedings. Abstracts and papers should be sent to: Daniel Schultz N8FGV 14612 Dowling Drive Burtonsville, MD 20866 or by e-mail to: n8fgv@amsat.org [ANS thanks Dan, N8FGV for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-088.02 PCSat2 passes final test before launch AMSAT News Service Bulletin 088.02 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. March 28, 2004 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-088.02 PCSAT2 this weekend passed final Outgassing Tests for Space Station and Space Shuttle and is ready for launch on the first shuttle return to flight (next year). These outgassing specs are some of the most stringent in the space program. Interestingly, all of our parts were off-the-shelf Kantronics TNC's and Hamtronics TX/RX including original plastic parts. The rate achieved on the TQCM test was 5*E-13 grams per second. The test chamber itself was able to get down to 2*E-14. Additional information about the PCSat2 mission is available at: http://www.ew.usna.edu/~bruninga/pcsat2.html [ANS thanks Bob, WB4APR for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-088.03 Boston area AMSAT Net AMSAT News Service Bulletin 088.03 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. March 28, 2004 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-088.03 The AMSAT Net in the Boston area has been on the amateur 2m band weekly on Thursdays at 8:30 - 9:30 p.m. since March 14, 1996 on the Waltham Repeater 146.640- and has crossed one milestone, it turned 8 years old on March 14 with the next net milestone, number 400 coming up on April 29th 2004. Thanks to all who have checked in over the years and to George W1ME for encouraging me to get started in the first place! Net control, Ernie MacLauchlan, K1ELA, will be sending out certificates to all stations that checked in on April 29, 2004 net #400. Some net trivia as of March 18, 2004 Total Check-ins 6283 Nets 394 Average per net 17 Individual People 716 [ANS thanks Ernie, K1ELA for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-088.04 AMSAT award recipients AMSAT News Service Bulletin 088.04 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. March 28, 2004 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-088.04 Congratulations go out to those that have recently made their very first satellite QSO. May they have many more years of fun on the satellites. Roger Stout, N4RWS Maciej Jakimiec, SP2SGF Tim Hayes, N0MAP Robert Fairfield, K7RQN Congratulations to all of the following for earning their Oscar Satellite Communications Achievement Award. #393 KE8FK Edward Lock 28-Jan-2004 #394 VE2DWE Luc Leblanc 20-Mar-2004 Congratulations also go out to the following for earning their South Africa Communications Achievement Award. #US80 KA4KYI Ron Nutter 3-Mar-04 Congratulations go out to the following for earning their W4AMI Award. #38 N7EQF Albert Ozias 6 Feb 04 1,000; 2,000; 3,000 and 4,000 Level #36 W0EEC Emily Clarke 3 Mar 04 3,000 and 4,000 Level #17 N7EQF Albert Ozias 6 Feb 04 5,000 Level #18 W0EEC Emily Clarke 4 Mar 04 5,000 Level Finally, congratulations to the following for earning their AMSAT Oscar Sexagesimal Award. #133 W0EEC Emily Clarke 8-Jan-04 #134 K9PO Scott Migaldi 17-Feb-04 To see all the awards and a list of those earning the awards, visit http://www.amsatnet.com/awards.html [ANS thanks Bruce, KK5DO for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-088.05 AMSAT activities in Kansas AMSAT News Service Bulletin 088.05 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. March 28, 2004 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-088.05 On Tuesday March 2nd 2004 Greg Wycoff, N0ZHE of Conway Springs, Ks., traveled to Augusta, Ks. to put on a PowerPoint presentation on satellite operations to the Flinthills Amateur Radio Club. Traveling with Greg was John Wycoff, KA0OXY and Bill Briles, W0OQC. Danny Craft, KC0NXF the activities chairman for the Flinthills amateur radio club invited Greg to give the presentation. The presentation lasted about 45min. covering a range of topics including how simple it could be to get started operating through a satellite. The presentation started out with a video of John, KA0OXY working UO-14, and the title above the video read "Amateur radio's best kept secret". The trip