************************************************************************** * * * THIS IS THE AMSAT-NA CBBS at ST. LOUIS MO, 24HR 7DAY AT (314)447-3003 * * 300/1200/2400 BAUD * * Mike Parisey WD0GML SYSOP * * Norm Newman NZ0Z Co-SYSOP * * * ************************************************************************** SB ALL @ AMSAT $ANS-161.01 AMSAT-NA BOD NOMINATIONS OPEN HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 161.01 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD JUNE 11, 1989 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT AMSAT-NA HQ Announces That Nominations For Board-of-Director Are Now Open AMSAT-NA Headquarters announces that nominations for the office of Director are now in order. According to the AMSAT-NA Bylaws (see ASR #187), four out of the seven Board-of-Director (BOD) seats will be up for election this year. The seats on the "Board" which are up for election this year are currently filled by the following individuals: 1) Bill Tynan (W3XO) 2) Jan King (W3GEY) 3) Bob McGwier (N4HY) 4) Andy MacAllister (WB5ZIB) Each Director will serve for a two year term. Any five "current" AMSAT-NA members or a Member Society, can nominate an individual for a seat on the "Board." Nominees will be asked to provide minimal background and bio- graphical data for publication in Amateur Satellite Report (ASR) and for inclusion with the ballot. Please send your "nominating" petitions to: AMSAT-NA HQ Suite #600 850 Sligo Avenue Silver Spring, MD 20910 The DEADLINE for submitting your petitions for your nominee to fill one of these seats on the AMSAT-NA "Board" is July 7, 1989. /EX SB ALL @ AMSAT $ANS-161.02 NEW QT4.0 IS WIDELY ACCLAIMED HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 161.02 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD JUNE 11, 1989 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT The New Version Of Quiktrak 4.0 Is "Knocking The Socks Off" OSCAR Users Since the release of Bob McGwier's (N4HY) newest version of his very popular satellite tracking program Quiktrak 4.0 (QT4.0) for IBMs and IBM clones, several hundred OSCAR enthusiasts have either upgraded from QT3.2 or acquired a copy of QT4.0. Almost from the moment it was debuted at the Dayton HAM- VENTION '89, users have been "awestruck" by the improved graphical tracking maps that are possible with the upgrade to EGA graphics for QT4.0. In addition to the improved graphics, there are numerous enhancements which have been added. For instance, many AO-13 users will find the "mutual visibility" feature very handy when they are planning QSOs to any one of the 100 different cities which can be stored in the QTH database in QT4.0. If you are trying to work that rare "DX" station across the world, QT4.0 will produce a table of "Acquistion of Window" or "Loss of Window" times which saves the user from laborious task of running a less sophisticated program twice, once for each QTH, and then manually finding the "intersection" of the operating times. QT4.0 finds these mutual visibility sessions based either on "minimum range" or minimum "squint angle." If you like to visually observe space objects, QT4.0 will search out possiblities and print a tabular listing of the times, azimuths, elevations, and even Right Ascension/Declination for your QTH. You can track up to 100 satellites now with the enlarged satellite database which QT4.0 now affords its users. And for those who HATE to enter Keplerian data, with each copy of QT4.0, there is a utility which is included that will take any file that contains the weekly AMSAT-NA "W0RPK ORBS" data or a NASA file and automatically install the new elements! As many users of QT4.0 are find- ing, this newest version of N4HY's famous tracking program is a significant improvement over his earlier versions. The new features discussed above only "scratch the surface" of the capabilities of this new version. If you would like to obtain a copy of QT4.0, contact AMSAT-NA HQ [(301) 589-6069] for more information. /EX SB ALL @ AMSAT $ANS-161.03 AO-13 OPERATING SCHED CHANGE HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 161.03 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD JUNE 11,1989 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT AO-13 Transponder Operating Schedule Changes July 14, 1989 AO-13 users are reminded of a transponder operating schedule change to become effective on June 14, 1989. Please take note of the new schedule provided by AMSAT Ground Command Station DB2OS for the next several months. O S C A R - 1 3 Date : 14Jun89 until 16Aug89 ! 16Aug89 until 16Nov89 BLON/BLAT : 180/0 ! 