May 25 2016

GK4LOH received over 3467 km on 144 MHz

International Space Station ISS 2011

International Space Station – Image Credit NASA

A reflection from the structure of the International Space Station enabled a 144.175 MHz signal from Tim GK4LOH in Cornwall to cross the Atlantic.

The YouTube description reads:

02:40 UTC May 24th 2016 ISS Flypast. Signal heard 2 minutes 45 into the recording and continues for over a minute. The transmitted message was “GK4LOH GK4LOH T T T T T T T T T T”

As soon as ISS set in GN37 I stepped outside the shack and watched as the ISS fly right over here πŸ™‚ Recorded by Frank VO1HP using the remote receiver beacon VO1FN.

Watch GK4LOH IO70jc reception at VO1FN GN37jr 3467km 144.175MHz ISS flypast

GK4LOH Blog http://www.g4loh.com/

The RSGB VHF Manager John Regnault G4SWX has received a Canadian station on 144 MHz which on investigation was also found to be by ISS reflection, see
http://www.southgatearc.org/news/2014/july/uk_radio_ham_copies_canadian_144_mhz_signal.htm

May 23 2016

UWE-3 Status Report

UWE-3 X-Y-Z Axis Graph 2016-05-11On May 21, 2016 the CubeSat UWE-3 celebrated 2.5 years in space without any significant failures.

Batteries, EPS, OBC and ADCS are fine, nevertheless we were confronted with a minor problem with one of the radios UWE-3 autonomously recovered from. Since then UWE-3 is in a very stable condition again.

UWE-3 LogoSome weeks ago we have re-initiated operations with UWE-3 on an interim basis. The goal is to test new magnetic control algorithms in space. Therefore we operate the satellite on the 436.395200 MHz frequency and perform data downloads from time to time. In the figure below the satellite’s rotation rate w is shown for one of the experiments. The goal was to establish a rotation about the satellite’s X-axis (blue) at 10 deg/s while the Y/Z-axes should be at 0 deg/s. In general the desired rotation rate could be achieved but with major deviations from the setpoint. With the intention of optimizing the relevant control laws we will continue with these experiments within the next days and weeks.

During our experiments we received an outstanding support from the radio community from all over the world we are very thankful for. The received packets were instantaneous injected into our algorithms and delivered an important contribution to our research work. We would like to express our special thanks to DK3WN, PE0SAT, DL8MCO, EU1XX, ON4HF, Rainer, JA5BLZ, JA6PL, CU2JX, LU4EOU, JA1GDE, SP7THR, G7GQW, YC3BVG, JF1EUY, JE9PEL, JE1CVL, JO1PTD, ZL4JL, EA7ADI, K4KDR, JA0CAW, JH4XSY, PA2EON, SM0TGU. THANK YOU!

Yours sincerely,

UWE-3 Team

UWE-3 was launched with FUNcube-1 on November 21, 2013. Latest UWE-3 news at
http://www7.informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de/forschung/space_exploration/projects/uwe_3/uwe_3_news/

May 23 2016

Tomsk-TPU-120 CubeSat Video

Tomsk-TPU-120 CubeSat - Credit Tomsk Polytechnic University

Tomsk-TPU-120 CubeSat – Credit Tomsk Polytechnic University

The Russian space agency Roscosmos has released a video of the Tomsk-TPU-120 CubeSat commemorative transmission from the International Space Station.

The satellite was developed by students at the Tomsk Polytechnic University to test new space materials technology and is the world’s first space vehicle with a 3D-printed structure. It was launched from Baikonur to the ISS on March 31, 2016 in a Progress-MS-2 cargo vessel. It will be deployed by hand during a future Russian spacewalk (EVA), which is why unlike other CubeSats this one has a handle. The call sign of the satellite is RS4S.

Tomsk-TPU-120 CubeSat Callsign RS4SIn May 2016 the Tomsk Polytechnic University celebrated its 120th anniversary. As part of the celebrations on May 10/11 the Tomsk-TPU-120 was activated in the ISS and transmitted a greeting to Earth inhabitants, recorded by students of the university in 10 languages: Russian, English, German, French, Chinese, Arabic, Tatar, Indian, Kazakh and Portuguese.

The greeting message was transmitted once a minute on 437.025 MHz FM. One of the Kenwood transceivers on the ISS provided a cross-band relay, re-transmitting the signal on 145.800 MHz FM.

The video, recorded in the Russian ISS Service Module, shows the CubeSat and the amateur radio station.

Watch ΠœΠΈΠΊΡ€ΠΎΡΠΏΡƒΡ‚Π½ΠΈΠΊ ВОМБК ВПУ 120 Π½Π° МКБ

The next Russian spacewalk appears to be EVA-43 which is expected to take place in early 2017 http://spaceflight101.com/iss/iss-calendar/

World’s First 3D-printed Satellite http://tpu.ru/en/news-events/760/

Dmitry R4UAB operates a WebSDR which you can use to receive the transmissions when the ISS is over Russia http://websdr.r4uab.ru/

May 21 2016

Es’Hail-2 Geostationary P4-A Transponder Frequencies

Es'Hail-2 Geostationary P4-A Transponder Frequencies

Es’Hail-2 Geostationary P4-A Transponder Frequencies

The launch of the Es’Hail-2 satellite into aΒ geostationary orbit at 25.5 degrees East is planned for the 3rd quarter of 2017. The coverage area of the amateur radio Narrowband (NB) and Wideband (WB) transponders should extend from Brazil to Thailand.

