Oct 12 2014

Unforgettable day schoolchildren spoke to an astronaut in space

Reid Wiseman KF5LKT - Image credit NASA

Reid Wiseman KF5LKT – Image credit NASA

The Southend Echo reports on the contact between pupils at Winter Gardens Primary School in Canvey, Essex and the International Space Station.

The contact took place on October 8 having taken two years of preparation. It was organised by the South Essex Amateur Radio Society and involved a link-up with an amateur radio station in California, W6SRJ, who relayed the signal to and from the ISS while it was traveling over the USA at 27,600 km/h. The children were able to speak to astronaut Reid Wiseman KF5LKT who was using the ISS callsign NA1SS.

The newspaper article includes a picture of the school pupils with Pete sipple M0PSX, read it at
http://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/11526478.The_unforgettable_day_schoolchildren_spoke_to_an_astronaut_in_space/

Read a report on the contact at
http://www.essexham.co.uk/news/iss-winter-gardens-2014.html

Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS)
http://www.ariss.org/contact-the-iss.html

South Essex Amateur Radio Society
http://www.southessex-ars.co.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/pages/South-Essex-Amateur-Radio-Society/348979385223793

Oct 7 2014

The Roy Stevens, G2BVN, Trophy awarded to Gaston, ON4WF

Gaston Bertels ON4WF - ARISS Contact

Gaston Bertels ON4WF conducting an ARISS contact

The IARU Region 1 Roy Stevens, G2BVN, Memorial Trophy was awarded to Gaston Bertels, ON4WF, for his meritorious service to amateur radio over many years. Gaston was the chairman of the Eurocom Working Group and then the chairman of the ARSPEX Working Group. Gaston, aged 87, has decided to step down as ARSPEX WG chairman.

Gaston received a standing ovation when the award was announced.

AMSAT-UK add their congratulations and respect for all his hard work in IARU Region 1 and with the organisation of the ARISS School contacts, as well as his Chairmanship of ARISS-EU and, for a time, of ARISS-International.

Gaston was instrumental in getting DATV antennas for 1260 and 2400 MHz installed on the International Space Station (ISS), see http://www.southgatearc.org/news/march2007/ariss_antenna_donations.htm

Gaston Bertels ON4WF Graham Shirville G3VZV and astronaut Frank De Winne ON1DWN at the European Parliament

Gaston Bertels ON4WF, Graham Shirville G3VZV and astronaut Frank De Winne ON1DWN at the European Parliament

Oct 5 2014

6th European CubeSat Symposium

Swiss Space Systems S3

Swiss Space Systems S3

The 6th European CubeSat Symposium will take place from October 14-16, 2014 at Estavayer-le-Lac in Switzerland.

The Symposium has attracted more than 100 abstracts submitted from 31 different countries. Von Karman Institute and Swiss Space Systems are proud to support the CubeSat community by coorganising this leading CubeSat event in Europe, for the first time in Switzerland.

Von Karman Institute continues to act as the coordinator of the World’s most ambitious CubeSat Project QB50, whereas Swiss Space Systems is designing an innovative launcher specifically for small satellites to bring the launch costs to 25% of today’s market value.

The symposium abstracts are available at
https://www.cubesatsymposium.eu/download/BookOfAbstracts_6th_European_Cubesatsymposium_2014.pdf

6th European CubeSat Symposium https://www.cubesatsymposium.eu/

Oct 4 2014

Silverstone B-64 balloon still flying

Track of the B-64 balloon

Track of the B-64 balloon

The B-64 balloon launched at 06:51 GMT on July 12, 2014 from Silverstone is still in the air flying at just over 12,000 metres and transmitting on 434.500 MHz Contestia 64/1000 and also APRS.

B-64 envelope - Image credit Leo Bodnar M0XER

B-64 envelope – Image credit Leo Bodnar M0XER

On Saturday, October 3 Phil Heron MI0VIM reported decoding data while it was over the North Atlantic ocean, coming up to the 6th time it would pass the United Kingdom on it’s continuing journeys around the world.

B-64 was built by radio amateur Leo Bodnar M0XER, he made both the plastic foil envelope and the solar powered transmitter payload which weighs just 11 grams.

