Tag Archives: Ham Radio

Dec 1 2022

ARISS contact with students in Malta

Astronaut Koichi Wakata KI5TMN

Astronaut Koichi Wakata KI5TMN

Update Dec 9 : Contact POSTPONED An ARISS contact between students at Stella Maris College, Gzira, Malta, callsign 9H1MRL and the International Space Station (ISS) is scheduled for TBD.

The ISS crew member will be astronaut Koichi Wakata KI5TMN who will be using the ISS callsign OR4ISS. The downlink frequency is 145.800 MHz and the signal should be receivable in the British Isles and Europe.

A little bit of information about the school follows. Stella Maris College is a Lasallian school. It takes its inspiration from its founder John Baptist de la Salle. In the Christian faith, John De La Salle is venerated as the Patron Saint of Teachers.

Basically, a Lasallian School has the following characteristics:
A) respect for each student as a unique person.
B) A strong spirit of Community.
C) A school of Quality.
D) A school that embraces everyone.
E) Shows special preference for persons who are considered poor financially, morally, physically, psychologically.

Mission statement:
Our school is a place where everyone strives to create and nurture a holistic, inclusive and well-ordered learning climate thereby ensuring a high-quality, values-based academic preparation.

The school has an astronomical observatory and electronics forms part of the school curriculum.

The contact is being conducted by five local radio amateurs and we call ourselves ARISS team Malta; Dominic 9H1M, Manuel 9H1GW, Andrew 9H2AV, Trevor 9H5TS and Anthony 9H2AS. We have set up a station at the school’s auditorium and a 10 element crossed Yagi and rotator on the roof.

The whole event will be streamed live on YouTube on the following URL:
https://www.youtube.com/@trevorsammut/streams

73s Manuel 9H1GW

Nov 22 2022

FUNcube-1 (AO73) Now celebrating nine years in orbit!

FUNcube-1 (AO73) Battery Voltage Telemetry Nov 21, 2022

FUNcube-1 (AO73) Battery Voltage Telemetry Nov 21, 2022

Another year has passed and FUNcube 1 has continued to operate from its orbit around 600km above the earth. To start with some statistics. The spacecraft creates and downlinks data in frames that run for two minute periods. It has now transmitted more that 16 million of these frames or “Sequence Numbers”. Another big statistic is that more than 10 million data packets have been received by stations that have forwarded them to our Data Warehouse.

You can see the leading ground stations here http://warehouse.funcube.org.uk/ui/fc1-fm/satellite_ranking – special congratulations to those at the top scorers…many of them have individually forwarded more than 1 million packets. Thanks to all contributors around the world. Having this network of ground stations has enabled us to easily monitor the status of the spacecraft easily.

Back here on earth, as mentioned, we have continued to monitor the health of the spacecraft as these illumination levels and spin/tumble rates have changed over the months.

Whilst mentioning big numbers, we are now approaching 48500 orbits and this equates to a distance travelled of 2174091840000000000000000000 fermis since launch. That’s 2.1 ronnafermis. Yes these are genuine SI Units of Measure and are equivalent to 14.16 AU or almost half way to Neptune.

After some time in full sun, the spacecraft is now experiencing “normal” eclipse periods of around 25 minutes each orbit. This will reduce the on board temperatures and may influence the tumble rate which has been between 2 and 5 seconds for some time. The is quite fast and is not helping telemetry reception with our 5 second data frame mentioned above.

The present operational schedule is for high power telemetry when in sunlight and receive only when in eclipse. This seems to suit the EPS quite well and the battery bus voltages have been quite stable.

At least that was correct until early morning on Friday 11th November when the indicated bus voltage appeared to “drop off a cliff” over the period of just four orbits. Further analysis showed that the 3.3V bus consumption had suddenly jumped four times normal. As can be seen by the graph above this problem then disappeared just as suddenly and the bus voltage recovered quite quickly. Investigations are continuing!

Please keep the telemetry reports coming in and let us know if you would like a Fitter message uploaded for any educational or outreach events.

