AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-293

The AMSAT News Service bulletins are a free, weekly news and infor- mation service of AMSAT, The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation ANS publishes news related to Amateur Radio in Space including reports on the activities of a worldwide group of Amateur Radio operators who share an active interest in designing, building, launching and commun- icating through analog and digital Amateur Radio satellites

The news feed on http://www amsat org publishes news of Amateur Radio in Space as soon as our volunteers can post it

Please send any amateur satellite news or reports to: ans-editor at amsat org

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In this edition:

• 2019 AMSAT Symposium Underway! Livestream Available
• AMSAT Board of Directors Announces 2019 Officers
• AMSAT-UK Colloquium Videos Available
• Cubesat Simulators Launched
• Changes to AMSAT-NA TLE Distribution
• Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule
• Upcoming Satellite Operations
• Satellite Shorts From All Over

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-293 01 ANS-293 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 293 01 From AMSAT HQ KENSINGTON, MD DATE 2019-Oct-19 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-293 01

2019 AMSAT Symposium Underway! Livestream Available

The 37th Annual AMSAT Space Symposium and General Meeting has begun, and will continue through Sunday, October 20, 2019, at The Hilton Ar- lingtonin in Arlington, Virginia Sessions are being live streamed at https://www facebook com/AMSATNA/

The AMSAT Board of Directors met just before the Symposium, Oct 16-17, at the same hotel

The Symposium, which celebrates 50 years of AMSAT, features OSCAR Park –- a display of satellites from throughout the history of amateur rad- io in space Paper presentations and the AMSAT Annual General Meeting will also be featured The schedule of presentation is available at https://www amsat org/symposium-schedule/

[ANS thanks Paul Stoetzer, N8HM, AMSAT Executive Vice President for the above information]

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AMSAT Board of Directors Announces 2019 Officers

These are the results of the 2019 AMSAT Board of Directors meeting vote for Officers:

• Joe Spier, K6WAO, of Reno, Nev , as President
• Paul Stoetzer, N8HM, of Washington, DC, as Executive Vice President
• Jerry Buxton, N0JY, of Granbury, Texas, as Vice-President Engineer- ing
• Drew Glasbrenner, KO4MA, of New Port Richey, Fla , as Vice-President Operations
• Frank Bauer, KA3HDO, of Silver Spring, Md , as Vice-President Human Spaceflight
• Robert Bankston, KE4AL, of Dothan, Ala as Vice-President User Ser- vices
• Frank Karnauskas, N1UW, of Burnsville, Minn as Vice-President Devel- opment
• Alan Johnston, KU2Y, of Philadelphia, PA as Vice-President Educa- tional Relations
• Brennan Price, N4QX, of Vienna, Va , as Secretary
• Robert Bankston, KE4AL, of Dothan, Ala , as Treasurer
• Martha Saragovitz of Silver Spring, Md , as Manager

The Board of Directors appointed officers for the new year at its meeting in Arlington, Va on Wednesday, Oct 16 Officers are selected by the Board from among the AMSAT membership, based on expertise and experience

[ANS thanks Paul Stoetzer, N8HM, Executive Vice President for the above information]

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      Purchase AMSAT Gear on our Zazzle storefront

     25% of the purchase price of each product goes
       towards Keeping Amateur Radio in Space
         https://www
zazzle
com/amsat_gear

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AMSAT-UK Colloquium Videos Available

Videos of the presentations given at the AMSAT-UK International Space Colloquium, which was held as part of the RSGB Convention in Milton Keynes, October 12-13, 2019, are being made available on YouTube

The first of the videos is the fascinating presentation on the WUSAT-3 CubeSat project given by Professor Julia Hunter-Anderson of the Uni- versity of Warwick which highlights the potential use of CubeSats for wildlife tracking

Other presentations are expected to be uploaded in the coming weeks

The AMSAT-UK videos are located on their YouTube channel at https://www youtube com/user/AMSATUK/videos

AMSAT-UK wishes to thank the British Amateur Television Club and Wouter Weggelaar, PA3WEG, for their work in recording, editing and uploading these videos

[ANS thanks Trevor Essex, M5AKA, and AMSAT-UK for the above informa- tion]

