SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-153.01 AMATEUR 2 METER AND 70 CM BANDS THREATENED HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 153.01 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD, JUNE 1, 1996 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT BID: $ANS-153.01 AMSAT-NA has learned through its contacts with the American Radio Relay League that a group making recommendations for allocations changes at next year's World Radiocommunications Conference (WRC) has proposed that the amateur 2 meter and 70 cm bands be considered for use by so called "little LEO" satellites. These are commercial satellites using digital store and forward techniques pioneered and demonstrated by a number of amateur satellites. ARRL has released the following text of an announcement it is putting out this weekend. "The American Radio Relay League is asking radio amateurs across the United States to help defeat a threat to the two most heavily used amateur VHF and UHF bands. An industry working group (known as IWG-2A) that is preparing draft US proposals for the 1997 World Radiocommunications Conference has before it a list of "candidate bands" for low-earth orbit mobile satellites ("little LEOs") that includes, among a number of others suggested for consideration, the 144 and 420 MHz bands. Little LEOs are intended mainly to offer commercial paging and other low-data-rate messaging services. The list of candidate bands was submitted by little LEO industry representatives at a meeting of IWG-2A on May 7. ARRL Technical Relations Manager Paul Rinaldo, W4RI, was present and objected strongly to the inclusion of these two bands. He was told that objections should be submitted in written comments, and the ARRL did so on May 15. At the same time the ARRL advised the industry participants in IWG-2A along with its chairman, Warren Richards of the Department of State, that if we did not receive assurance that the bands would be dropped from the list of candidate bands we would have no choice but to advise members in July QST that the bands were under threat. No such assurances were forthcoming. Instead, we were told that as long as little LEO allocations requirements remained unsatisfied, everything had to remain on the table." The League's announcement went on to state that they do not consider this response acceptable and, while they do not believe that there is a reason to "panic", they feel that letters from the amateur community will be helpful. Therefore July QST will carry an editorial detailing the situation and calling for action, in the form of well written civil letters from as many amateurs as possible. AMSAT-NA is in the process of drafting it own series of letters of protest to the individuals named and invites amateurs aground the world to do the same. The following individuals are involved and will receive letters from AMSAT-NA: Cecily C. Holiday, International Bureau, FCC, Washington, DC 20554; choliday@fcc.gov; FAX (202) 418-0748. Warren G. Richards, Chair, IWG-2A, Department of State, CIP 2529, Washington, DC 20520; richardswg@ms6820wpoa.us-state.gov; FAX (202) 647-7407. Tracey Weisler, FCC Rep., IWG-2A, International Bureau, FCC, Washington, DC 20554; tweisler@fcc.gov; FAX (202) 418-2824. Mary Kay Williams, Final Analysis, Inc., 7500 Greenway Center, Ste. 1240, Greenbelt, MD 20770; FAX (301) 474-3228. Leslie Taylor, President, LTA, 6800 Carlynn Court, Bethesda, MD 20817; ltaylor@lta.com; FAX (301) 229-3148. [ANS thanks Paul Rinaldo, W4RI, and Dave Sumner, K1ZZ, both of ARRL, and Bill Tynan, W3XO, President of AMSAT-NA for information used in this bulletin.] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-153.02 TWO OTHER THREATS TO THE 70 CM BAND HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 15302 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD, JUNE 1, 1996 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT BID: $ANS-153.02 In another, development unrelated to the commercial little LEO proposal, it has been learned that NASA (JPL) plans to launch a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) on a satellite in a 400 km orbit. A need for frequencies in the 400-470 MHz range has been satiated. The choice of this part of the spectrum is reportedly due to its ability to penetrate foliage and desert. Word has been received that they have chosen to go after the 430-440 MHz band. The proposed NASA radar will reportedly result in a very high power flux density at the Earth's surface and could cause interference to amateur operations if the radar transmissions were continuous in nature. However, this appears not to be the case based on recent correspondence between ARRL and JPL. JPL claims that the imaging radar proposed will be transmitting only over land with a typical 1 to 5 minutes on cycle followed by a 10 minutes off cycle. These on-off cycles will be programmable and will be active mainly over dry land masses and woody biomasses, and rarely over populated areas. JPL describes the orbit as an East-West drifting orbit with a 1 day repetition period. The one-satellite NASA/JPL proposed system will be flown not earlier than the year 2001. They claim that due to the short duration of the active transmissions as well as to the onboard antenna directivity (the main beam, pointing sideways, will illuminate for less than 2.5 seconds a given point in the