Tag Archives: Ham Radio

Jul 13 2015

AMSAT-UK Colloquium Keynote Presentation

Professor Richard Holdaway - Credit RAL Space

Professor Richard Holdaway – Credit RAL Space

Professor Richard Holdaway will give the keynote presentation “What else does Space do for You!” at the AMSAT-UK International Space Colloquium at 1:30 pm on Saturday, July 25.

Professor Richard Holdaway has just retired from serving 16 years as Director of RAL Space at Harwell. He commenced his studies and obtained a Ph.D at the University of Southampton. This was followed by a period working on the design of the Harrier VTOL aircraft at Hawker Siddeley before joining the Appleton Laboratory in 1974 and RAL in 1980. He has been the Director of the establishment since 1998

RAL Space carries out an exciting range of world-class space research and technology development. They have had significant involvement in over 200 space missions and are at the forefront of UK Space Research.

They have more than 200 staff who are dedicated to supporting the programmes of the STFC and the Natural Environment Research Council as well as undertaking a large number of space projects for UK and overseas agencies, universities and industrial companies. They work alongside the UK Space Agency who co-ordinate UK civil space activities.

RAL Space undertake world-leading space research and technology development, provide space test and ground-based facilities, design and build instruments, analyse and process data and operate S- and X-band ground-station facilities, as well as lead conceptual studies for future missions. They work with space and ground-based groups around the world and have very recently opened a new test facility on their campus at Harwell. This is adjacent to the newly established  European Centre for Space Applications and Telecommunications (ECSAT) which is ESA’s newest facility and its first in the United Kingdom.

Richard Holdaway has had 40 years of experience in Space Programmes, having worked on numerous missions in Space Science and Earth Observation with NASA, ESA, China, Russia and the UK National Programme.

He was awarded a CBE – Commander of the Order of the British Empire – in the New Years Honours List 2013; in recognition of his remarkable services to Science and Technology.

The Colloquium takes place July 25-26 at the Holiday Inn, Guildford, GU2 7XZ and is open to all. Admittance on the Saturday and Sunday is £10 each day. Further information is at https://amsat-uk.org/colloquium/

Jul 12 2015

Amateur Radio Geostationary Transponder and the Adventures of a Hacker Turned Radio Ham

Qatar Amateur Radio Society Geostationary Transponders Leaflet Page 1

Qatar Amateur Radio Society Geostationary Transponders Leaflet Page 1

HamRadioNow episode 211 features two presentations given at the TAPR/AMSAT banquet on Friday, May 15 at the 2015 Dayton Hamvention. The first is about the Amateur Radio transponder on the geostationary satellite Es’hail 2 by Thani Ali al-Malki followed by Adventures of a Hacker Turned Ham by Michael Ossmann AD0NR. .

The night begins with a short presentation on what will be the first Amateur Radio transponder on a geostationary satellite, a project of the Qatar Amateur Radio Society, with help from AMSAT DL (Germany). The satellite, Es’HailSAT-2, is owned by the Qatar Satellite Company, and senior engineer Thani Ali al-Malki will give the details. Western Hemisphere hams will be disappointed that the satellite footprint won’t cover anything in North America or Australia, and just a bit of South America. The satellite is primarily a communications system for Qatar and the Middle East, but the ham transponder will also cover Europe, Africa and western Asia (but also missing the China coast and Japan).

Mike Ossmann AD0NR – Image Credit www.insinuator.net

Mike Ossmann AD0NR – Image Credit http://www.insinuator.net

Michael Ossmann, AD0NR, founder of Great Scott Gadgets grew up as a computer nerd embracing the hacker ethos. Eventually Michael became very interested in the security of wireless systems such as remote keyless entry, garage door openers, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. He designed Ubertooth One, a Bluetooth sniffer that was successfully funded on Kickstarter.

Not one to rest, Michael later designed and successfully funded HackRF One, an open source SDR platform that attracted the attention of the amateur radio community. Michael talks about his unique perspective on the community as an outsider looking in, why he resisted getting an amateur radio license for years, and why he finally decided to join. Michael shares his thoughts on what it means to be a hacker, what it means to be a ham, and what amateur radio may look like in the decades to come.

TAPR President Steve Bible N7HPR‘s introduction establishes the youth theme with an interesting survey of the crowd.