Oct 5 2022

Antarctica ISS school contact

Kjell Lindgren KO5MOS

Kjell Lindgren KO5MOS

On Friday, October 7, 2022, from 15:14 GMT there will be a amateur radio contact from Antarctica with the International Space Station (ISS).

Students from the #38 Raul Alfonsin school at the Esperanza Antarctic base will ask questions that will be answered by astronaut Kjell Lindgren, KO5MOS, aboard the ISS, with a telebridge link being provided by ON4ISS, AMSAT Belgium.

This event was managed before ARISS (Amateur Radio on the ISS) by CETRA (Science, Education and Technology united by Amateur Radio) subcommission of AMSAT-LU, led by Luis Funes, LU8YY/Q, NASA/ARISS Telebridge.

AMSAT thanks COCOANTAR (ANTARCTIC Joint Command) for their collaboration and commitment to make this special event possible (1st Contact of the ISS with Antarctica), and to ARISS Canada for their valuable support.

This adds to the WSPR LU1ZV beacon active in Antarctica donated by AMSAT-LU.

It can be seen on https://www.instagram.com/coconatar/?hl=es and broadcast by COCOANTAR, TN and graphic and television media.

Images on http://amsat.org.ar/?f=antartida

73, LU7AA, AMSAT Argentina
http://amsat.org.ar/
https://facebook.com/AMSAT.LU

Sep 28 2022

University students learn about Amateur Radio Satellites

Celebrating Engineering Day Workshop with Rajesh Vagadia VU2EXPIn India on 15 Sep 2022, on the occasion of National Engineering Day, an excellent Workshop titled “Fascinating World of Ham Radio & Amateur Radio Satellites” was conducted by AMSAT-INDIA’s Regional Coordinator Rajesh Vagadia VU2EXP at reputed Marwadi University Rajkot (Gujarat) INDIA.

It was half day (10:00 AM to 02:00 PM IST) interactive workshop full of presentations, Audio Visual Documentary, Practical Demos, Q & A sessions and Radio stuff Exhibition with live operation.

There were 80 B.Tech students participated from ICT Dept + MU’s Student Satellite Project team. Yes Marwadi University has announced to build a Student Satellite and to be launched by ISRO!

Our ham team includes YL Sakshi Vagadia VU3EXP & YL Shyama Vagadia VU3WHG, both member extended great support to setup VHF station, organise & display Radio Stuff and assisting in practical demos including SSTV, Digital & VHF FM Demo with groups! Btw Shyama VU3WHG also remains one of the student coordinator of this event as well as Team member of Student Satellite Project.

All participants gained knowledge on broad spectrum of topics from CW to Cube Satellites! In first session Radio Fundamentals, operating protocols, radio jargons, licensing procedure etc were covered. In second session participants were briefed with various Ham radio events like FD, Hilltop, Light House activation, POTA, IOTA, EME, Satellite tracking, SatCom, High Altitude Balloon tracking, ARISS SSTV & Student outreach program which gives exposure to gain knowledge & develop skills from outside radio Shack activities also!

Lots of fruitful discussion happens during workshop and students were satisfied with all of their queries.

In workshop we had gracious presence of Shri Naresh Jadeja (Registrar), Dr. R. Sridaran (Dean), Dr. Jaypalsinh (MCA Dept), and Dr. Shobhit Patel (Researcher). We also get positive response from Marwadi University authorities to be engaged with AMSAT-INDIA to conduct more programs & projects in upcoming period for benefit of student community.

We also thank to Shri C. D. Parmar Sir (HOD ICT) and Program Coordinator Prof Mitesh Solanki for all the great support provided to make this workshop successful.

I am glad to notice this Ham workshop created a Ham buzz in the Marwadi University campus. For me too it was great honor to present & share my best knowledge amongst budding engineers on the occasion of Engineering Day!

