Satgen38 by GM4IHJ 20 Dec 89 Are you ready for Packsat ? If all goes well Arianespace will launch the French Earth Survey satellite Spot II, and six Amateur Radio Microsats shortly after 0150 utc on the morning of 10th January 90. Rough Keplerian elements will be:- Epoch 1990 10.07085 : Inclination 98.7376 : RAAN 86.1 : Eccentricity 0.001338 : Arg of Perigee 108.2 : Mean anomaly 257.5 : Mean Motion 14.19889 . Note that if launch is delayed you should add .985 degs to RAAN for every days delay . All other elements stay roughly the same, except epoch day of the year which must also be brought up to date. The launch should produce a nearly circular orbit with a mean height above the earth of about 817 kms. The orbit keeps step with the Sun, coming north on the nearest pass to your station at about 2230 local time and going south nearest to your station at about 1030 local time each day. The microsats will in fact take up slightly different orbits one from another depending on when and how they are released from the carrier rocket. Rough Equator crossing times ut and longitudes west day 1 are :- 0146 50; 0328 75; 0509 101; 0650 126; 0832 151; 1013 177; 1155 202; 1336 227; 1517 253; 1659 278; 1841 303; 2022 329; 2204 354; 2345 19 . The first orbit will be audible in Quebec, Japan , West Oz and LU. The second will fly over the Andes, Great Lakes , China and Burma The third will cover California, Soviet Asia and South Africa The fourth will cover Alaska, Soviet Asia and South Africa Then at last the fifth commencing 0832 at the equator should cross in range of Europe tracking from north east to south east between 0903 and 0914. The following 3 orbits all cross Europe then at about 1545 ut the first of the polar passes will track far to the north of UK but audible in GM. 96 minutes later another northern horizon scraper should be audible in Scotland and thereafter at roughly 96 minute intervals all the suceeding orbits up to midnight will be audible in UK. Note times are + - 15 mins. Next day the whole process should be repeated about 19 minutes earlier. Frequencies to listen on are :- NA Pacsat 437.05 437.025 Dove Brasilsat 145.97 Lusat 437.15 437.125 Uosat D Beacon 435.07 Digi 435.25 Webersat 437.1 ? 437.075 ? Uosat E Beacon 435.07 ? ? The best HF relay station for Western Europe could be Amsat UK with G3RWL doing his usual excellent job on 3780 Khz LSB voice. Richard plans to be on the air one hour before launch. If the launch is successful the net will reconvene on the same frequency just before 0900 ut , ready for the first orbit in range of UK. Every evening for a few days after launch an informal net will gather on 3780 at 1900 ut. Please regard all the above with a large dose of scepticism. This is what we hope will happen. The launch may delay several days, there may be other problems . Listen to G3RWL for the latest information. I will publish a revised update during the first week of January. 73 de GM4IHJ@GB7SNE