AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-173

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

You can sign up for free e-mail delivery of the AMSAT News Service Bulletins via the ANS List; to join this list see: http://www amsat org/mailman/listinfo/ans

In this edition:

• AMSAT Announces Candidates for 2020 Board of Directors Election
• AMSAT Announces GridMaster Award
• CAS-6 Online
• Amicalsat - Aurora Pictures
• Raspberry Pi FUNcube Satellite Telemetry Decoder Now Available
• ORI Announces ARRL Foundation Grant Award
• ORI Announces YASME Foundation Grant Award
• 38th Annual AMSAT Space Symposium and Annual General Meeting Moving to Virtual Event
• Upcoming Satellite Operations
• ARISS News
• Hamfests, Conventions, Maker Faires, and Other Events
• Satellite Shorts From All Over

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-173 01 ANS-173 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 173 01 From AMSAT HQ KENSINGTON, MD DATE June 21, 2020 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-173 01

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 Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the AMSAT office
is closed until further notice
 For details, please visit

https://www amsat org/amsat-office-closed-until-further-notice/

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AMSAT Announces Candidates for 2020 Board of Directors Election

The nomination period for this year's AMSAT Board of Directors election ended June 15 The following candidates have been found to have their membership in good standing and their nomination credentials in order:

Howard DeFelice, AB2S Mark Hammond, N8MH Jeff Johns, WE4B Robert McGwier, N4HY Bruce Paige, KK5DO Paul Stoetzer, N8HM

This year, AMSAT will be electing three voting members of the Board of Directors These will go to the three candidates receiving the highest number of votes In addition, there will be two alternates chosen, based on the next highest number of votes received

Further details regarding the mechanics of the election will appear in ANS in the near future Ballots will be mailed to the AMSAT membership by July 15th based on a membership list that will be generated as early as July 1 Members are encouraged to use the AMSAT Membership Portal at launch amsat org to verify that their membership is in good standing and their mailing address is correct

[ANS thanks Brennan Price, N4QX, AMSAT Secretary, for the above information]

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AMSAT Announces GridMaster Award

Bruce Paige, KK5DO, AMSAT Director and Contest and Awards Manager, announced AMSAT is now the official sponsor of the GridMaster Award, effective June 15, 2020 This award was first introduced in 2014 by the Star Comm Group AMSAT thanks Damon Runion, WA4HFN, and Rick Tillman, WA4NVM, for not only developing and sponsoring this award since its inception, but, also, entrusting AMSAT with the honor of carrying on this important award for the benefit of the entire AMSAT community

The GridMaster Award is available to all amateurs worldwide who submit proof with written confirmation of contacts with each of the 488 maidenhead grids located within the 48 contiguous United States of America

Two-way communication must be established via amateur satellite with each grid There is no minimum signal report required

Contacts must be made from the same location, or from locations no two of which are more than 200 kilometers apart The applicant’s attestation in the award application serves as affirmation of abidance to the distance rule There are no endorsements and no recognized tiers of progression; however, amateur operators may apply for and be granted multiple GridMaster awards, when operating from separate and unique 200-kilometer circles

A numbered and dated certificate will be awarded to each person who qualifies for the award at no cost In addition, awardees may purchase an engraved plaque to commemorate their achievement

Since its introduction, ten amateur satellite operators have claimed the title of Grid Master:

01 John Papay, K8YSE 02 Doug Papay, KD8CAO 03 Rick Tillman, WA4NVM 04 Glenn Miller, AA5PK 05 Clayton Coleman, W5PFG 06 Alvaro De Leon R , XE2AT 07 Fernando Ramirez, NP4JV 08 Ron Oldham, N8RO 09 Randy Kohlwey, WI7P 10 Frank Westphal, K6FW

So, who will be awarded AMSAT's GridMaster Certificate No 11? Are you up for the challenge?