210/0 Mode-B : MA 000 to MA 110 ! MA 003 to MA 160 Mode-JL : MA 110 to MA 145 ! MA 160 to MA 200 Mode-B : MA 145 to MA 255 ! MA 200 to MA 240 OFF : % ! MA 240 to MA 003 Mode-S : MA 150 to MA 160 ! MA 210 to MA 222 Transponders will be in operation during the whole orbit from June 14 until August 16 due to excellent sun angles and power budgets. However, no perigee operations will occur between August and November due to perigee solar eclipses! /EX SB ALL @ AMSAT $ANS-161.04 RS12/13 TRANSPONDER FREQUENCIES HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 161.04 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD JUNE 11,1989 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT RS 12/13 Preliminary Transponder Frequencies Are Provided AMSAT-NA has learned from Ron Broadbent, G3AAJ, that the launch of RS 12/13 is imminient. This information was made available from reliable Russian sources familiar with amateur satellite activities in the Soviet Union. It is felt by G3AAJ's colleagues in the Soviet Union that the launch of RS 12/13 will occur sometime in June. AMSAT-NA urges all OSCAR enthusiasts to monitor the planned beacon frequencies for both RS 12 and RS 13. The following table is a "preliminary" list of frequencies for RS 12/13 as AMSAT knows them today. RS 12 RS 13 MODE "A" uplink 145.910-145.950 145.960-146.000 downlink 29.410- 29.450 29.460- 29.500 beacon 29.4081 (or 29.4543) 29.4582 (or 29.5043) MODE "K" uplink 21.210- 21.250 21.260- 21.300 downlink 29.410- 29.450 29.460- 29.500 beacon 29.4081 (or 29.4543) 29.4582 (or 29.5043) MODE "T" uplink 21.210- 21.250 21.260- 21.300 downlink 145.910-145.950 145.960-146.000 beacon 145.9125 (or 145.9587) 145.8622 (or 145.9083) MODE "KA" uplink 21.210- 21.250 21.260- 21.300 145.910-145.950 145.960-146.000 downlink 29.410- 29.450 29.460- 29.500 beacon 29.4081 (or 29.4543) 29.4582 (or 29.5043) MODE "KT" uplink 21.210- 21.250 21.260- 21.300 downlink 29.410- 29.450 29.460- 29.500 145.910-145.950 145.960-146.000 beacon 29.4081 (or 29.4543) 29.4582 (or 29.5043) 145.9125 (or 145.9587) 145.8622 (or 145.9083) Autoanswer "Robot" MODES A; K; T; KA; KT A; K; T; KA; KT uplink 21.1291 and/or 145.8308 21.1385 and/or 145.8403 downlink 29.4543 and/or 145.9587 29.5043 and/or 145.9083 [PLEASE NOTE: AMSAT Net Control Stations may wish to just read only the beacon and/or "Robot" frequencies.] /EX SB ALL @ AMSAT $ANS-161.05 Z22JHE STATION TO OPERATE AO-13 HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 161.05 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD JUNE 11, 1989 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT ZIMBABWI Station (Z22JHE) To Operate During Field Day On June 18, 1989 The Zimbabwi Amateur Radio Society (ZARS) will be operating a "field day" style station on both AO-10 and AO-13 on Saturday, June 17, 1989. This operating activity is part of the Society's Annual Meeting which will be held in the capital city, Harare, on Sunday, June 18, 1989. This "field day" site will be held on a mountain range near Harare and is being organized by the Mashonaland Branch of the ZARS. The station call will be J21JHE and the hours of operation will be from 09:00 UTC until 14:00 UTC. Predications indicate that passes of both satellites will favor stations in the Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and South Africa during this operating period. AMSAT-NA would like to thank Hans van de Groenendaal (ZS6AKV) for bringing this "DX" informa- tion to our attention. /EX SB ALL @ AMSAT $ANS-161.06 AMSAT SHORT BURSTS HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 161.06 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD JUNE 11, 1989 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT AMSAT Short Bursts AMSAT-UK and the Radio Society of Great Britian (RSGB) will combine their efforts this year to sponsor a joint symposium dealing with OSCAR satellites, digital communications, and educational uses of amateur radio satellites. Because of the combined theme of "data communications" and amateur satellites, the name of this year's AMSAT-UK/RSGB Data Symposiums will be appropriately known as "DATASPACE '89." With the launch of the MICROSATs and UOSAT D & E later this year, OSCAR enthusiasts should find this combination particularly interesting. As in years past, the University of Surrey will be the meeting place for this combined colloquia. The following is the "line-up" of programs planned for the weekend of July 27-31. If you are interested in finding out more details concerning accommodations and the programs to be presented, contact: Ron Broadbent, G3AAJ 94 Herongate Road Wanstead Park London E12 5EQ England Tel: 01-989-6741 The ZRO Memorial Technical Achievement Award Program, or just "ZRO Test" will be reactivated in July following the mid-June reorientation of AO-13. The following schedule of Mode "B" ZRO tests with a downlink frequency of 145.840 MHz was chosen for convenient operating times and favorable "squint" angles. AO-13 users who don't wish to participate in the ZRO Test are asked to avoid operating on or near that frequency during these ZRO Test times. Please post the following list of times in your ham shack for the ZRO Tests so that you will have them handy for