AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-290

ANS is a free, weekly, news and information service of AMSAT North America, The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation ANS reports on the activities of a worldwide group of Amateur Radio operators who share an active interest in designing, building, launching and communicating through analog and digital Amateur Radio satellites

Please send any amateur satellite news or reports to:

ans-editor@amsat org

In this edition: * ARISSat-1 Info Added to AMSAT Web * 2010 AMSAT Symposium Proceedings Added To Online Store * FUNCube Dongle Development Status * Gpredict 1 2 released * ARISS Status - 11 October 2010

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-290 01 ARISSat-1 Info Added to AMSAT Web

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 290 01 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD October 17, 2010 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-290 01

Thanks to the ARISSat-1 team for providing a copy of their Symposium presentation materials Links to the following have been posted at http://www amsat org

1. ARISSat-1 color frequency guide
2. PDF copy of ARISSat-1 Overview presentation slides (~1MB)

Lots more information will be published in the AMSAT Journal

ARISSat-1 will have these features

Transponder Mode U/V (70 cm Up, 2m Down) Linear Inverting (Tx LSB, Rx USB) 16 kHz bandwidth Can be worked with QRP transmitter and omni antennas

Digital Beacon BPSK-1000 w/FEC by Phil Karn KA9Q Legacy mode 400 BPSK (P3 type) Telemetry Data Experiment Data PC/Mac demodulator & decoder software will be available

CW Beacon Call sign = RS01S CW Telemetry (subset) Call signs or names of developers CW1 or CW2 identifies BPSK mode

FM Audio Call sign = RS01S Voice Telemetry (subset) SSTV in Robot-36 format Voice Greetings

Voice Greetings 24 different greetings Mostly children Special one from Yuri Gagarin Secret word 15 different languages English Spanish Russian French Italian Dutch Swedish Japanese Chinese Catalan Bengali Portuguese Hebrew Nepalese German

[ANS thanks the ARISSat-1 team for the above information]

/EX

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-290 02 2010 AMSAT Symposium Proceedings Added To Online Store

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 290 02 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD October 17, 2010 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-290 02

The 2010 Symposium Proceedings have been added to the AMSAT Online Store

Please be aware that it is heavy and shipping overseas will be expensive Martha will add the shipping charges at time of mailing and notify you of the exact amount for postage

http://www amsat org

click on Online Store in the left margin

[ANS thanks Bruce, KK5DO, for the above information]

/EX

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-290 03 FUNCube Dongle Development Status

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 290 03 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD October 17, 2010 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-290 03

Howard Long, G6LVB, reports that he is enormously gratified by the large volume of interest shown the FUNcube Dongle over the past few weeks With so much interest being shown, Howard took some time to provide an update about the development progress

The FUNcube Dongle was originally designed to be an accessible way to be able to receive amateur satellites, most notably AMSAT-UK's forthcoming FUNcube cubesat (http://www funcube org uk) What does accessible mean? Essentially we mean both low cost and easy to setup The original target market is, and remains, what Howard calls, "the unconverted", those, particularly in education, who need a means of being able to practically introduce and demonstrate real space technology in a hands-on way

When the work on FUNcube was distributed, Howard was given the task of coming up with the ground segment, and the result is the FUNcube Dongle

As it's tuned out, the FUNcube Dongle has the added bonus that it's a VHF/UHF and low microwave equivalent to the well-known Softrock in an integrated plug and play package The intention is to have two models, an entry-level frequency-restricted version targeted at the educational market, and a full blown Pro version that seems to piqued the interest of many radio amateurs, radio astronomers and short wave listeners

In précis, it includes an integrated front end filter, LNA, quatrature LO, zero-IF quadrature downconverter, dual 16 bit ADC and USB soundcard In it's simplest of forms, it's SMA in, USB out It's also compatible with pretty much any software that works for the Softrock, for example LinRad, Spectravue, M0KGK and Rocky

The passband is 96kHz, tuneable from 64MHz to 1,700MHz The tuning is via a USB HID interface meaning that as well as your favourite soundcard SDR program, you'll need a little app supplied with the FUNcube Dongle to control the centre frequency or you'll end up only listening to Howard's favorite FM broadcast station ;-)

It's also compatible with XP, Vista , Windows 7 in 32 bit and Vista and Windows 7 in 64 bit Initial testing on the Mac and Ubuntu 32 and 64 bit shows compatibility too, however the frequency control application for those platforms has not been written yet

So, no USB drivers are required!

