TRANSPOLAR SKITREK PROGRESS REPORT #1: February 1, 1988

            For Use With The AMSAT Teachers Guide
       "Exploring The High Arctic From Your Classroom"

Preparations for the Transpolar Skitrek continue as the Digitalker on
Uosat Oscar 11 is being tested. Thousands of classrooms around the
world are receiving the AMSAT teachers guides and will be following
the expedition through the use of follow-up progress reports like this
one. Progress Reports will be read on AMSAT nets, insertered into
packet radio networks and will appear on the WORPK AMSAT BBS which may
be reached at 1-515-961-3325.

Dimitri Shparo, UA3AJH, expedition leader, was in Canada last week
while the Skitrek communications team from the CRRL under the
leadership of Tom Atkins, VE3CDX, visited the Russian communications
team and the UoSAT team at Surrey.

Canadian skiers Richard Weber,VE8RW and Laurie Dexter, VE8LD have been
granted special amateur radio operator status for the trek and the
suffix of their calls is also their initials. The support station at
Resolute has been given the special call CI8C. Operators of the
station with VE8 calls may use this CI8 prefix when communicating from
the station. Support communications with the skiers will mostly take
place on the 80 meter band with general communications on the 80, 40,
and 20 meter bands. No QSO'ing with the skiers will be possible due to
the limited life of their 10 watt rigs' lithium batteries. Those who
contact Resolute may QSL to P.O. Box 313, Don Mills, Ontario M3C 2S7.
The Resolute CI8C station will become active in mid February.

Why not test out your HF capabilities in the Resolute direction by
QSO'ing with Bob James, VE8DX, who lives at Pond Inlet on the northern
shore of Baffin Island. He is several hundred miles east of Resolute
at latitude 73 degrees N. Bob often can be found on the 20 meter band
at 14.181 MHz.


        UoSAT OSCAR 11 DIGITALKER SCHEDULE DURING THE SKITREK

Official UoSAT Team plan as of 1/29/88:

Experience with classroom reception of UoSAT suggests that for a
typical 'pass', the clear reception period lasts around three to four
minutes, so we have put together a schedule with this in mind.

The following schedules are what we intend to use:

DAILY SCHEDULE: From loading the weekly bulletin (Thursday)
until the following Wednesday.

TELEMETRY           60 seconds   then  DIGITALKER          60 seconds
STATUS POINTS       15 seconds   then  BULLETIN            120 seconds
DIGITALKER          60 seconds   then  WHOLE ORBIT DATA    240 seconds
DIGITALKER          60 seconds   then  DCE TITLES          60 seconds

Repeated... Total cycle time 11.25 minutes.

Wednesday will remain as EDUCATION DAY with the following schedule:

00:00 hrs UTC until 14:00 hrs UTC:

TELEMETRY           150 seconds  then  DIGITALKER          30 seconds

Repeated... Total cycle time 3 minutes.

14:00 hrs UTC Wednesday until the bulletin is reloaded on
Thursday:

WHOLE ORBIT DATA    120 seconds  then  DIGITALKER          60 seconds

Repeated... Total cycle time 3 minutes.

This may change.....watch the Progress Reports for details. See the
guide introduction as to how to receive Progress Reports.

                        * * * * * * * *

Requests for the teachers guide are now being filled as received.
Requesters should write or call: Richard C. Ensign, N8IWJ, 421 N.
Military, Dearborn, MI 48124, U.S.A. To facilitate mailing please
include five 22 cent stamps with requests. Guides with predictions
total 20 pages.