quick reference: Saturday July 1, 1989 at 21:10 UTC Saturday July 8, 1989 at 04:50 UTC Sunday July 16, 1989 at 07:20 UTC Saturday July 22, 1989 at 20:50 UTC Saturday July 29, 1989 at 04:20 UTC Saturday August 12, 1989 at 20:20 UTC Any changes will be announced as soon as possible via the AMSAT HF and AO-13 Operations Nets. ZRO brochures are available from WA5ZIB, Andy MacAllister, AMSAT V.P. of User Operations, 14714 Knightsway Drive, Houston, TX 77083 for an S.A.S.E. with one unit of postage. The brochure characterizes test proced- ures, means for obtaining certificates, and gives some historical background about the program. All listener reports with date of test and numbers copied should be sent to WA5ZIB at the address above. A report will be returned verifying the level of accurate reception. Many AO-13 users are unaware that there is an AMSAT Operations Net which is conducted on AO-13 several times each month to help answer questions about OSCAR satellites and to provide information about the many exciting things going on in AMSAT. The following is a list of the times for the Ops Net. Please place this list in a convenient place in your OSCAR station so that you won't miss out on this interesting net which is offered as a service to all AMSAT members. Here is the Ops Net schedule through June: Date UTC orb-phs NCS 18 Jun 0100 775-092 W0RPK (17 Jun local) 25 Jun 0300 790-055 (24 Jun local) Nets can be held on B or JL, but if the AO-13 satellite schedule is changed such that the Ops Net falls during an "off" period, it will be rescheduled. Downlink frequencies are 145.950 MHz and 435.970 MHz for Mode B and JL, respectively. All these are for AO-13 but AO-10 is sometimes used when available. The following is the operating schedule for FO-12 for the rest of the month of June: DATE MODE OPERATING PERIOD 06/21/89 JA 01:43 UTC until 18:38 UTC 06/24/89 JA 01:03 UTC until 17:58 UTC 06/29/89 JA 00:35 UTC until 15:29 UTC de DB2OS 01May89: *** AO-10 TRANSPONDER SCHEDULE *** 01May89 to 13Jul89 Mode-B : from MA 025 to MA 225 OFF : from MA 226 to MA 024 /EX FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! THE FOLLOWING ADDED BY AMSAT-NA CBBS at St. Louis (314) 447-3003 24hr 7day 300/1200/2400 baud. This section may have additions through the week! SUDDEN AO-13 POWER LOSS: Dumped on 04 Jun 89 12:44:44 Sunday by ELE093 From: JAMES MILLER G3RUH via TMAIL Address: UOSAT Date: 1989 Jun 04 ------------------------------------------------------ Mysterious AO-13 Power loss? by James Miller G3RUH I was routinely watching (and recording) the AO-13 PSK telemetry on orbit 743 at MA 190 during mode L operation. It was 1989 Jun 03 @ 2200 UTC. Gradually I saw an anomaly; an alarmingly increasing negative power budget. At first the usual minus 100 milliamps asociated with mode L, but quite soon the net battery drain was an unprecedented 1.5 amps. The battery voltage was falling fast. Normal is 14.5 volts. It was now 12.8. The beacon was warbling. Adrenalin rushed to my head. Something was badly wrong. Options raced through my mind. Was my software wrong? Grabbed another program; same story. Should I turn off the transponder? Should I phone the other command stations? Then I noticed the solar panel temperatures plunging. Normal is 8 deg C, but now they were down to -10 deg C. The Sun angle was nonsense. And the spin rate counter had stopped. It's driven by the Sun sensor. No Sun? An eclipse??? Impossible; the Sun's 48 degrees above the orbit plane. But wait; surely not the Moon blotting out the Sun? Grab astronomical almanac. Partial eclipses in March and August - and this is June. Ah, but Oscar-13 is 30,000 km from the Earth. If it were New Moon time, the Moon's shadow would be fairly close by. Reached for my diary, shaking. Jun 3rd, Saturday. There's the familiar black circle. Relief! New Moon. So AO-13 must be in the shadow of an eclipse of the Sun by the Moon. So it can't last more than a few more minutes. It lasted 20. The eclipse started around 2200, minimum solar panel output was at 2210, and recharge commenced 2220. The panels warmed up again, the spin rate counter recovered, and the Sun angle went back to -11 degrees. Now to prove it. Long past bedtime, but I couldn't sleep. I would need the Sun, Moon and Satellite's position in celestial coordinates. My program PLAN-13 already computes them for the Sun and satellite, so I punched them out. The Astronomical almanac gave them for the Moon. dec ra Distance km -------------------------------------------------- SUN 22.39589 71.88333 1.51767*10^8 ) Position at MOON 27.34831 72.61417 369228 ) 1989 Jun 03 SAT 42.73401 241.87217 34451 ) 2210 UTC Next I wrote a 15 line program to manipulate these numbers. First I converted them into rectangular X,Y,Z cordinates, and normalised them all to the Sun's distance. Then I calculated the shadow vector relative to the Moon, M-S, and the Satellite position relative to