SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-110.01 SUNSAT LAUNCH DATE ANNOUNCED HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 110.01 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD, APRIL 19, 1996 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT BID: $ANS-110.01 Reliable sources indicate that the launch date the SUNSAT satellite has been set for 06-Mar-97. SUNSAT is an Amateur satellite sponsored by the University of Stellenbosch, in South Africa. SUNSAT's mission will be closely tied in with education. Three school projects have been accepted for inclusion on the satellite's payload so far, and although final preparations are being made to the spacecraft, time still remains for the inclusion of four additional school projects. One of the more unusual projects riding on SUNSAT is an experiment that will monitor the internal sounds of the spacecraft during the early part of its mission in space. Through this experiment, it should be possible to hear things such as the gravity gradient boom extending and locking into place, "creaking" sounds caused by thermal changes to the spacecraft structure, and sounds from the reaction-wheel assemblies. Sounds from the spacecraft will be available in real-time through a 2-meter FM downlink transmitter, and promise to hold a lot of interest. This information was received from G7HIA over terrestrial packet. ANS Thanks John Magliacane KD2BD of Space News for this item. /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-110.02 International Marconi Day on Satellite Saturday April 20th 1996 HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 110.02 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD, APRIL 19, 1996 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT BID: $ANS-110.02 The GB1IMD call will be active on Satellite again this year for International Marconi day on April 20th. John G7HIA and Robert G8ATE will be active on all of the Analogue birds A0-10, AO-13, RS-10/11 RS-15, FO-20 and AO-27 throughout most of the 24 hour period of the event. If you hear us please give us a call. We hope to work many of our satellite friends and make some new ones so please pass on this information when you are on the air. GB1IMD is part of the official activity for International Marconi Day and a contact with GB1IMD qualifies towards the Award Certificate. (Also counts for the SWL Certificate) For more information contact John G7HIA via Packet at GB7NLH #25.GBR.EU or Compserve 100675,3601. NB *not* G3RWL. ANS thanks Richard W L Limebear G3RWL for this information. He can be reached at g3rwl@amsat.org /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-110.03 SpaceNews AVAILABILITY HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 110.03 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD, APRIL 19, 1996 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT BID: $ANS-110.03 ANS readers and listeners are reminded that SpaceNews carries satellite related information every week. SpaceNews is available regularly on Usenet in the rec.radio.info, rec.radio.amateur.misc, and sci.space.news newsgroups, and on packet radio BBSs worldwide as well as the AMSAT-OSCAR-16 Pacsat satellite. It can also be retrieved using the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) at pilot.njin.net (128.6.7.38) from the /pub/SpaceNews subdirectory. One may also "finger magliaco@pilot.njin.net" for a copy of the latest issue, or access it via the World Wide Web at http://www.cs.indiana.edu/finger/pilot.njin.net/magliaco/w. ANS thanks SpaceNews for this information. /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-110.04 SATELLITE STATUS REPORTS HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 110.04 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD, APRIL 19, 1996 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT BID: $ANS-110.04 * SATELLITE STATUS REPORTS * ============================ Both AMSAT-OSCAR-16 and LUSAT-OSCAR-19 continue to perform well. LO-19's digipeater function is currently turned off, while WEBERSAT-OSCAR-18 is providing digipeater service for groundstations using an uplink on 145.900 MHz. The following beacon text was copied from WO-18 by KD2BD on 14-Apr-96: WEBER-1>CAST : 13-Apr-96 Collecting and Sending WOD Week1: Arrays Ch# 26 27 28 29 2A 2B Photo 10/14 Chile/Bolivia Monday, New Spectrum 73, IK3WVJ & KB7KCL The April issue of "Education News" by IK3WVJ reports that the satellite is functioning well. It is currently sending telemetry, photos, weekly whole orbit data (WOD), and light spectra of the Sun or Earth on Mondays. Photo 10/14 of Chile/Bolivia is the current image. It has excellent contrast with