The responses to Ofcom’s coonsultation on sharing spectrum in the 2.3, 2.4, 3.4 and 5 GHz Amateur and Amateur-Satellite Service allocations are now available.

The joint RSGB, UK Microwave Group, AMSAT-UK and BATC response says:

The amateur and amateur satellite services have secondary allocations in the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands (which would be impacted by further Wi-Fi growth), and are host to a variety of usage including amateur use including terrestrial, Earth-Moon-Earth(EME) and satellite communications.

We are particularly concerned to keep at least some segments available for noise-free weak-signal communications. Whilst recognising that Wi-Fi has an important economic contribution, we also have concerns regards recent moves in a EU Mandate to CEPT that would make 5 GHz Wi-Fi co-Primary rather than License-exempt.

Read the joint response in full at
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/consultations/spectrum-sharing/responses/RSGB.pdf

The other responses are at
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/consultations/spectrum-sharing/?showResponses=true

Ofcom Consultation covers 2.3, 2.4, 3.4 and 5 GHz bands
https://amsat-uk.org/2013/08/09/ofcom-consultation-covers-2-3-2-4-3-4-and-5-ghz-bands/

ARTSAT students at the Tama Art University

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) have announced the launch date, Feb. 28 JST, for the H-IIA Launch Vehicle No. 23 (H-IIA F23) with the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) core observatory along with seven amateur radio satellites.

The amateur radio satellites are STARS-II, ShindaiSat, TeikyoSat-3, KSAT2, OPUSAT, ARTSAT: INVADER, ITF-1

It is understood they will be put into a 407 km orbit with an inclination of 65 degrees.

Travis Goodspeed KK4VCZ at 30th Chaos Computer Congress

In this video Travis Goodspeed KK4VCZ describes his Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite tracking system to the 30th Chaos Computer Congress which took place December 27-30, 2013 at the Congress Center Hamburg in Germany.

LEO Satellite Tracker – Credit Travis Goodspeed KK4VCZ

The YouTube description reads:

Satellites in Low Earth Orbit have tons of nifty signals, but they move quickly though the sky and are difficult to track with fine accuracy. This lecture describes a remotely operable satellite tracking system that the author built from a Navy-surplus Inmarsat dish in Southern Appalachia.

The entire system is controlled through a Postgres database, fed by various daemons spread across multiple machines. So when I click on a satellite on my laptop or cellphone, it runs “UPDATE target SET name=’Voyager 1′;” and the motor daemon then begins to track the new target while the prediction daemon maintains accurate estimates of its position in the sky.

Additional daemons take spectral prints or software-defined radio recordings of the targeted object for later review.

Watch 30c3: Hillbilly Tracking of Low Earth Orbit

There is a description of the system on Travis Goodspeed’s Blog at http://travisgoodspeed.blogspot.co.uk/

Other 30c3 videos available at http://www.youtube.com/user/albertveli/videos

30th Chaos Computer Congress https://events.ccc.de/congress/2013/wiki/Main_Page

Drew Glasbrenner KO4MA

AMSAT Vice President of Operations Drew Glasbrenner will be operating through the satellites from Denmark from December 25-31 using the call OZ/KO4MA.

He’ll be portable in the Kolding area and hopes to be active on all the satellite transponders.

Mark Hammond plans to be active in the satellites from Madrid in Spain from Dec 24 – Jan 2 using the call EA/N8MH.

Getting started in satellites https://amsat-uk.org/beginners/radcom-getting-started-on-satellites/

How to work SSB satellites https://amsat-uk.org/beginners/how-to-work-the-ssb-satellites/

How to work FM satellites https://amsat-uk.org/beginners/how-to-work-a-fm-satellite/

Satellite Tracking https://amsat-uk.org/beginners/satellite-tracking/

Dnepr Launch November 21, 2013 – Credit ISC Kosmotras

On the AMSAT Bulletin Board (AMSAT-BB) Nico Janssen PA0DLO has posted a summary of the presently known IDs for the satellites that were launched on the Yasny Dnepr on November 21.

Further Doppler measurements show that TshepisoSat (aka ZACube-1) is object 39417 (2013-066B) and AMSAT-OSCAR-73 (aka FUNCube 1) is object 39444 (2013-066AE). Therefore HiNCube must be object 39445 (2013-066AF).

It is not easy to get a good Doppler curve with many CubeSats because of the limited transmissions and because of the frequency drift of their beacon transmitters.

These object IDs from the Dnepr launch seem to be correct, although some still need to be confirmed (tbc):

39416 2013-066A  Aprizesat 7
39417 2013-066B  TshepisoSat
39418 2013-066C  Skysat 1
39419 2013-066D  Dubaisat 2
39421 2013-066F  Unisat 5
39422 2013-066G  STSat 3
39423 2013-066H  WNISat 1
39425 2013-066K  Aprizesat 8
39427 2013-066M  Triton 1
39428 2013-066N  Delfi-n3Xt
39429 2013-066P  Dove 3
39430 2013-066Q  GomX 1
39431 2013-066R  BRITE-PL
39433 2013-066T  HumSat D
39436 2013-066W  Eagle 2 ($50Sat) (tbc)
39438 2013-066Y  Velox PII (tbc)
39439 2013-066Z  First-MOVE (tbc)
39440 2013-066AA CubeBug 2 (tbc)
39444 2013-066AE AMSAT-OSCAR 73
39445 2013-066AF HiNCube
39446 2013-066AG UWE 3 (tbc)

73,
Nico PA0DLO

The FUNcube-1 team are currently using object 2013-066AE as the best fit for FUNcube-1 (AO-73) and the latest TLEs have just been updated at: http://funcubetest2.wordpress.com/working-documents/latest-two-line-elements/

Satellite TLE Challenge Begins https://amsat-uk.org/2013/11/23/tle-challenge-begins/

AMSAT Bulletin Board (AMSAT-BB) http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/tools/maillist/