The Winter 2014 edition of Radio Waves, ARRL’s e-newsletter for instructors and teachers, is now available for download.
Among the selection of articles: “High School Students Put Packet Radio to Work for Local Environmental Study,” “Club Boasts Fourfold Increase in New Licensees/Upgrades,” “Instructor Corner — News, Ideas, Support,” and “In The Classroom: Teaching Ohm’s Law.”
The newsletter also features the AMSAT-UK FUNcube satellite project.
Radio Waves aims to provide information that will help educators and instructors with licensing or classroom instruction and to share experiences and stories of other instructors and teachers that may offer ideas for you to incorporate in your own activities.
ARISS PV8DX students at Escola Estadual ‘Gonçalves Dias’
An Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) school contact took place at 17:24 UT on Thursday, February 13, 2014.
Students at Escola Estadual ‘Gonçalves Dias’, Boa Vista, Brazil, using the station of Paulo PV8DX, were able to talk to astronaut Michael Hopkins KF5LJG who was using the callsign OR4ISS. The contact lasted about 9 minutes and took place in English on 145.800 MHz FM.
The school, founded in 1977, works in two shifts, morning and afternoon with a total of 800 students. The school has a specialty program dedicated to Computer Science and related areas – students in this area were directly involved in the ARISS event. These same students were involved in the development of questions and related studies. The school has 70 teachers and 30 administrative support staff.
The students asked these questions:
1. Why did you decide to be an astronaut?
2. How long can a person live in space?
3. How do you communicate with your family?
4. After the mission, what are the most critical physical and psychological effects on your body and mind?
5. If someone is critically injured on the ISS, what would you do with them?
6. In case of illness, how is aid provided?
7. What kind of research are you doing on the ISS?
8. Do you feel disoriented when you return home?
9. Given the incredible committment to become an astronaut, do you ever doubt your choice?
10. How do you bathe on the ISS? 11. What is the most interesting thing you have seen in Space?
12. Is oxygen recycled continually on the ISS or do supply vehicles bring up new oxygen?
13. What is a typical day like on the ISS?
14. Since there are people from different countries on the ISS, what is the language spoken on the Station and what kind of food do you eat?
A recording of part of the contact made by PY2TNA can be heard here .
Founded in 1975 AMSAT-UK is a voluntary organisation that supports the design and building of equipment for amateur radio satellites.
AMSAT-UK initially produced a short bulletin called OSCAR News to give members advice on amateur satellite communications. Since those early days OSCAR News has grown in size and the print quality has improved beyond recognition. Today, OSCAR News is produced as a high-quality quarterly colour A4 magazine consisting of up to 40 pages of news, information and comment about amateur radio space communications.
The new lower-cost E-membership provides OSCAR News as a downloadable PDF file giving members the freedom to read it on their Tablets or Smartphones anytime, anyplace, anywhere.
An additional advantage is that the PDF should be available for download up to 2 weeks before the paper copy is posted.
AMSAT-UK FUNcube Mission Patch
The Membership year lasts for 12 months starting on January 1 each year.
If you join after July 31 of any particular year, then you will receive complimentary membership for the whole of the following year, i.e. join on November 12, 2013, and you have nothing more to pay until Dec 31, 2014.
Jade Rabbit (Yutu) 8462.078 MHz signal received by Paul Marsh M0EYT February 12, 2014
Beijing’s Jade Rabbit (Yutu) lunar rover had been thought to be dead but its radio signal on 8462.078 MHz was received by radio amateur Paul Marsh G7EYT / M0EYT on February 12, 2014.
In their story about Jade Rabbit’s return CNN mentions that the amateur @UHF_Satcom Twitter feed reported reception of the rover’s signal.
Jade Rabbit (Yutu) rover on the lunar surface imaged by the Chang’e 3 lander
They say: “An amateur website dedicated to monitoring radio signals from space also reported on its Twitter account that it had detected “pretty good signals” from the device.”
Since deployment on November 21, 2013 of FUNcube-1 (AO-73) the FUNcube team have been capturing the minimum and maximum Realtime values for each channel when they have been uploaded by a ground station. This has given a good overview for the early operation and initial commissioning.
The team have now moved into a steady state of operation and need to check for long-term trends. To achieve this, they have changed the min-max data collection such that it resets every 7 days and we capture the values each time it does so. At reset you will see the reference date change on the page and the min/max values converge. They will diverge again within an orbit.
The team have considered a rolling 7 day period but that is quite a heavyweight process on the server as it has to be run each time we get an upload!
As always, many thanks to all those who are uploading data to the warehouse.
David Bowman G0MRF will be giving a presentation on the FUNcube satellite project to the Sutton & Cheam Amateur Radio Society on Thursday, February 20.
The FUNcube-1 CubeSat was launched on November 21, 2013 and provides a 435/145 MHz transponder for SSB and CW communications.
The meeting will be held in the Vice Presidents’ Lounge, Sutton United Football Club, The Borough Sports Ground
Gander Green Lane, Sutton, Surrey, SM1 2EY at 7:30pm for 8:00pm.
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