The technology camp EMF 2012 being held at Pineham Park, Milton Keynes runs from Friday August 31 to Sunday, September 2. BBC TV reports that two 20m high masts linked by microwaves have been erected for the event, one at the campsite and the other in the car park of a data centre 2.5 km away.
Among the weekend of presentations are some by radio amateurs such as Adam Greig M0RND (formerly M6AGG). Adam is a member of the UK High Altitude Society (UKHAS) and Cambridge University Space Flight (CUSF) and will be talking about High Altitude Ballooning. The balloons use 434 MHz for the telemetry and video image downlinks.
Part-Time Scientists team members Robert Böhme and Karsten Becker
The Google Lunar X-Prize team Part-Time Scientists delivered a presentation Not your Grandfathers moon landing at the Chaos Communication Congress.
The YouTube description reads:
Karsten Becker, Robert Böhme: Not your Grandfathers moon landing
Hell yeah, it’s Rocket Science 3.1415926535897932384626!
The basics, we are team of part-time scientists and engineers who want to send a rover to the moon before the end of the year 2013. There is a lot to be done towards this first private moon landing and we want to take the chance to explore what we want to do and show what we already accomplished in the past 12 months. The talk will feature important technical milestone like our very first R3 rover prototype and great events like the CCCamp11. There is also be a live demonstration of the very first R3A rover right in the presentation.
We want to take this chance to present where we are and what is next to go on the worlds first private mission to the moon. 2011 was great and we want to show you some of our personal highlights like us actually doing real rocket science at the CCCamp11. We will have a close look at the first R3 Rover prototype how it got made and all the cool things we already did with it and going to test along the next year.
We’re aiming for a pretty quick and dense 30 minute review of 2011 with an outlook for 2012 and then do a live presentation of the R3 rover with an open Q&A round.
This time we split our efforts and got our most interesting presenters to enroll for separate talks on one self picked exciting topic they worked on this year in their own free time.
Watch 28c3: Not your Grandfathers moon landing
Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) issues the team encountered are discussed at 19:15 into the video.
A high quality version of this video can be downloaded from http://bit.ly/vROKTo
In the second presentation Wes Faler talks about Evolving custom communication protocols – Hell Yeah, it’s rocket science
Even after years of committee review, communication protocols can certainly be hacked, sometimes highly entertainingly. What about creating a protocol the opposite way? Start with all the hacks that can be done and search for a protocol that gets around them all. Is it even possible? Part-Time Scientists has used a GPU to help design our moon mission protocols and we’ll show you the what and how. Danger: Real code will be shown!
Watch 28c3: Evolving custom communication protocols
A high quality version of this video can be downloaded from http://bit.ly/vOzAsF
ArduSat is an open-source arduino-based nanosatellite. It will have an extensive sensor-suite onboard and will allow users to upload their own code and run their own experiments.
ArduSat will use a GomSpace NanoCom U482C which is a half-duplex UHF transceiver, capable of 3W, operating in the 435-438 MHz amateur radio satellite band. It implements Forward Error Correction (FEC) and Viterbi coding based on the CCSDS standards in order to improve reliability and throughput of the space link.
NanoSatisfi was founded by Austrian-born Peter Platzer a former high-energy physicist (CERN), former Hedge Fund Quantitative Trader, avid HP-41 hacker and Arduino enthusiast, along with Belgian aerospace engineer Jeroen Cappaert KK6BLQ intern at NASA Ames Research Center, Canadian aerospace engineer Joel Spark KK6ANB intern at EADS Astrium and Hungarian Reka Kovacs intern at NASA Ames Research Center working on alternative methods of public outreach for space science. The four founders met at the International Space University in Strasbourg and thought that they could do something to provide affordable, open-source space exploration for everyone.
The NanoSatisfi team is building an Arduino CubeSat ArduSat. On this satellite they plan to put up to 5 Arduino’s and plug in 50+ sensors into them as well as 2 optical and 1 IR camera.