Es'hail-2 coverage area

Es’hail-2 coverage area

Es’hail 2 will carry two β€œPhase 4” amateur radio non-inverting transponders operating in the 2400 MHz and 10450 MHz bands. A 250 kHz bandwidth linear transponder intended for conventional analogue operations and an 8 MHz bandwidth transponder for experimental digital modulation schemes and DVB amateur television.

Narrowband Linear transponder
 2400.050 -  2400.300 MHz Uplink
10489.550 - 10489.800 MHz Downlink

Wideband digital transponder
 2401.500 -  2409.500 MHz Uplink
10491.000 - 10499.000 MHz Downlink

Equipment requirements:

X-Band 10 GHz Downlink:
– 89 cm dishes in rainy areas at EOC like Brazil or Thailand
– 60 cm around coverage peak
– 75 cm dishes at peak -2dB
– NB: linear vertical polarisation
– WB: linear horizontal polarisation

S-Band 2.4 GHz NB-Uplink:
– narrow band modes like SSB, CW
– 5W nominal Uplink power (22.5 dBi antenna gain, 75cm dish)
– RHCP polarisation

S-Band 2.4 GHz WB-Uplink (DATV):
– wide band modes, DVB-S2
– peak EIRP of 53 dBW (2.4m dish and 100W) required
– RHCP polarisation

Presentation on Es’hail by Peter Guelzow DB2OS, President of AMSAT-DL, at the 2013 AMSAT-UK Colloquium http://www.batc.tv/streams/amsat1306

May 19 2016

25th anniversary of first UK astronaut

From left to right are Anna-Karin G7IRR, Helen Sharman GB1MIR, Richard Horton G3XWH and Katy G7NST - Image Credit G3XWH

After her return to Earth the first UK astronaut Helen Sharman visited the Harrogate Ladies’ College club station G0HCA From left to right are Anna-Karin G7IRR, Helen Sharman GB1MIR, Richard Horton G3XWH and Katy G7NST – Image Credit G3XWH

On May 20, 1991 Britain’s first astronaut Helen Sharman GB1MIR arrived on the Mir Space Station.

She launched from Baikonur in Kazakhstan on May 18, 1991 arriving at the space station 2 days later. During her 6 day stay on Mir she used amateur radio to linkup with students at 9 schools in the UK.

Using the callsign, GB0JUNO, six students who held Full amateur licences established the initial contact with HelenΒ from the Harrogate Ladies’ College and then passed transmission to the other eight schools involved in the experiment. Katy G7NST asked Helen the first question: β€œIf you had no clock on board Mir, what would give you sense of time in space?”.

In addition to the school linkups Helen also made some random contacts on 2m FM, one of those fortunate to speak to her was Chris Lorek G4HCL.

Read more about the amateur radio side of Helen’s mission and download the RSGB RadCom article about the JUNO project at https://amsat-uk.org/about/history/first-uk-astronaut-helen-sharman-gb1mir/

Astronaut Helen Sharman is appearing at the Science Museum May 21 to talk about her work in space and answer questions from the public https://londonist.com/2016/05/meet-astronaut-helen-sharman-at-the-science-museum

May 18 2016

Probable UKHASnet launch May 21/22

UKHASnet LogoJames Coxon M6JCX reports he is hoping to launch a UKHASnet node from East Anglia this weekend.

On the UKHAS Google Group he writes:

I’ve put together a GPS enabled, temperature controlled node AJ2 which will be launched on a latex balloon (rather than pico).

Due to the pattern of the winds the aim will be to float the balloon at around 30-35 km and current predictions suggest that it’ll drift east first then turn around and come back across the UK travelling west. This should give pretty good coverage of the UK and at a push across the sea towards the Netherlands so it would be great if any UKHASnet nodes could be brought online.

The node itself will be in repeater mode as well as transmitting its own packets every 30 seconds with GPS and other data. Previous tests and flights have had a mixture of results, the EMF launch allowed for 65 km downlink range and recent tests on the IoW made a solid 2 way link over 18 km however other flights haven’t been successful. Hopefully the temperature control will stabilise the radio to stop it drifting too much (both on tx and rx) and the node will recalibrate its noise floor etc as well as reset the rx loop of the radio to stop it locking up (a previous issue). The more nodes that we can have online the better (it is even possible to setup an RTLSDR dongle as a UKHASnet gateway)

There will be a backup tracker providing a RTTY downlink on 434.300 MHz (Atlas) which will be uploaded to spacenear.us This will be RTTY, ASCII 7, 425 Hz shift and is an old pAVA R7 board with a RFM22 so be prepared for some drift.

Current plan is to launch around 1100 on Sat 21/05/16 though the window will be the whole weekend and launch will be from Preston St Mary, Suffolk.

Flight data will be on the UKHASnet map https://ukhas.net/map

I’ve made a grafana page for the node
https://grafana.ukhas.net/dashboard/db/21-05-16-balloon-launch-aj2
and as always there will be discussions on #ukhasnet on freenode.

Thanks

James

Useful High Altitude Balloon links https://amsat-uk.org/beginners/balloons/