SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-089.01 ORBITAL DATA AVAILABLE ON THE WEB HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 089.01 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD, MARCH 29, 1996 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT BID: $ANS-089.01 As many know, TS Kelso has discontinued the "old" Celestial BBS that many of us have relied on for years as a source of Keplerian elements and as a repository for all things orbital. TS has now transferred his activities to the Web, and the Celestial BBS functions are now available at this URL: http://www.grove.net/~tkelso/ Tom Clark W3IWO says that he just "surfed" it for a few minutes and found it very complete. He even found the Keplerians for the current operating GPS constellation and was able to get it with just a click of the Netscape button. Tom and all interested in satellites thank TS for continuing to provide us with a useful service. ANS thanks Tom Clark, W3IWI, for this news item. /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-089.02 AMSAT-URE HAS WWW SITE HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 089.02 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD, MARCH 29, 1996 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT BID: $ANS-089.02 AMSAT-URE, the Spanish Branch of AMSAT, has established a site in the WWW. The URL is " http://www.deustnet.es/amsat ". The site contains several hypertext articles in Spanish with photos, diagrams and screen captures on Mode S operation and introduction to digital satellites, etc. There are also links to other sites of interest for amateur satellites aficionados, basic info on AMSAT-URE and a FTP server is under construction. ANS thanks Antonio Fernandez EA4LE for this information. Toni can be reached via E-Mail at ea4le@amsat.org. /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-089.03 US ATRONAUT HEARD ON MIR HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 089.03 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD, MARCH 29, 1996 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT BID: $ANS-089.03 US astronaut Shannon Lucid has been heard operating as R0MIR From the MIR Space Station. She was using the MIR Frequency 145.550 Simplex. Many North American amateurs have reported working Shannon. ANS thanks the many Amateurs who have reported their contacts with R0MIR. /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-089.04 UNOFFICIAL SATELLITE DXCC HONOR ROLL HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 089.04 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD, MARCH 29, 1996 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT BID: $ANS-089.04 Although the ARRL does not currently recognize any such thing as a Satellite DXCC Honor Roll, it would appear that if one did exist, the following would qualify as of September 30, 1995: KD6PY with 231 countries worked VE7RG " 225 " " W0DQY " 224 " " DC8TS & K7HDK " 221 " " VE6LQ " 209 " " DJ5MN & JE2VVN " 206 " " PA0AND " 205 " " N4SU " 204 " " JH2VHL " 203 " " W2APU " 196 " " This judgment is based on that fact that within each current categories, (Mixed, Phone, CW and RTTY) the Honor Roll includes those who are within nine countries of having confirmed QSOs with all current (i.e., non-deleted) countries on the ARRL DXCC Countries List. However, in the early days of DXCC, before anyone had worked all countries on the list, the Honor Roll consisted of those with the top ten current country totals, and ties. Thus, if that criterion were to be applied to Satellite DXCC today, these ten satellite DX chasers would qualify for the Honor Roll. Craig Mellinger N2MNA DX Editor for OSR points out that since these figures include only those who submitted cards to ARRL between October 1, 1994 and September30, 1995, they do not reflect all of the ones who should be on such a list. He suggests that the following be added, and speculates that there are probably more: DG2SBW with 201 countries worked JA2ORW " 207 " " JH2AYB " 222 " " WA2RDE " 202 " " K5ADQ " 218 " " KL7GRF " 200 " " ANS congratulates all of those on Both lists, as well as everyone who has achieved Satellite DXCC, whatever his/her total happens to be! ANS thanks Ray Soifer, W2RS, and Craig Mellinger, N2MNA, for this interesting bit of satellite operating news. /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-089.05 WEEKLY SATELLITE REPORT HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 089.05 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD, MARCH 29, 1996 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT BID: $ANS-089.05 AO-13 Schedules for the remainder of 1996 Date [Mon] Alon/Alat Weeks -------------------------------- 1996 Apr 01 180/0 11 1996 Jun 17 220/0 11 1996 Sep 02 180/0 13 ?? 1996 Dec 02 200/0 2 ?? -------------------------------- The change to 180/0 has already taken place as of 30 March. Re-entry is expected around 1996 Dec 05-19, so that by mid November the spacecraft may well have expired due to overheating, or be non-maneuverable due to buffeting at perigee (under 100 km). This will be an interesting time, and the command team welcomes suggestions which we could implement to make use of this unique opportunity to observe an amateur spacecraft at re-entry. None has been received thus far. AO-13's Mode Schedule for 1 April through 17 June 1996 is as follows: Mode-B : MA 0 to MA 70 | Mode-BS : MA 70 to MA 120 | Mode-S : MA 120 to MA 122 |<- S beacon only Mode-S : MA 122 to MA 140 |<- S transponder; B trsp. is OFF Mode-BS : MA 140 to MA 180 | Alon/Alat 180/0 Mode-B : MA 180 to MA 256 | Move to attitude 220/0, Jun 17 Omnis : MA 230 to MA 25 | The higher powered engineering beacon on 145.985 MHz is ON for two periods: MA 0 - 25 and MA 90-100. The Oscar-13 schedule is available from: 1. AO-13 PSK Beacon 145.812 or 145.985 or 2400.664 MHz 2. AO-13 RTTY Beacon 15 & 45 minutes past the hour 3. AO-13 CW Beacon 0 & 30 minutes past the hour 4. Satellite BBS AO-16, KO-23 etc. 5. Packet Radio Bulletins 6. Amsat News Service packet radio bulletins. 7. Amsat Radio Nets, HF and VHF 8. Amsat Journals (at least 12 of them) 10. Oscar Satellite Report 11. Space News 12. Internet: amsat-bb 13. Internet: ftp://ftp.amsat.org/amsat/satinfo/ao13/schedule.doc A 400 bps PSK decoder is available from G3RUH and several DSP products support this mode. Display software P3TLM, WINSAT, P3C.EXE (MS-DOS); !TLM13 (RiscOS) etc. from several Amsat groups. Internet users wanting the latest AO-13 information should always check the many files at: ftp://ftp.amsat.org/amsat/satinfo/ao13/ http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ Daily telemetry is archived at: ftp://ftp.amsat.org/amsat/satinfo/ao13/telemetry/ Details of re-entry can be found in: - Proceedings of the 12th annual Amsat Space Symposium, Orlando, Florida, USA, 1994. 4 pages. - Oscar News (UK) 1994 Oct No. 109 p 16-20 - Jamsat Newsletter (JA) No. 166, 1995 March 25. p1-4 - Amsat-DL Journal (D), Jg. 22, No. 1, Mar/May 1995. - Amsat OZ Journal (OZ) No. 37, 1995 May - The Amsat Journal (USA) Vol. 18 No.3, May/June 1995. ftp://ftp.amsat.org/amsat/articles/g3ruh/a114.zip (Article) ftp://ftp.amsat.org/amsat/satinfo/ao13/decaykep.zip (Re-entry keps) ANS thanks AO-13 Command Station James Miller G3RUH for this information. MIR: Heard on 145.550 FM simplex. RS-10/11: Lots of activity heard on passes over North America. RS-12/13: In mode T and many stations heard on the bird. ANS thanks BJ Arts, WT0N, for this news update. /EX