AMSAT NEWS SERVICE
ANS-082
The AMSAT News Service bulletins are a free, weekly news and infor-
mation service of AMSAT North America, The Radio Amateur Satellite
Corporation. ANS publishes news related to Amateur Radio in Space
including reports on the activities of a worldwide group of Amateur
Radio operators who share an active interest in designing, building,
launching and communicating through analog and digital Amateur Radio
satellites.
The news feed on http://www.amsat.org publishes news of Amateur
Radio in Space as soon as our volunteers can post it.
Please send any amateur satellite news or reports to:
ans-editor at amsat.org.
In this edition:
* Your Purchases at AmazonSmile.com Donate to AMSAT-NA
* AC0RA Road Trip to Activate Grids in ND, SD, CO, NE, and KA
* High Altitude Balloon Flight to Carry APRS and Crossband Repeater
* EshailSat 2 Satellite to Carry Amateur Transponder
* $50Sat Receives an OSCAR Number
* FO-29 Extreme DX Contact
* Satellite Activation From the Isle of Lewis
* 33rd Annual 2014 ARRL/TAPR Digital Communications Conference Announcement
* 2014 AMSAT Field Day Rules Now Available
SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-082.01
ANS-082 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins
AMSAT News Service Bulletin 082.01
From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
March 23, 2014
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-082.01
Your Purchases at AmazonSmile.com Donate to AMSAT-NA
AMSAT-NA is participating in the AmazonSmile program. AmazonSmile is a
simple and automatic way for you to support your favorite charitable
organization every time you shop at Amazon.com, at no cost to you.
Amazon will donate 0.5% of eligible AmazonSmile purchases to the
charitable organization of your choice. If you do business with Amazon
you can apply your donation by logging into your Amazon account using
http://smile.amazon.com/ch/52-0888529 to designate AMSAT-NA as the
organization of your choice. You must use the URL smile.amazon.com for
AMSAT (or another charity) to receive the donation from your
purchases.
[ANS thanks Martha at the AMSAT Office for the above information]
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AC0RA Road Trip to Activate Grids in ND, SD, CO, NE, and KA
Listen for Wyatt Dirks, AC0RA who has been on the road since March 21
in ND, SD, CO, NE, and KA. He plans to active rare grids from this
region. Wyatt does not have a set schedule so he will catch
opportunities on SO50, VO52, FO29, AO73, and AO7 Mode B.
If you want more info on which grids he will be in and when email him
at wyattdi...@msn.com. He will send updates on the grids he will be in
and when throughout trip. He is open to assisting with any specific
requests for grids I might be close to or going through I can try to
activate those as well.
[ANS thanks Wyatt Dirks, AC0RA for the above information
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High Altitude Balloon Flight to Carry APRS and Crossband Repeater
Arizona Near Space Research plans to launch a high altitude balloon flight,
ANSR-81/ASCEND!-17, on March 29, 2014 at 0900 MST. The flight from the
University of Arizona Maricopa Agricultural Center (33.0803 N, -111.984 W
Grid: DM43AB) will be the 17th in a series of ASCEND! flights sponsored by
the NASA/AZ Space Grant Consortium.
The payloads will contain a variety of scientific apparatus designed and
constructed by students from six Arizona colleges and universities.
Participating schools include the University of Arizona, Arizona State
University, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Pima Community College,
South Mountain Community College and Glendale Community College. Additional
information about the ASCEND! program can be found at:
http://spacegrant.arizona.edu/research/ascend
APRS Beacons will transmit position information as follows:
+ KA7NSR-11 and KA7NSR-14 both on 445.925 MHz
+ KA7NSR-13 on 144.34 MHZ
The ANSR Cross-Band Repeater will operate with an input frequency of 145.56
MHz with a 162.2 Hz tone, and an output of 445.525 MHz. While contacts
(especially DX) are welcome, please give priority to chase team members. Our
mobile cross band Digipeater will repeat locally the beacon's APRS data to
the 144.390 MHz standard APRS frequency and subsequently will be I-GATED to
the Internet for out-of-area trackers.
You can track the flight using the link: http://aprs.fi/?call=ka7nsr-11 (or
ka7nsr-13,-14)
Be sure to check http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ballooning for updates to
this announcement prior to the flight.
[ANS thanks Allen Sklar, W7AS and the Amateur Radio High Altitude Ballooning
ARHAB launch list for the above information]
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EshailSat 2 Satellite to Carry Amateur Transponder
Qatars EshailSat 2 satellite will provide the first amateur radio
geostationary communications capability linking Brazil and India. The satellite
is expected to launch by the end of 2016 and will be positioned at 26 degrees
East.
AMSAT-DL say more details on the technical characteristics will be published in
the next month.
Presentation by Peter Guelzow DB2OS, President of
AMSAT-DL, at the 2013 AMSAT-UK
Colloquium
http://www.batc.tv/streams/amsat1306
AMSAT Deutschland https://www.facebook.com/amsat.deutschland
[ANS thanks AMSAT-DL for the above information]
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$50Sat Receives an OSCAR Number
The following was received from Bill Tynan, W3XO, AMSAT's OSCAR Number
Administrator.
Congratulations to the entire $50Sat team for your successful launch and
operation of this Amateur Radio satellite. $50Sat meets all of the conditions
needed to receive an OSCAR number. In your e-mail yesterday, you agreed to my
suggestion that, since the satellite was constructed at Morehead State
University in Kentucky, that Morehead OSCAR would be an appropriate name, I
therefore by the authority vested in me by the
President of AMSAT-NA, am pleased
to confer on $50Sat the designation Morehead OSCAR-76 or the abbreviation,
MO-76.