Once the satellite is on orbit they aim to give access to the general public/citizen scientists to the payload (Arduinos, sensors and camera) to upload their own scientific experiments.
The team want to capture the attention of the DIY community, hackers and makers, amateur astronomers and in general those interested in space exploration and the next frontier.
Sensor wise they have so far magnetometers, O3 sensors, GPS , gyros, plasma sensors, photometer, thermometer, pressure sensor, space radiation (bitflip) sensor, Geiger counter and 2 optical and 1 IR camera etc. The idea is that people can rent scientific packages for a week, during the week they run their experiment the team will send data constantly back to them to analyze.
Imagine general public, including teachers having access to experiment platform in space for a couple of hundreds of dollar and they analyze data and engage students, friends etc., it could revolutionize the way people see space and perceive space exploration.
The team are also looking for feedback from people interested in the project and want to hear ideas on sensors and experiments!
Watch ArduSat Kickstarter Video
Watch Sensor prototype demo
Watch The DISCOVER Space Challenge & ArduSat: Invent an experiment and run it in space!
Watch SciStarter & Science Cheerleader Join ArduSat as Community Partner
NanoSatisfi was founded by Austrian-born Peter Platzer a former high-energy physicist (CERN), former Hedge Fund Quantitative Trader, avid HP-41 hacker and Arduino enthusiast, along with Belgian aerospace engineer Jeroen Cappaert intern at NASA Ames Research Center, Canadian aerospace engineer Joel Spark intern at EADS Astrium and Hungarian Reka Kovacs intern at NASA Ames Research Center working on alternative methods of public outreach for space science. The four founders met at the International Space University in Strasbourg and thought that they could do something to provide affordable, open-source space exploration for everyone.
Hojun Song DS1SBO and the NovaNano FlyMate™ deployer
Hojun Song DS1SBO is a cutting-edge, tech-obsessed Korean artist breaking boundaries with his passion for telling stories through technology. He hopes to instill a sense of empowerment in the world, through the DIY nature and uplifting undertones in each of his works.
OSSI CubeSat
At univeristy he studied Electrical Engineering and Computer Science after which he started working on his art.
After years of research he has found that it is indeed possible to launch and operate a personal satellite at a fairly reasonable price. For the past six years he has been exploring ways to integrate the concept of a personal satellite project into cultural contexts and into his artistic practice.
Hojun Song’s first satellite OSSI will take off on a Soyuz rocket from Baikonour in Kazakhstan this August. He obtained his rocket launch through a new French launch brokerage company NovaNano http://www.novanano.com/. In this video he shares his story, his struggles and his plans.
Watch The Open Source Satellite Initiative by Hojun Song
The OSSI CubeSat should be delivered on May 31 in preperation for its launch on August 31. The team are working hard to finish building the satellite.
The AMSAT News Service reports that Diane Bruce, VA3DB, is asking radio amateurs to help with a new website and mailing list devoted to home construction projects.
If you are currently a ham radio builder, or interested in becoming one, the Hamradio-builder mailing list has been created with you in mind.
Diane Bruce VA3DB says of the list, “A recent look at some old 73 Magazines brought to mind the simple projects this magazine produced. So my thought was to do something similar, but meant for the web instead of dead tree. I am not talking a full fledged magazine, but a website where we can put simple beginner type articles, with copious photos and good instructions. We hope it will become a bit like Maker Magazine but for the radio amateur.”
A few of us have written and edited amateur radio articles. She is proposing for the moment that we clean up or write a few articles suitable for beginners to start the content for this community.
List members have already proposed topics on homebrew test equipment, and antennas. Amateur radio satellite operators have skill and many ideas, construction projects, and techniques to get beginners on-the-air at VHF, UHF, and microwave frequencies.
The project is just getting started. If you are interested in joining this community you can sign up for the list at:
Electronic home construction (DIY) is undergoing a boom with Maker and Hacker groups springing up everywhere. Hackspaces are places where people meet up to carry out constructional projects, see http://hackspace.org.uk/
AMSAT-UK 
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