Category Daily Updates

Mar 5 2012

Radio Hams send photo via satellite

ARISSat-1 Deployment

ARISSat-1 Deployment

The Cincinnati press reports that two Anderson Township amateur radio operators recently sent and received a photo from a satellite that was manually deployed from the International Space Station (ISS).

Farrell Winder W8ZCF and his son Jeff Winder KB8VCO achieved this despite the fact that an antenna on the satellite had snapped off prior to launch.

Read the Cincinnati press article at http://communitypress.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/C2/20120301/NEWS/303010057/

Mar 4 2012

RAMPART CubeSat to use propulsion

RAMPART CubeSat

RAMPART CubeSat

Students at Morehead State University are building an amateur radio CubeSat with a propulsion system that will raise the apogee of its orbit from 500 km to 1200 km.

RAMPART, which stands for RApidprototyped Mems Propulsion And Radiation Test CUBEflow SATellite, plans to launch on a Minotaur from Vandenburgh in June 2013.

It is a 2U CubeSat and will use a self-contained, warm gas, propulsion system to adjust satellite’s initial circular orbit of 500 km to an eliptical orbit with an apogee of 1200 km and perigee of 500 km at a 45 degree inclination.

RAMPART Thruster Design

RAMPART Thruster Design

It will demonstrate use of 3D printing (A.K.A. rapid prototyping) for manufacturing small satellites. Measure flux of energetic particles in lower Van Allen Belt. Test radiation-hardened electronic components and high performance solar cells in high radiation environment over a period of five years.

The students are proposing a UHF downlink of 9k6 GMSK AX25 packet. A downlink frequency of 437.325 MHz has been requested.

RAMPART NanoSat Paper http://ssc.moreheadstate.edu/missions/rampart/rampart.pdf

IARU Amateur Satellite Frequency Coordination Status Report http://www.amsat.org.uk/iaru

Mar 4 2012

We invite you to write an article for AMSAT-UK OSCAR NEWS.

If you have written or would like to write an article for AMSAT-UK’s OSCAR News, please email your articles including any photo and artwork to m0tfo@amsat.org

A sample copy of OSCAR NEWS can be found here http://www.uk.amsat.org/on_193_final.pdf

 

We are looking for articles relating to ham radio satellites or anything related to ham radio in space. This can be anything from tips on working your favorite satellite
to using satellite tracking software or your latest project.

Please state within your Email: “For publication”

 

 

 

Mar 4 2012

AMSAT-UK Net Recorded via 20 km WiFi Link

AMSAT-UK Net Recorded via 20 km WiFi Link

Simon Brown HB9DRV in Switzerland has made available a recording of Sunday’s AMSAT-UK 80m net that he made using a remote receiver in Poole, Dorset. What is remarkable about this recording is that a 20 km long experimental 2.4 GHz WiFi link was used at the Dorset end.

The AMSAT-UK net is held every Sunday morning at 10am local time on a nominal frequency of 3.780 MHz. Due to interference the net may move either side of that frequency so tune around. Newcomers are most welcome to call-in.

Listen to the AMSAT-UK Net recorded Sunday, March 4th, 2012. Due to the experimental nature of the 20 km WiFi link there are a few breaks in the recording.

http://www.ham-radio.ch/kits/sdr-radio.com/mp3/04-Mar-2012-1056%203.750MHz.mp3

Previous Net Recordings http://www.ham-radio.ch/kits/sdr-radio.com/mp3/

You can listen to the remote radio of Paul M0EYT in Poole, Dorset as well as other remote receivers in the United Kingdom and around the world via the Web Servers (Free)  page at http://www.sdr-radio.com/

Another web based radio site is http://www.websdr.org/

Nine band web SDR http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/

Online Receivers http://www.dxzone.com/catalog/Internet_and_Radio/Online_Receivers/

Mar 4 2012

FUNcube-1 Launch Fund

Just a reminder of the launch Fund that has been created for the FUNcube-1 Cubesat Satellite, all donations are very much appreciated, and will help towards the cost of launching the FUNcube-1 satellite in 2012.

AMSAT-UK FUNcube-1 Launch Fund:  http://tinyurl.com/7t24yol

UK_FUNcube_Mission_Patch

For more information on the FUNcube-1 Cubesat project visit: http://funcube.org.uk/
For more information on the FUNcube Dongle (the SDR receiver for FUNcube) visit here:http://www.funcubedongle.com/

Mar 3 2012

COMPASS-1 – End of mission

Compass-1Mike Rupprecht DK3WN brings the sad news of the demise of the COMPASS-1 CubeSat that was launched April 28, 2008. COMPASS-1 was designed and built by students at the Aachen University of Applied Sciences in Germany.

Dear supporters and friends of our COMPASS-1 mission,

First, let me thank you very much for your support in trying to save the life of our COMPASS-1 satellite during the last days, but also during the last years of “routine” operations. It seems that our mission now comes to an end.

The projected lifetime of COMPASS-1 was half a year. The tiny guy has outperformed this value by a factor of more than seven. April 28th would have been it’s 4th birthday and if it was a human, it would now be about 500 years old (Cubesat-years are short). So, if you have more important things to do (and I guess so), we can not expect you to continue your efforts in saving its life.

With your support, you have made things possible that we would never have been able to achieve with our own resources and I appreciate your support very much. So, COMPASS-1, rest in peace. (Nevertheless, if you still want to try to awake it from the dead, feel free to do so.)

I hope that we will soon be able to build and launch COMPASS-2 and that you will be still available, all over the world, as a ground station to command and fly our new bird. We will keep you informed.

Cheers and thanks for all,

Bernd
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Prof. Dr. Bernd Dachwald
Faculty of Aerospace Engineering FH Aachen
University of Applied Sciences

Compass-1 Reset http://www.uk.amsat.org/5204