Speaking for AMSAT-NA, I wish Morehead OSCAR a
long and successful life in space
and hope that all of its mission goals will be met.
73,
William (Bill) Tynan, W3XO
AMSAT OSCAR Number Administrator
[ANS thanks Bill, W3XO, for the above information]
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FO-29 Extreme DX Contact
Frank Griffin, K4FEG and Erich Eichmann, DK1TB report a successful contact
via FO-29 on February 14, 2014. They waited to make their announcement until
QSL cards for this DX contact had arrived on both sides. The calculated
distance between us within ± 20m was 7,538.685km. This contact rates among
the furthest on FO-29.
Frank wrote, "The only way we were able to complete this QSO was by making
full use of Erich's improvements to SatPC32 with the "frequency at
satellite" feature. We were able to take advantage of extremely brief
windows on FO-29 that only occur every 4 to 6 months. FO-29 with its
"processing elliptical orbit" walks through "footprints" that, if you do not
look for them, will come and go with out you ever knowing that such extreme
contacts are possible. Erich and I only had 3 viable orbits to try and make
this contact, the first one lasted about 105 seconds, Erich heard me Q5 but
I called to long and he hit LOS, next attempt I heard Erich but he was not
hearing his downlink and the opening was only about 55 seconds, the final
and ultimately successful attempt we had 2 minutes and 55 seconds but my
maximum elevation was just 0.1 degrees and Erich hit about 1.4 degrees at
his peak elevation."
This was not an easy contact. For example, it took almost the entire pass to
exchange calls, reports, and confirmations. Frank summarized, "I want to
thank Erich for all of the hard work he puts into SatPC32 and I can assure
you we would not have been able to make this contact without his program!"
[ANS thanks Frank Griffin, K4FEG for the above information]
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Satellite Activation From the Isle of Lewis
Camb-Hams will be active as GS3PYE/P from the Isle of Lewis between
April 26th and May 3rd. The Camb-Hams have been activating the
Scottish Isles each year since 2008 and will be traveling to the Isle
of Lewis in the Scottish Outer Hebrides in 2014. Thirteen operators
will be active on all bands and many modes from 4m to 80m, 2m and 70cm
for Satellites, and 2m and 23cm for EME.
The HF bands will be covered by five simultaneous stations, while the
6m and 4m stations will have a great take-off towards the UK and
Europe from the island's northern tip in IO68 square.
2m and 23cm EME will be available with a portable low-ERP Yagi system,
mainly focused on JT modes.
2m and 70cm will be available for portable satellite operations.
Contest operations will take place in the RSGB 70MHz UKAC on April
29th. The group will be active on the major social networks before,
during and after the trip.
You can check on progress or interact with the operators via their
blog at <dx.camb-hams.com> or through Twitter, Facebook and YouTube
[links below]. Previous trips have generated some great audio and
video recordings of the GS3PYE/P signal from around the world.
Please E-mail <skeds-2...@camb-hams.com> to arrange skeds on the more
challenging bands and modes. VHF and EME skeds will also be made via
ON4KST and N0UK's EME Chat.
All links are available via <dx.camb-hams.com>, <twitter.com/g3pye>,
<facebook.com/CambHams> and <youtube.com/CambHams>.
[ANS thanks Camb-Hams and Ohio/Penn DX Bulletin #1154 for the above
information]
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33rd Annual 2014 ARRL/TAPR Digital Communications Conference Announcement
The Digital Communications Conference (DCC) is returning to Texas this year and
will be held at the Austin Marriott South in Austin, TX over the weekend of
Friday, September 5th - Sunday, September 7th
The DCC has two days of Technical forums on Friday & Saturday and a concurrent
Introductory forum on Saturday.
On Saturday night the banquet will feature an
interesting speaker and the Sunday
morning Seminar will be a deep-dive into a technical topic.
Those who submit Technical Papers for inclusion in the annual DCC Proceedings
will receive preference for a forum,
however you can propose to present a forum without submitting a technical
paper.
There will be free tables in the demo room to demonstrate projects and vendors
to demonstrate products.
We encourage those interested in attending the DCC to make your hotel
reservations early to get special TAPR hotel rate.
Updated DCC Information Available on TAPR's Web Site at:
www.tapr.org/dcc
Follow TAPR & DCC Announcements on Twitter at:
https://twitter.com/taprdigital
TAPR & DCC Announcements are on TAPR's Facebook page at:
https://www.facebook.com/TAPRDigitalHam
[ANS thanks Mark, WB9QZB, for the above information]
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2014 AMSAT Field Day Rules Now Available
Field Day 2014 is right around the corner. If you would like to pick up
your copy of the AMSAT Field Day rules, they are now available at
http://www.amsat.org
click on the Event drop down and select Field Day 2014 (file is a PDF)
[ANS thanks Bruce, KK5DO, for the above information]
/EX
In addition to regular membership, AMSAT offers membership in the
President's Club. Members of the President's Club, as sustaining
donors to AMSAT Project Funds, will be eligible to receive addi-
tional benefits. Application forms are available from the AMSAT
Office.
Primary and secondary school students are eligible for membership
at one-half the standard yearly rate. Post-secondary school students
enrolled in at least half time status shall be eligible for the stu-
dent rate for a maximum of 6 post-secondary years in this status.
Contact Martha at the AMSAT Office for additional student membership
information.
73,
This week's ANS Editor,
Lee McLamb, KU4OS
ku4os at amsat dot org
_______________________________________________
Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author.
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