Leo has utilised some clever techniques storing positions when the balloon is out of radio contact then later transmitting a log file of previous locations in the comments field of the APRS packet. This enables a fairly complete path to be built up. B-64 only stores 5 days worth of data, where you get a straight line on the track it has been out of radio contact.

See the B-64 track at
http://habhub.org/mt/?focus=B-64

July 31 B-64 completes first journey around the world
https://amsat-uk.org/2014/07/31/434-mhz-balloon-b-64-completes-epic-journey/

Useful balloon links
https://amsat-uk.org/beginners/balloons/

B-64 transmitter payload weighs just 11 grams - Credit Leo Bodnar M0XER

B-64 transmitter payload weighs just 11 grams – Credit Leo Bodnar M0XER

Oct 4 2014

4M lunar ham radio payload shipped

4M payload under test

4M payload under test

Ghislain Ruy LX2RG reports the 4M Lunar flyby amateur radio payload was shipped on Thursday, October 2 and he departs for the Xichang Satellite Launch Center on Sunday, October 5.

He says the lifetime of 4M is quite an unknown: it may be as short as 100 hours (so at least to the Moon) and could extend for some weeks if the attitude is favorable.

It is now known that the spacecraft will not re-enter the Earth atmosphere after the flyby but instead enter a wonderful orbit. You will find information animations and some JT65B test files at

https://cloud.luxspace.lu/public.php?service=files&t=33c4a21c09ba3736a55fc09896e463f6

The launch will be transmitted by CNTV/CCTV: http://www.cntv.cn/ or http://english.cntv.cn/ or http://english.cntv.cn/live/p2p/index.shtml

LX2RG says the team are setting up their ground station, and are especially looking for southern hemisphere stations: ZS, VK and ZL, Southern America continent mainly, as they will be placed first hand for the early hours.

Launched is planned in a narrow window at 17:59:xx UTC on October 23 and flyby is to occur nominally on October 28 at 00:33 UTC.

4M is planned to start transmissions at 19:17 UTC, possibly with 10 minutes additional delay.

K1JT has developed a special version of WSJT. In addition of all the features of the standard version, it includes also the display and logging of the dT to three decimal places and the logging of the manual offset that can be entered in JT65B modes. This version should be used by all who wants to participate to the ‘Multilateration’ experiment.

The participant to this experiment should also make sure that the clock of their PC stays synchronized to the UTC time. Desired accuracy should be within 1ms and within 10ms at the very least. Use of NTP synchronizing software is a must.

The special version can be downloaded with the following links:
http://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/K1JT/WSJT_10.0r4336a.exe
https://cloud.luxspace.lu/public.php?service=files&t=2720825f74104b31ebd699dcc0fd6268

The LuxSpace ground station comprises 2 x 8 element crossed Yagis from Joachims antenna (with an improved design to lower the back lobe), a SSB.de LNA and Yaesu antenna rotators.

Best regards.

Ghislain Ruy LX2RG
Email ruy@luxspace.lu with “4M Amateur” in the subject

Read the paper 4M Mission: a Lunar FlyBy experiment
http://tinyurl.com/4M-Mission-V3

EME 2014 slides: 4M, A Moon Flyby Mission
http://tinyurl.com/4M-slides-eme2014

Manfred Memorial Moon Mission (4M) http://moon.luxspace.lu/

4M-LXS Lunar amateur radio payload
https://amsat-uk.org/2014/09/01/4m-lunar-payload/

Oct 2 2014

UK schools contact with International Space Station

Astronaut Alexander Gerst KF5ONO

Astronaut Alexander Gerst KF5ONO

On Wednesday, October 8 at 10:08:49 UT there will be an ARISS contact between astronaut Alexander Gerst KF5ONO on the International Space Station (ISS) and students at the Winter Gardens Primary School, Canvey, Essex and Pilton Bluecoat School, Barnstaple, Devon.

The ISS will be over the USA at the time and they will be making use of an amateur radio Telebridge Ground Station in California, W6SRJ, to actually make the link to the Space Station.

South Essex Amateur Radio Club (SEARS) http://www.southessex-ars.co.uk/