to Augusta, Ks. was a 120 mile round trip for Greg, he points out this is one of the ways that we all can help in getting new/old hams into the hobby, all we have to do is get them hooked, the other way is to do a live demo of a satellite contact. Just remember that you don't always have to have a large crowd to be affective in getting others started. CCARC Vhf AMSAT Satellite net: http://www.havilandtelco.com/~gregwycoff/chat.htm email: n0zhe@amsat.org also email me at: GREGWYCOFF@havilandtelco.com [ANS thanks Greg, N0ZHE for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-088.06 ARISS Contact Schedule as of 2004-03-23 AMSAT News Service Bulletin 088.06 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. March 28, 2004 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-088.06 The ARISS (a joint effort of AMSAT, the ARRL, NASA, the ARISS international partners including Canada, Russia, the European Partners, and Japan) operations team wishes to announce the following very tentative schedule for ARISS school contacts. This schedule is very fluid and may change at the last minute. Remember that amateur radio use on the ISS is considered secondary. Please check the various AMSAT and ARISS webpages for the latest announcements. Also, please check MSNBC.com for possible live retransmissions (http://www.msnbc.com/m/lv/default.asp). Listen for the ISS on the downlink of 145.80 MHz. There are several ARISS web sites: English: http://www.rac.ca/ariss/ French: http://c.avmdti.free.fr/ariss/index.htm ARISS Europe: http://www.ariss-eu.org/ ARISS Japan: http://www.jarl.or.jp/ariss/ Expedition 8 crew: Mike Foale KB5UAC Alexsandr Kaleri U8MIR Expedition 9 crew: E. Michael Fincke KE5AIT Gennady I. Padalka RN3DT Saint Mard, France, direct via F5CAR Contact is a go for 2004-04-01 18:27 UTC Saltoschool Hanevoet, Eindhoven,NL-5655 CP, direct via PI4EHV DELTA mission with AndrŽ Kuipers TBD 2004-04-24 ESA-ESTEC, Noordwijk, NL-2201, direct via PI9ESA DELTA mission with AndrŽ Kuipers TBD 2004-04-25 [ANS thanks Charlie, AJ9N for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-088.07 K6DUE Memorial ARISS event QSL card update AMSAT News Service Bulletin 088.07 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. March 28, 2004 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-088.07 Frank Bauer, KA3HDO, who is ARISS International Chairman says in order to save postage costs, the process being used for the special event certificates is this. The various regions such as Europe, Canada, USA, Russia and Japan are collecting the QSLs and generating compiled lists of names and callsigns. These lists are then used to print the certificates and return them to the regions for direct distribution. Bauer asks that everyone be patient, indicating that it will be well worth the wait. [ANS thanks Newsline for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-088.08 This Week's News in Brief AMSAT News Service Bulletin 088.08 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. March 28, 2004 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-088.08 ** In what NASA says is a first for aviation an unmanned X-43A hypersonic research aircraft was dropped from a modified B-52 aircraft before rocketing away and firing up its revolutionary scramjet engine. The experimental X-43 pilotless plane broke the world speed record for an atmospheric engine, briefly flying at 7,700 kilometers (4,780 miles) per hour -- seven times the speed of sound, NASA said. --SpaceDaily ** aeroTelesis, Inc., recently conducted a live demonstration for a major satellite conglomerate where through the use of its proprietary USM technology achieved success in the data transmission of six Megabits per second (Mbps) through a single 3 kHz (3 dB Band Width) channel. --SpaceDaily ** A Chinese restaurant in New Jersey is facing a $10,000 fine from the FCC for operating transmitting equipment on 2 meters without a license. The case involves a Westville, NJ restaurant which apparently had been using a so-called "long-range cordless telephone" to communicate with its delivery vehicle. The FCC says the telephone in question--said to have been obtained outside the US and not FCC certificated--operated within the 2-meter satellite subband at 145.8376 MHz. --ARRL /EX