SB NEWS @ AMSAT $SPC1104
* SpaceNews 04-Nov-96 *


BID: $SPC1104


			       =========
			       SpaceNews
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			MONDAY NOVEMBER 4, 1996


SpaceNews originates at KD2BD in Wall Township, New Jersey, USA.  It
is published every week and is made available for non-commercial use.


* MIR FREQUENCY CHANGE *
========================
The Russian space station Mir changed 2-meter operating frequencies on
01-Nov-96.  The R0MIR beacon received late last week at KD2BD in New
Jersey read as follows:
 
R0MIR>CQ <UI R>:
SINCE 11-01-96 NEW FREQ ON MIR:145.800 IN PAC, 145.800 Rx/145.200 Tx IN VOICE

This means all packet radio communications has moved to 145.800 MHz and uses
a single frequency (simplex) for uplink and downlink.  FM voice operations
will require that groundstations uplink to Mir on 145.800 MHz and copy Mir's
downlink on 145.200 MHz.  These frequencies were adopted for Mir and Shuttle
activities at the IARU session of the 1995 AMSAT-UK Colloquium.

This frequency change is the cause of some concern, especially for those in
North America because of the proliferation of packet radio digital repeaters
and APRS stations in the US that are located between 145.770 MHz and 145.790
MHz, just below Mir's new 145.800 MHz uplink frequency.  However, regardless
of what frequencies are used for Mir, a major problem continues to be
inconsiderate groundstations who use the Mir packet radio station as a
digipeater to call attention to themselves, and even encourage connections
to their personal packet radio BBSs via Mir, despite the fact that digipeating
through Mir has been proven to be inherently inefficient, and causes harmful
interference to groundstations trying to access the Mir Personal Message
System (PMS).  Because of this interference, it takes much longer than
necessary for groundstations to successfully upload and download messages
to the Cosmonauts and execute the commands needed to properly log out of
the PMS before LOS.  The end result is that the PMS never receives the log
out command or a disconnect frame, and effectively locks out all other
groundstations until the PMS times out its connection.  It is not uncommon
on descending passes over North America for a station on the east coast of
the U.S. to find the PMS connected to a west coast station, and have the
connection time out just as Mir passes out of range of east coast stations
on its way out over the Atlantic.

Remember, the purpose of the Mir PMS is to exchange short text messages with
the Cosmonauts on-board the space station.  Those wishing to digipeat beacons
off a satellite to call attention to themselves or exchange messages with
other terrestrial stations via satellite should make use of Pacsat satellites,
not the Mir Personal Message System. 


* MIR QSL INFORMATION *
=======================
Confirmations for two-way radio contacts with the Mir space station may
be obtained by sending your QSL card along with a self-addressed stamped
business-sized envelope to:
	
	Sergej Samburov, RV3DR
	P.O. Box 73
	Kaliningrad-10 City
	Moscow Area, 141070, Russia

For contacts made from Russia, or:

	Thomas Kieselbach, DL2MDE
	Joerg Hahn, DL3LUM
	DLR Amateurfunkstation Oberpfaffenhofen
	P.O. Box 1116
	82230 Wessling, Germany

For contacts made from Europe, or:

	Dave Larsen, N6JLH
	P.O. BOX 1501
	Pine Grove, California 95665
	U.S.A.
	
For contacts made from the US, Cananda, Australia, New Zealand & South America.


* OSCAR STATUS *
================
AMSAT-OSCAR-16 (PACSAT) continues in good working order with several new
stations noticed over the past few weeks.  ITAMSAT-OSCAR-26 was copied at
KD2BD in New Jersey on Saturday morning, UTC.  It was transmitting telemetry
and status information on 435.822 MHz.  The BBS/fileserver is not yet in
operation.  FUJI-OSCAR-29 came into range while IO-26 was being monitored,
and some noise bursts were copied on IO-26's beacon frequency.  This was
due possibly to a downlink received from FO-29.  FO-29 is currently in
analog mode, and is performing well.  Not much has been heard about MO-30
over the past few weeks.


* THANKS! *
===========
Thanks to all who recently sent messages of appreciation to SpaceNews,
especially:

   KB1SF	WB1HBU		W3DID		WA4SIR		TG9IKE


* FEEDBACK/INPUT WELCOMED *
===========================
Comments and input for SpaceNews should be directed to the editor (John,
KD2BD) via any of the paths listed below:
 
WWW       : http://www.njin.net/~magliaco/
PACKET    : KD2BD @ KS4HR.NJ.USA.NA
INTERNET  : kd2bd@amsat.org, magliaco@email.njin.net
SATELLITE : AMSAT-OSCAR-16, LUSAT-OSCAR-19


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