very few clouds, and many land features visible. Use WW1.3 to convert the photo to a GIF image, then use your favorite graphics program to size it, and adjust the contrast and brightness slightly. The satellite continues to have a weak and relatively steady tone of about 1200 Hz in the downlink signal, which can cause reception problems with some modems. If this problem occurs, a ground-based solution is to adjust the IF-shift of the receiver to suppress the carrier into the skirts of the IF filter. Night reception seems to be better than in the daytime. WOD collection and broadcast will adhere to the following schedule: 14 April/Week1: Array currents, Ch# 26 27 28 29 2A 2B 21 April/Week2: Battery Voltage Ch# 16 17 18 19 1A 1B 28 April/Week3: BCR, 21 22 29 2F 33 36 05 May/Week4: Temperatures and impact detector, Ch# 14 2F 30 35 3B 40 12 May/Week1: Array currents, Ch# 26 27 28 29 2A 2B Additional information on WEBERSAT may be found in the current edition of "Education News", which is available via the AMSAT-OSCAR-16 satellite where it is stored as file number 87ec, or via anonymous FTP at pilot.njin.net (128.6.7.38) in the /pub/SpaceNews/ education subdirectory. The filename for the current issue is ed_news.106. ANS thanks Tom Davis, IK3WVJ and Space News for this information. /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-110.05 MIR NEWS HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 110.05 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD, APRIL 19, 1996 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT BID: $ANS-110.05 Mir's orbital path is closely following the Earth's terminator (area between light and dark) and is currently visible, at least across North America, after sunset. /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-110.06 Oscar-13 Mean Motion - Predicted and Actual Values HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 110.06 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD, APRIL 19, 1996 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT BID: $ANS-110.06 James Miller G3RUH has updated the plot of AO-13's predicted and actual Mean Motion. This information and an explanation can be downloaded from: ftp://ftp.amsat.org/amsat/satinfo/ao13/mmplot.zip (16k) Regularly updated AO-13 decay information is available at: ftp://ftp.amsat.org/amsat/satinfo/ao13/decaykep.zip (13k) The program used for predicting AO-13's future integrates the equations of motion. Forces modeled are Earth's gravity up to degree 8, zonal, tesseral and sectoral terms from the GEM10B model, Sun, Moon, atmospheric drag and solar radiation pressure. It is described and listed in: ftp://ftp.amsat.org/amsat/articles/g3ruh/a114.zip (107k) ANS thanks James R Miller G3RUH for this information. /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-110.07 AO-13 Sees Eclipse of Sun by Moon HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 110.07 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD, APRIL 19, 1996 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT BID: $ANS-110.07 A partial eclipse of the Sun by the Moon deprives Oscar-13 of solar power on 1996 May 17 [Fri.] from 0030 to 0225 utc, Orbit 6068, MA 151-195. Maximum obscuration is 73% at 0135 utc, MA 175. This event will be visible (in the telemetry) from South Africa, India, S.E. Asia, and Australia as a substantial drop in solar panel temperatures, and reduced power production. The transponders will be OFF. Here are the circumstances. These are also illustrated by a GIF drawing in the Internet file: ftp://ftp.amsat.org/amsat/satinfo/ao13/moonecl.zip (15k) ANS thanks James R Miller G3RUH for this information. /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-110.08 AO-10 and AO-13 HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 110.08 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD, APRIL 19, 1996 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT BID: $ANS-110.08 There was a lot of DX activity on AO-10 and AO-13 from 0800-0900Z this morning (Sunday, 14 April), according to Wayne Estes WD5FFH. He reports hearing AP2AUM making contacts from 0920-0940Z before AO-10 set at his QTH in Mundelein, IL, USA. His name is Asad, and his grid square is MM54SA, in Peshawar, Pakistan. He said he is good in the 1996 callbook, and said KK5DO is his QSL manager. He was working a BIG pile of Europeans. Wayne notes that his elevation was below 4 degrees and dropping, and he couldn't get through the pile-up. He expressed the hope that AP2AUM will someday be on the air during a window which is late evening in the U.S. and early morning in Pakistan. ANS thanks Wayne Estes WD5FFH for this tantalizing item. /EX