Thank you
73
Rajesh Vagadia VU2EXP
Regional Coordinator West India Zone AMSAT-INDIA

University staff and the audience

Sep 11 2022

23cm Band and RNSS Coexistence September Update

RNSS Satellites Oribiting EarthAs the WRC-23 approaches so the studies regarding AI9.1b (23cm and RNSS) are working towards conclusions. However the IARU is not content that all the operational aspects of the amateur service usage of the 1240-1300 MHz band are being properly considered to develop an acceptable compromise for all concerned parties.

Having been deeply involved in the regulatory work described below it is the opinion of the IARU that for many national authorities the 23cm band WRC23 agenda item 9.1b topic has a very low priority. Many are taking a “generic” stance stating their support for studies without considering the detail of the work or how it is moving forward. Therefore the IARU requests that Member Societies urgently put this issue on the agenda with their national authorities to discuss the views laid out below.

The IARU view is that the potential for widespread or persistent interference to the radio-navigation satellite service (RNSS) from amateur service transmitters is over-stated. However, recognising the regulatory situation, the IARU and the amateur community are ready to accommodate any technical or operational measures deemed necessary on the amateur services so long as they are proportionate, reasonable and evidence based.

The IARU believes that a careful compromise needs to be found in the outcome of the work and the execution of WRC-23 agenda item 9.1b, that properly takes account of the low likelihood of interference events occurring whilst allowing both the amateur services and the RNSS to develop in the band.

The IARU stresses the opportunity that the higher frequency amateur service bands enable for technical skills development for researching and experiencing radio propagation effects. The 1240 – 1300 MHz band is important for the amateur radio service, being the lowest allocation for radio amateurs on which typical microwave propagation can be experienced. Access to these frequencies is facilitated by commercially available equipment and provides a ‘bridge’ building motivation to become involved in more specialized higher frequency microwave and millimeter wave operations providing the self-training which is at the heart of amateur radio.

Read the paper IARU Perspective on the AI9.1b Progress — September 2022
https://www.iaru.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Sept22-23cm-RNSS-Update-.pdf

Source IARU 23cm Band and RNSS Coexistence
https://www.iaru.org/spectrum/iaru-and-itu/wrc-23/agenda-item-9-1-topic-b/23cm-band-and-rnss-coexistence/

Sep 5 2022

AMSAT-UK Colloquium 2022

Kents Hill Park Conference Centre Milton Keynes MK7 6BZ

Kents Hill Park Conference Centre Milton Keynes MK7 6BZ

AMSAT-UK is very happy to announce the 2022 AMSAT-UK International Space Colloquium will be held as part of the RSGB Convention on October 8-9 at the Kents Hill Park Conference Centre, Timbold Drive, Milton Keynes, MK7 6BZ.

The Colloquium program is here all times are BST (GMT+1).

The Colloquium talks will be streamed live at https://batc.org.uk/live/amsatuk2022

Booking for the RSGB Convention which includes the AMSAT-UK Colloquium is at
https://rsgb.org/main/about-us/rsgb-convention/
Note if you want to attend the AMSAT-UK Dinner on Saturday evening (see below) you shouldn’t book the RSGB Convention Saturday Dinner, they are separate and in different venues.

We will be running our own Gala Dinner on Saturday evening at the nearby hotel Delta by Marriott . This is a separate event from the dinner run by the RSGB which will be held in the Kents Hill conference centre. You MUST book in advance for our Gala Dinner, and you can do this at the AMSAT-UK on-line shop here

If you have not been to Kents Hill Park before, it is very close to the M1 motorway and is near to Bletchley Park, where RSGB members have free entry. For overseas visitors it is convenient for planes to London Luton Airport (30-minute taxi ride) and also London Gatwick and Birmingham airports, both of which have direct train connections to Bletchley and/or Milton Keynes stations. These stations are approximately 10 minutes away by taxi.

The weekend event 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.

We will be including a roundup of a number of new live and potential spacecraft projects that are under investigation and/or development, see the programme of talks at https://rsgb.org/main/about-us/rsgb-convention/2022-convention-lectures/

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

Travel Information http://kentshillpark.com/how-to-find-us

Booking for the RSGB Convention is at https://rsgb.org/main/about-us/rsgb-convention/