Month: August 2016

2016 AMSAT Symposium Registration Reminder

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** Booking your Carnival Cruise does not register you for the AMSAT
Symposium **
There is a charge for each Symposium attendee of $40. This fee
applies to those who will attend the technical presentations only and includes a copy of the printed Proceedings.Additional guests are entitled to attend all other events. The registration form is available from the AMSAT office or store website.

Online Symposium registration:
http://store.amsat.org/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=130

** Ground transportation options have been added to the FAQ page on
the AMSAT Symposium web page**
Carnival offers round-trip. Transportation from HOU airport to the cruise terminal at approximately $74 per person, IAH airport $94 per person. If you are traveling to the Board of Directors meeting, you may still utilize the Carnival transportation option for your return
to the airport from the cruise terminal. However, you will need to obtain other transportation between the airport and the Galveston DoubleTree hotel.

Cruise information may be found at:
http://www.amsat.org/?page_id=3667

Upcoming CY9C Passes

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From W5PFG on the AMSAT-BB:

CY9C satellite passes for next 24 hours.  They make work others as available.
Asterisks * indicates a prioritized pass for best geographical coverage.

All dates/times are UTC

25.08.2016  AO-85   16:51-17:02
25.08.2016  AO-07   17:15-17:34
25.08.2016  AO-85   18:32-18:42
25.08.2016  AO-07   19:06-19:27
25.08.2016  XW-2C   20:28-20:37    *
25.08.2016  AO-07   21:04-21:19    *
25.08.2016  XW-2C   22:02-22:11
25.08.2016  XW-2F   22:16-22:25
25.08.2016  XW-2A   23:38-23:44    *
26.08.2016  FO-29   01:46-01:52    *
26.08.2016  SO-50   03:10-03:21
26.08.2016  FO-29   03:28-03:45    *
26.08.2016  SO-50   04:50-05:02    *
26.08.2016  FO-29   05:13-05:30
26.08.2016  SO-50   06:33-06:42    *
26.08.2016  FO-29   06:59-07:11    *

CY9C DXpedition Active On Satellite

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After a delay due to weather and equipment difficulties, the CY9C DXpedition to St. Paul Island is now active on satellite. On a pass of FO-29 during the 02:00 UTC hour on August 25, 2016, they made the first satellite QSO from St. Paul Island in over 18 years, working Peter Goodhall, 2E0SQL, in England. David Webb, KB1PVH, in Massachusetts was also logged on that pass. On the next FO-29 pass, numerous stations across North America from Massachusetts and Ontario to Florida, Oklahoma, and Texas were logged. Audio from that pass, recorded by Paul Stoetzer, N8HM, in Washington, DC, can be heard here: CY9C on FO-29 0424Z 25-Aug-2016

Stations in range of St. Paul Island are encouraged to work them. Please see @WW2DX on Twitter for updates from the DXpedition site. The DXpedition is scheduled to end on August 29th.

CY9C's M2 LEO Pack seen at sunrise on the morning of August 25, 2016 on St. Paul Island. Photo credit VA3QR
CY9C’s M2 LEO Pack seen at sunrise on the morning of August 25, 2016 on St. Paul Island. Photo credit VA3QR

 

RadFxSat-2 (Fox-1E) Launch Scheduled for December 2017

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AMSAT has been informed that the launch for the NASA Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) XX mission carrying RadFxSat-2 (Fox-1E) has been scheduled for December 2017.

In addition to RadFxSat-2, the ELaNa XX mission will carry 12 CubeSats constructed both by NASA and several universities around the United States. The mission will be launched by Virgin Galactic on their LauncherOne air launch to orbit system from Mojave, CA

RadFxSat-2, like RadFxSat (Fox-1B), is a partnership opportunity between the Vanderbilt University Institute for Space and Defense Electronics and AMSAT and will carry a similar radiation effects experiment, studying new FinFET technology.

RadFxSat-2 will be the fifth Fox-1 satellite built by AMSAT. Fox-1A, now AMSAT-OSCAR 85 (AO-85), was launched on October 8, 2015 and is fully operational, providing science data from it’s onboard experiments and FM transponder service for the amateur radio community. Fox-1Cliff and Fox-1D are scheduled for launch this fall and RadFxSat is scheduled to launch in early 2017.

The RadFxSat-2 spacecraft bus will be built on the Fox-1 series but will feature a linear transponder “upgrade” to replace the standard FM transponder in Fox-1A through D. In addition, the uplink and downlink bands will be reversed from the previous Fox satellites in a Mode V/u (J) configuration using a 2 meter uplink and 70 cm downlink. The downlink will feature a 1200 bps BPSK telemetry channel to carry the Vanderbilt science data in addition to a 30 kHz wide transponder for amateur radio use.

RadFxSat-2 Logo