the Moon, R-S. Bingo! Almost identical. See below. Take their dot product, then ARCCOS and the angle between shadow and satellite is 7.9 minutes of arc. Since the Moon's diameter was 32 minutes of arc seen from AO-13, the satellite was in its shadow. The Moon really was eclipsing the Sun! Object X Y Z ------------------------------------------ Sun 0.287499 0.878738 0.381004 ) Moon 0.000646 0.002062 0.001118 ) Unit = 1 Sun-Earth dist Rsat -0.000079 -0.000147 0.000154 ) M-S -0.287550 -0.878806 -0.380809 (Normalised) R-M -0.287795 -0.877825 -0.382880 (Normalised) ------------------------------------------ Geocentric rectangular coordinates. I rather suspect that Moon eclipses are more common that we might suppose. Would someone like to get their number crunchers out, and work out the next ones? PLEASE. P.S. You may already have the sub-routines needed, but if not I commend you to the superb "Astronomy With Your Personal Computer", Peter Duffet-Smith, Cambridge 1986, ISBN 0-521-31976-5. An IBM disc with the programs is available from the publisher, as specified in the book. Best wishes - James G3RUH, Cambridge, England. NO CODE UPDATE COMMENTS: Phil, Thanks for your comments. By the way, you're right: I didn't mean to imply that your article for WA2DHF was against no-code; it was a strong support of the ARRL committee's proposal. My main concern about the committee's proposal is that although its adoption would probably result in more people coming into Amateur Radio than if the privileges were restricted to 220 MHz and above, it would do little or nothing to populate the higher frequencies as most of the new licensees would probably gravitate toward 144 or 50 MHz if history is any guide. As you will recall, the need to populate frequencies above 220 MHz was AMSAT's reason for getting into this no-code business in the first place. I'm just as surprised as you that so few people have raised the issue of spectrum-inefficient usage of our 2m band. If FSK and ACSSB were substituted for 15F3 emission (or whatever they call it nowadays) in the packet and FM portions of the band, no doubt we could accommodate many more users. However, history shows that hams are independent-minded skinflints who won't spend a few hundred dollars to reduce their bandwidth unless (1) they can see a great improvement in the ability to communicate as in the AM-to-SSB switchover of the late 1950's and early 1960's, or (2) someone passes a law to make them do it. As long as 15F3 works for an individual ham, most will continue to use it since they already own the equipment; just ask those in the U.K. who've been trying to introduce 12.5 kHz channels for more than 10 years now (instead of 25 kHz) with no success at all. In the U.S., the trend has actually been to widen channel spacing from 15 kHz to 20 kHz. So, unless the FCC changes the rules (and the Japanese begin to manufacture the necessary stuff) 2m is likely to remain overcrowded for some time to come, and our planning has to take that reality into account. One thing is sure: the FCC will have lots of options to choose from by the time everyone is through filing their petitions. As AMSAT-NA, what I suggest we do is to wait and see what the ARRL finally comes up with and what other groups file, then file comments reflecting our considered views on which options are best for the satellite program. That should not prevent individual members, officers or directors from filing their own comments, nor will it. Finally, Steve, WA2DHF, would like me to remind everyone who read my note on TMail that he is the Hudson Division director only, and that comments addressed to ARRL from members resident in other divisions should go to their own directors, not to Steve. He will open the survey questionnaires July 15. 73, Ray OPS NET REPORT 6/4/89: The AMSAT Operations Net was held on 04 June 89 at 0300 UTC (3 June local time) on 145.950 MHz, mode B. Since this was early in the pass with very high squint angles, conditions were expected to be very poor. I found that switching to LHCP on the downlink moderated the severe spin modulation some. Switching polarization on the uplink only made signals weaker without changing the apparent spin signature enough to notice. There were five checkins, WD0GML, Mike; WB6GFJ, Ross; W6SYA, Bob; WA4UPD, Reid; and WA9PZL, Roger. Net control was Courtney, N5BF. Mike, WD0GML, discussed the new public access sub-board on his BBS which is a SatFoxHunt meeting place. Activity in this area is expected to pick up soon. AO-10 perigee measurements were to be taken this morning by W0RPK and WA9RNQ. W6SYA was located just a few miles from net control and was heard 59 on the uplink. Net control experienced moderately disruptive intermod and could probably use a more selective front end. The net was closed at 0323 UTC. Next week's net will be held at 0000 UTC on 11 June 89, 10 June local in the U.S. 73, Courtney, N5BF