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Cubesat Simulators Launched

Dr Alan Johnston, KU2Y, Vice President - Educational Affairs has announced the general availability of the AMSAT Cubesat Simulators Speaking at the 37th Annual Space Symposium, Alan reports that since the prototype Cubesat Simulators were introduced at Hamvention in May, 2019, the simulators have undergone testing and final release Among the schools testing the simulators was Bishop O'Connell High School in Arlington, Virginia Science and Engineering teacher Melissa Pore presented to the symposium audience her experience with using a simulator in one of her engineering clubs and how her student benefitted from their use

A Cubesat Simulator is a self-contained satellite model that reports solar cell performance via standard AFSK 1200 BPS AX 25 telemetry The telemetry can be decoded with a simple SDR ground station A Cubesat Simulator package consists of the 1U simulator, a halogen work light to simulate sunshine, and a motorized rotating turntable that mimics the satellite tumbling through space The four loaner packages are packed and shipped in a hard case The simulator is shipped prepaid while the user pays return shipping

Persons interested in borrowing a CubeSat Simulator for a local presentation is encouraged to contact Alan at KU2Y at amsat dot org

[ANS thanks Alan Johnston, KU2Y, AMSAT Vice President - Educational Affairs ]

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Need new satellite antennas? Purchase Arrows, Alaskan Arrows,

and M2 LEO-Packs from the AMSAT Store When you purchase through AMSAT, a portion of the proceeds goes towards Keeping Amateur Radio in Space https://amsat org/product-category/hardware/

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Changes to AMSAT-NA TLE Distribution

The following Amateur Radio satellite has decayed from orbit and has been removed from this week's TLE distribution:

TNS 0-2 - NORAD CAT ID 42914 - Decayed 10/15/2019 (per Space-Track)

Last week a number of "N"s were present in a few TLEs which caused some programs to reject those TLEs Note: Some (but not all) of the raw TLEs from SpaceTrack have plus signs (+) which are not necessary All plus signs (+) in the TLEs are routinely changed to a blank space

Last week all plus signs were incorrectly changed to the letter "N" This was due to a change in the formatting program and a typing error that substituted a "N" instead of a single blank space everytime a plus sign was present That problem has been corrected and should not be an issue in the future

[ANS thanks Ray Hoad, WA5QGD, for the above information]

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  The Fox-In-A-Box Raspberry Pi SD card for setting up a
Raspberry Pi-based telemetry station for the Fox-1 satellites
            now supports the Raspberry Pi 4

           Get yours today on the AMSAT Store!
https://amsat
org/product/fox-in-a-box-raspberry-pi-sd-card/

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Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule

An International Space Station school contact was completed with par- ticipants at Science & Technologie e V event: Science Days, Teningen, Germany on Thursday, Oct 17 The event lasted approximately 9 minutes and 30 seconds, direct between OR4ISS and DN1EME The contact was audible over Germany and adjacent areas on the 145 80 MHz downlink

ARISS has received word that the EVA that took place on Friday, Oct 18 has caused changes to the schedule Thus, some contacts now have new times

Istituto Comprensivo Statale “Diego Valeri”, Campolongo Maggiore, Italy, direct via IQ3RW and Istituto Comprensivo Ladispoli1, Ladispoli, Italy, direct via IKØWGF, the ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be IRØISS and the scheduled astronaut is Luca Parmitano, KF5KDP The contact is go for: Saturday, Oct 19 at 10:27:13 UTC (26 degrees)

Watch for live stream from IQ3RW side of the contact at: https://tinyurl com/y5pcyr9m

Watch for live stream from IKØWGF side of the contact directly on the AMSAT Italia youtube channel: https://www youtube com/channel/UCkJ8IFmfTO-pUkVFNrUXIcg

Liceo Scientifico Teresa Gullace, Rome, Italy,direct via IZØDIB and I S I S “ Zaccagna - Galilei” sede “G Galilei”, Carrara Italy, di- rect via IQ5VR, the ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be IRØISS and the scheduled astronaut is Luca Parmitano, KF5KDP Contact is go for: Thursday, Oct 24 at 11:13:40 UTC (79 degrees)

I I S “Ciampini-Boccardo”, Novi Ligure, Italy, direct via I1LJV and I T I S "Magistri Cumacini", Como, Italy, direct via IZ2MCC, the ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be IRØISS The scheduled astronaut is Luca Parmitano, KF5KDP Contact is go for: Friday, Oct 25 at 10:24:39 UTC (83 degrees)

The ARISS webpage is at https://www ariss org/

[ANS thanks Charlie Sufana, AJ9N, of the ARISS operation team for the above information]

