AMSAT-UK Chairman Professor Sir Martin Sweeting G3YJO

The AMSAT-UK International Space Colloquium 2014 is open to all. It will be held on July 25-27, 2014 at the Holiday Inn, Guildford, GU2 7XZ, United Kingdom.

The Colloquium attracts an international audience from across Europe as well as North America and the Middle East. Attendees range from the builders of the CubeSats and Nanosats, those who communicate through them and beginners who wish to find out more about this fascinating branch of the hobby.

It provides a rare opportunity to chat with satellite designers and builders, discussions frequently continue until the early hours of the morning.

There will be a beginners session starting mid to late afternoon on the Friday.

Dr Chris Bridges M6OBC and STRaND-1

Not part of the Colloquium, but held close by at the University of Surrey Space Centre is the “Bring Your Own Board” event. The first of these sessions was held last year and was very successful. The idea is that satellite builders and designers bring a piece of hardware to show off, demonstrate etc. Entrance is free. Further details of last years event are here http://www.surrey.ac.uk/ssc/news/events/ssc_and_ee/byob_cubesat_workshop.htm

A Gala dinner is held on the Saturday evening along with the fund raising auction, speeches, presentations, etc.

BOOKINGS. (Please note that this is a different procedure from last year!)

Holiday Inn Guildford GU2 7XZ

If you wish to stay overnight at the hotel, you must book your room direct with the hotel telephone 01483 784402 (or +441483 784402 outside UK). We have negotiated special rates of £75.00 for bed and breakfast, and £95.00 for dinner, bed and breakfast.

The 01483 number above is good from Mon to Fri 9am to 5:30pm UK local time. Outside these hours, people can email reservations-guildford@ihg.com. If they quote their phone number, the hotel will call them back to take their credit card number. etc and confirm the booking.

If you book dinner bed and breakfast for Saturday night, this will cover the cost of the Gala Dinner, for any other night, it covers the standard dinner in the hotel. Please use code AMSAT when making your booking.

Additionally, on arrival, please pay £5 for Friday, and £10 for each of Sat and Sunday at the AMSAT shop (not the hotel). The AMSAT shop will be located in the Business centre. This covers use of the lecture room, plus tea on Sat afternoon, and coffee Sunday morning.

If you are attending as a day visitor, there is no need to book in advance, just pay on arrival at the AMSAT-UK shop (£5 for Friday, and £10 for each of Saturday and Sunday).

Holiday Inn Guildford side entrance

Access to the Colloquium is via the hotel side entrance about 30 metres to the left of the main entrance.

We will be including an exclusive roundup of a number of new live and potential spacecraft projects that are under investigation and/or development.

Additionally a number of presentations are planned covering new communications techniques and similar futuristic topics.

Plus all the usual networking opportunities, the gala dinner and auction/raffle.

The weekend event is open to all. It attracts an international audience that ranges from those involved in building and operating Amateur Radio satellites to beginners who wish to find out more about this fascinating branch of the hobby.

Speakers

FUNcube-1 (AO-73) – Image credit Wouter Weggelaar PA3WEG

We have a number of confirmed speakers for the 2014 event, these include:

The FUNcube Project—an update on FUNcubes 1, 2 and 3 plus news about FUNcube-4

The first Phase 4 geostationary amateur radio satellite

The South African projects -KLETSkous,  DynaCube, SA-QB50  and ZACUBE-1

$50SAT PocketQube by Stuart Robinson GW7HPW

Proliferation of non-Amateur Cubesats by Hans van de Groenendaal ZS6AKV

The satellite station at W1AW by ARRL QST Editor Steve Ford WB8IMY

VR2Space Virtual Ride to Space by Surrey Space Centre team member

IARU Satellite Forum by Hans van de Groenendaal ZS6AKV

ESA Danish Astronaut Dr Andreas Mogense attended a previous Colloquium

But we are still looking for more and so; AMSAT-UK invites speakers, to cover topics about micro-satellites, CubeSats, Nanosats, space and associated activities, for this event.

They are also invited to submit papers for subsequent publishing on the AMSAT-UK web site. We normally prefer authors to present talks themselves rather than having someone else give them in the authors’ absence. We also welcome “unpresented” papers for the web site.

This year we are able to offer  limited financial support for young speakers—please contact Jim Heck email g3wgm -AT- amsat.org for information about this.

AMSAT-UK also invites anyone with requests for Program Topics to submit them as soon as possible.  Invitations for any papers on specific subjects will be included in the future call. Likewise if anyone knows of a good speaker, please send contact and other information.