To keep people informed going forward, a blog has been established at: http://www funcubedongle com/

Also there's a video of the first pre-production unit at: http://www youtube com/watch?v=RqzTBPLqal0

Projected availability of the first production batch of the Pro version is December 2010 Pricing is subject to assembly costs, but to give you indicative pricing we are working on an initial price of the Pro version to be circa USD150/GBP100

[ANS thanks Howard, G6LVB, for the above information]

/EX

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-290 04 Gpredict 1 2 released

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 290 04 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD October 17, 2010 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-290 04

Alex Csete, OZ9AEC, reports that after one year of development, bug fixing and testing it was decided that it was time to make a new release of Gpredict This release features several new features such as the rewritten layout engine as well as lots of bug fixes

The new layout engine allows any combination of views to be created in a NxM grid, see an example screenshot: http://picasaweb google com/lh/photo/eF3tizT-Xj-az6VcykUzaA

The sky at a glance widget has been improved to look nicer and to be more interactive Moving the mouse over a pass pops up an info widget showing info about the pass Clicking on the pass brungs up the pass details dialog http://picasaweb google com/lh/photo/anU9WhY4_40Gk-WVCP7ZWw

The info pop-ups have also been added to the map view and the polar video Moving the mouse over a satellite will show the current position of the satellite as well as time until next AOS or LOS You can see a demo video here: http://www youtube com/watch?v=tJC4A6onbBg

The new release can be downloaded from https://sourceforge net/projects/gpredict/files//Gpredict/1 2/ Currently only the source package is available Binary packages for Windows, Mac and various Linux distributions should become available shortly

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this release!

[ANS thanks Alex, OZ9AEC, for the above information]

/EX

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-290 05 ARISS Status - 11 October 2010

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 290 05 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD October 17, 2010 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-290 05

1. IRSEA Contact Successful

An Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact took place between IRSEA, a non-profit Institute of Research and Education, in Bisceglie, Italy and Doug Wheelock, KF5BOC on the ISS on Tuesday, October 5, via telebridge station K6DUE in Greenbelt, Maryland Michele Mallardi, IZ7EVR introduced the ARISS event with a presentation to an audience of 100 students and visitors Obscurations from the ISS structure may have hindered the contact, allowing time for five questions to be answered The contact was part of a professional education program, “Promotion of the characteristics of the Puglia region” which dealt with space communications, space life, space achievements, advantage of space research, use of man-made satellites and the International Space Station

1. ARISSat-1 Safety Review this Week

The Johnson Space Center Payload Safety Review Panel will perform a Phase 2 flight safety review of ARISSat-1 on the mornings of Wednesday and Thursday, October 13 and 14 in Houston Participation in the review will include U S and Russian ARISSat team members as well as RSC-Energia safety specialists

1. Challenger Learning Center Opens Ham Station

On Monday October 4, a satellite ground station was opened at the Challenger Learning Center (CLC) in Oregon, Ohio The station will pique students’ interest in math and science and will allow the youth to contact the International Space Station CLC will provide lesson plans and activities on amateur radio and will use the system during camps and workshops The Toldeo Blade posted a story on the event “Kids wired to learn to operate ham radios” may be found at: http://www toledoblade com/article/20101009/NEWS16/10080352

1. ARISS Facebook Page Status

Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) has generated some interest since it launched its Facebook page at the end of August To view, go to: http://www facebook com/pages/Amateur-Radio-on-the-International-Space-Station/ 143541532324016

[ANS thanks Carol, KB3LKI, for the above information]

/EX

In addition to regular membership, AMSAT offers membership in the President's Club Members of the President's Club, as sustaining donors to AMSAT Project Funds, will be eligible to receive additional benefits Application forms are available from the AMSAT Office

73, This week's ANS Editor, Lee McLamb, KU4OS ku4os at amsat dot org

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