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AMSAT, along with our ARISS partners, is developing an amateur radio package, including two-way communication capability, to be carried on-board Gateway in lunar orbit Support AMSAT's projects today at https://www amsat org/donate/

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Upcoming Satellite Operations

St Lucia, October 19-28, 2019 Jay, AA4FL, will be in St Lucia for the J68MD CQWW SSB Contest Team Jay will be doing OSCAR satellite operation as J6/AA4FL, by schedule as he is visiting vacation style in varying locations His schedule will depend on shifts as a team member of the CQWW J68MD team E-mail per QRZ to coordinate both FM simple SATs and SSB linear transponder bird QSO schedules Radios will be a FT-817ND and FT-818ND for full duplex operation using an Arrow II antenna

Oregon, DN04, October 21, 2019 KI7UNJ will be QRV on Oct 21, from 1653z to 1910z, FM only

Colombia, through October, 2019 The special event stations J500LDV, 5J500D, 5J500L, and 5J500V will commemorate the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci's death on the air until the end of October QRV on 80 to 10m on CW, SSB, digital modes, and via satellite An award program will be available as well QSL via HK3VHZ, LoTW, eQSL

Texas, EL06, EL16 and adjacent grids, November 2-9, 2019 Ron Bondy, AD0DX, reports on Twitter that he will be flying to San Antonio and hopes to activate as many as 10 south Texas grids Watch Twitter @ad0dx for details

Hawaii (BK19, BK28, BK29, BL20) December 21-28, 2019 Alex, N7AGF, is heading back to Hawaii over Christmas This will be a holiday-style activation, with special empahasis on the grid that got away – BK28 Keep an eye on Alex’s Twitter feed for further announce- ments: https://twitter com/N7AGF

Please submit any additions or corrections to ke4al (at) amsat org

[ANS thanks Robert Bankston, KE4AL, AMSAT Vice-President of User Ser- vices for the above information]

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Satellite Shorts From All Over

• The AMSAT Office will be closed on Monday, October 21 as the AMSAT Symposium wraps up (ANS thanks Martha Saragovitz, AMSAT Manager, for the above informa- tion -- you deserve a day off, Martha!)

• Astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir carried out history’s first all-female spacewalk Friday, floating outside the Internation- al Space Station and successfully installing a 230-pound replacement battery charger in the lab’s solar power system The historic excur- sion was carried out in a blaze of public interest that rose all the way to the White House (ANS thanks Spaceflight Now for the above information)

• NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine has named Douglas Loverro as the agency’s new associate administrator for the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate Loverro succeeds former astronaut Kenneth Bowersox, who has been acting associate administrator since July Previously, Loverro spent three decades in the Department of Defense and the National Reconnaissance Office developing, managing, and establishing national policy for the full range of national security space activities (ANS thanks spaceref com for the above information)

• SpaceX is seeking approval to add up to 30,000 more satellites to its Starlink broadband network, on top of 12,000 spacecraft already authorized by U S government regulators, according to filings sub- mitted to the International Telecommunication Union (ANS thanks Spaceflight Now for the above information)

• Possibly related to the previous news item, LeoLabs announced that they plan to build four additional radar installations for tracking space debris Their current installations can track objects down to about a 10 cm diameter, but with their new installations they’ll theoretically be able to track objects as small as 2 cm In general, current radar systems tend to be limited on the lower end to objects in the 5-10 cm range Systems like LeoLabs’ and the U S Air Force’s upcoming Marshall Islands-based Space Fence will improve coverage, but still won’t see the 128 million objects from 1 mm to 1 cm, which have the potential to disable or completely destroy a satellite (ANS thanks The Orbital Index for the above information)

• Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, who became the first person in his- tory to spacewalk in 1965, has died aged 85 He went on to become the commander of Soyuz-Apollo, the first ever joint US-Soviet mis- sion in 1975 Leonov died at Moscow's Burdenko hospital on Friday, Oct 11 after a long illness (ANS thanks BBC com for the above information)

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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 addi- tional benefits Application forms are available from the AMSAT Office

Primary and secondary school students are eligible for membership at one-half the standard yearly rate Post-secondary school students enrolled in at least half time status shall be eligible for the stu- dent rate for a maximum of 6 post-secondary years in this status Contact Martha at the AMSAT Office for additional student membership information

73 and Remember to help keep amateur radio in space, This week's ANS Editor,

K0JM at amsat dot org

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Via the ANS mailing list courtesy of AMSAT-NA https://www amsat org/mailman/listinfo/ans