Earth's surface) the probability of causing continuous harmful interference to the Amateur Radio Service will be insignificant. In another, similar proposal, the Netherlands Agency for Aerospace Programs was reported to have submitted a request for a frequency allocation for an "Earth Exploration Satellite" to active within the 400-470 MHz Band. This was presented and discussed at the Dec. 7-15, 1995 meeting of the Space Frequency Coordination Group. The Netherlands government requests an allocation of at least 3.5 MHz bandwidth in the frequency band 400-470 MHz. The footprint of the satellite antenna will be +/- 83 km by +/- 83 km (azimuth vs. range). This report assumes a satellite altitude of 750 km, which they calculate would illuminate a given location on Earth for about 13 seconds while the satellite passed over. The report claims the number of times an earth station would experience interference from the SAR would depend on the station's latitude, but would only be about 9 times a year. The Netherlands SAR would operate in a burst mode having a duty cycle of 33% (0.43 seconds on, 1 second off) with a peek power of 760 Watts and an antenna gain of 28.7 dB. Linear frequency modulation pulse compression (chirp) would be used. Based on these parameters, the report calculates the peak power flux density as -75 dBW per square meter in 3.5 MHz (-87 dBW average). AMSAT has been asked by the ARRL Washington Office for an assessment of the interference potential to and from the amateur satellite service that might result from both of these proposed satellite radars. [ANS thanks Brian Ramsay and Paul Rinaldo of the ARRL Washington office and Perry Klein W3PK, AMSAT-NA's Vice President for Government Liaison, for the information that went into this bulletin.] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-153.03 PROPER USE OF AMSAT.ORG HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 153.03 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD, JUNE 1, 1996 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT BID: $ANS-153.03 Paul Williamson KB5MU, AMSAT's V.P. for Electronic Publications believes that it's time for a reminder. He reminds us that to SUBSCRIBE, or UNSUBSCRIBE, or change your mailing list subscriptions in any way, or to ask about a possible problem with your mailing lists, or indeed for any administrative purpose, send mail to listserv@amsat.org. "Let me say that again, louder, Paul says: "LISTSERV@AMSAT.ORG is the ONLY address for mailing list changes". He further urges, "Please don't send your requests to amsat-bb@amsat.org. When you send mail to that address, it goes out to everybody on the mailing list". Those needing more information about the AMSAT mailing lists, can send a request for "help" to (you guessed it) listserv@amsat.org. Or, check it on the Web at: http://www.amsat.org/amsat/listserv/menu.html. [ANS thanks Paul Williamson KB5MU kb5mu@amsat.org for this important information.] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-153.04 WEEKLY SATELLITE STATUS HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 153.04 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD, JUNE 1 1996 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT BID: $ANS-153.04 RS-12 operating normally RS-10 operating normally AO-27 operating normally As of 05/27/96 at 17:00 UTC, AO-27's Transmitter schedule is as follows: 20 Minutes after entering the sun, the Transmitter turns on Normal Power 18 Minutes after Turn on it shuts off. (38 Minutes after Entering the sun) TEPR STATE 4 = 20 minutes, 40 Units TEPR STATE 5 = 18 minutes, 76 Units To clear up any misunderstanding, the Amateur Transmitter on board EYESAT-1 known as AO-27 CAN and DOES from time to time run off batteries. The reason for an 18 minute window over latitudes equal to most of the U.S. is a limited power budget for the Amateur payload. EYESAT-1 runs experiments for INTERFEROMETRICS, INC in Chantilly, Va. There is not enough power left over to run the Amateur Transmitter Full time. AO-10 Recently had a bit of activity on AO-10 whilst it is over the Indian Ocean. Worked the following stations; D68ZJ, Jean-Pierre, in Moroni, Comoros Islands, off the NW tip of Madagascar. His QSL address is PO BOX 85, Moroni, Comoros Islands, Indian Ocean. 4S7AVR, Noel, in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He has an excellent signal. QSL direct as per the current International Callbook. Grid locator MJ96SN. Also FO3PJ, Yees, in French Polynesia (Pacific Ocean). His QSL details are PO BOX 439 Raiatea, French Polynesia AO-13 is operating normally WEBERSAT-OSCAR-18 Initial operating software was reloaded to WEBERSAT-OSCAR-18, and as of 01:59:06 UTC on Saturday 25-May-96, the satellite was transmitting telemetry and spacecraft status information, and reporting an uptime of one day, five hours, 48 minutes, and 41 seconds. Bob Argyle, KB7KCL is asking that anyone who captured telemetry from WEBERSAT-OSCAR-18 on 21-May-96 between 19:28:31 and 20:29:34 UTC please send it to him either via AO-16, unencode and e-mail (rargyle@cc.weber.edu),or anonymous FTP upload to 137.190.32.131. He is especially interested in any telemetry gathered over Africa. Bob also reports that when WEBERSAT is successfully reloaded, it will be sending several new telemetry frames: Please send your Satellite reports to bjarts@uslink.net or to wt0n@amsat.org /EX