Watch HRN 211: Adventures of a Hacker Turned Ham (Michael Ossmann AD0NR) on HamRadioNow

Previous editions of HamRadioNow http://www.youtube.com/user/HamRadioNow/videos

Es’hail 2 geostationary satellite https://amsat-uk.org/satellites/geosynchronous/eshail-2/

Jul 9 2015

DeorbitSail Launch Information

deorbitsail_slide2The CubeSat DeorbitSail built by researchers and radio amateurs at the Surrey Space Centre in Guildford carries a  1200 bps BPSK beacon on 145.975 MHz. It is expected to launch at 1627 UT on  Friday, July 10.

DeorbitSail is a 3U CubeSat sized satellite with a deployable sail that will demonstrate rapid deorbiting.

Chris Bridges 2E0OBC writes:

Dear AMSAT’ers, CubeSat’ers, Friends,

Please find attached exclusive details of a UK CubeSat called DeorbitSail flying out tomorrow evening on PSLV. Please feel free to distribute to other hams that can help out.

This contains all the info you should need including:
• Initial TLE
• DeorbitSail Flyer > Launch details, etc.
• Predicted first packet transmission on 145.975 MHz, 1k2 BPSK -> we predict to be over Russia in the evening.
• Beacon and Packet Formats are here: DOS Message Definitions RD+CPB

First packets sent in will get a Signed Certificate of thanks from the team!

If you have any telemetry or TLE/frequency information, please send it to me and/or to deorbitsail.messages@gmail.com so we can quickly learn our satellite state.

Any questions, don’t hesitate to ask!

73 Chris 2E0OBC

DEORBITSAIL
1 55554U 58056A   15191.72643157  .00000000  00000-0 +13828-4 0   335
2 55554  97.9842  81.0881 0007584 273.9578  86.0949 14.75593446209360

Follow @SpaceAtSurrey on Twitter

DeorbitSail website http://www.surrey.ac.uk/ssc/research/space_vehicle_control/deorbitsail/

Download DeorbitSail leaflet

Download DeorbitSail Message Definitions

ISRO PSLV-C28 / DMC3 Mission http://www.isro.gov.in/launcher/pslv-c28-dmc3-mission

International Space Colloquium at Guildford July 25-26
https://amsat-uk.org/2015/06/16/international-space-colloquium-at-guildford/

Jul 9 2015

CAMSAT Launch Postponement

CAMSAT XW-2A formerly known as CAS-3A

CAMSAT XW-2A formerly known as CAS-3A

A launch postponement has been announced for Beijing’s new CZ-6 rocket which is planned to carry a constellation of amateur radio satellites.

Soon to be launched six CAMSAT satellites CAS-3A to F have now been named as XW-2 (Hope-2) amateur satellite system, and correspond to the XW-2A to F.

All the satellites have completed environmental testing, currently being burn-in tests, everything is underway. The satellites will be moved to the launch center in mid-August and launch date has been postponed to early September.

73!

Alan Kung, BA1DU

CAMSAT XW-2 satellites https://amsat-uk.org/satellites/communications/camsat-xw-2/

Jul 7 2015

UK Spectrum Strategy

RSGB Amateur Radio SlideOn June 30, 2015, Graham Murchie, G4FSG, RSGB Chairman and Murray Niman, G6JYB, Chairman of the RSGB Spectrum Forum presented the case for amateur radio to the UK Spectrum Policy Forum (UKSPF). The Amateur-Satellite Service featured in this presentation.

The Forum has been established as a sounding board to UK Government and Ofcom on future approaches on spectrum with a view to maximising the social and economic value from the spectrum.

The UK Prime Minister David Cameron has stated the ambition to double “the economic benefits of spectrum to UK companies and consumers from roughly £50 billion today, to £100 billion in 2025″.

The UK Spectrum Policy Forum, open to all users of spectrum, is the main vehicle for harnessing user insights and informing these policy decisions.

Read the RSGB story at http://rsgb.org/main/blog/news/gb2rs/headlines/2015/07/06/uk-spectrum-strategy/

Download the presentation slides http://thersgb.org/archives/events/ukspf/150703-RSGB-UKSPF-presentation.pptx

UK Spectrum Policy Forum (UKSPF) https://www.techuk.org/about/uk-spectrum-policy-forum

Jul 5 2015

UWE-3 Status Report

UWE-3 LogoThe UWE-3 team have provided an update on investigations into a recent communications anomaly on the CubeSat

After the communication anomaly and the autonomous recovery of UWE-3 two weeks ago we uploaded an extended software to the OBC to analyse the event in detail. As we already have known the EPS, OBC and ADCS were not affected, so the secondary radio.

During the tests made possible by the new software we temporarily switched back to the primary radio to check its electrical characteristics and communication performance. As the values were promisingly normal we performed extensive communication tests without seeing any existing anomaly.

Therefore we will continue normal operation.

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/