Please visit amsat org/gridmaster/ for further details

[ANS thanks Bruce Paige, KK5DO, AMSAT Director of Contests and Awards for the above information]

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CAS-6 Online

The CAS-6 V/UHF antenna has been deployed today Due to some OBC failures, CW beacon and GMSK telemetry are not working properly At present, only the carriers are transmitted on the two frequencies, the linear transponder has been put into operation We will then try to diagnose and then determine whether the CW and telemetry data stream transmission can be recovered

CW Telemetry Beacon: 145 910MHz AX 25 4 8kbps GMSK Telemetry: 145 890MHz U/V Linear Transponder Downlink: 145 925MHz, 20kHz bandwidth, Inverted U/V Linear Transponder Uplink: 435 280MHz

TLE:

CAS-6(2019-093C) 1 44881U 19093C 20170 81187924 - 00001118 00000-0 -13581-3 0 9991 2 44881 97 9575 246 8556 0015830 36 2280 323 9959 14 81412013 26893

[ANS thanks Alan Kung, BA1DU for the above information]

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AMSAT's GOLF Program is about getting back to higher orbits, and it all begins with GOLF-TEE – a technology demonstrator for deployable solar panels, propulsion, and attitude control Come along for the ride The journey will be worth it!

              https://tinyurl
com/ANS-GOLF

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Amicalsat - Aurora Pictures

The Vega rocket (VV16) was scheduled to launch from Kourou on 19 June 2020 01:51:10 GMT with 53 satellites on board Due to wind conditions this launch has been delayed until at least 21 June

One of the satellites that will be leaving is the Amicalsat satellite built by the CSUG (Centre Spatial Universitaire Grenoblois) The measurements made by the satellite will be available to all They will allow radio amateurs to use them for propagation predictions

The project's website (in English) has just been put online: http://amicalsat univ-grenoble-alpes fr/

The Amsat-Francophone supported this project: http://site amsat-f org/amicalsat/

Software (Linux & Windows) is provided for decoding the telemetry and sending it to the database (SatNogs) The user manual is available (in English)

https://tinyurl com/Amicalsat-User-Manual

Beacon Frequency Modes Callsign UHF 436 1 MHz AFSK 1200 RS17S S band 2,415 3 MHz GFSK 1000 kb/s http://amsat-f org/AMSATLIST/SatellitePage/UK/0Amicalsat html

Reports are welcome Thank you for your help

[ANS thanks Christophe Mercier, AMSAT-F Chairman 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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Raspberry Pi FUNcube Satellite Telemetry Decoder Now Available

The FUNcube Team has announced the availability of FUNcube CubeSat sat- ellite telemetry decoder software for the popular Raspberry Pi computer board

The original FUNcube telemetry decoder and Dashboard was designed to run on Windows devices and the FUNcube team did publish the telemetry format in accordance with the Amateur Satellite Service traditions and requirements The Team had planned to opensource the Telemetry Decoder and provide an implementation on Linux, but several new missions after the original FUNcube-1 delayed their plans somewhat

Late 2019, the Team had the opportunity to develop a low power/low im- pact ground station, based on Docker containers, for use at the Neu- mayer III Antarctic base at DP0GVN This led us to evolve the code such that it would run on a Raspberry Pi

The Linux implementation is suitable for use on Raspberry Pi versions from 2B+ to 4 and with a FUNcube dongle (Pro or Pro+) The software will tune a dongle to search for and track all three FUNcube compatible spacecraft currently operational The Telemetry Decoder is configured with five active decoders operating concurrently so it can deal with situations where more than one of the spacecraft are overhead at the same time

The decoder and warehouse uploader run as a Docker container for con- venience shell scripts have been provided to launch the container in one of two modes:

• “Interactive Mode” is when the Telemetry Decoder operates in the fore- ground , when FUNcube compatible telemetry is received, the correspond- ing hex data is displayed on the terminal screen

• “Background Mode” allows the telemetry decoder to run as a Docker image in the background where it operates much like any other back- ground service on Linux This mode allows for the automatic restarting of the telemetry decoder after a shutdown or reboot of the Raspberry Pi, therefore making it suitable for a remote deployment situation

*Both modes, when connected to the internet, will upload the received data to the FUNcube Data Warehouse and the totals displayed on the Ranking Page in the normal manner

*Uploading to the warehouse requires online registration with the FUN- cube Data Warehouse

All the code for the telemetry decoder, and the scripts to build the Docker images, are now published online under a GPL Open Source License at the FUNcube-Dev GitHub account https://github com/funcube-dev

Alternatively, it possible to buy a pre-formatted microSD card for the Pi from the AMSAT-UK shop at https://shop amsat-uk org/

Full instructions PDF can be downloaded from https://tinyurl com/RPi-FUNcube-Decoder

FUNcube Data Warehouse http://warehouse funcube org uk/missions

[ANS thanks AMSAT-UK for the above information]

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ORI Announces ARRL Foundation Grant Award

ORI, a 501(c)(3) dedicated to open source research and development in amateur radio, has been awarded a $3,000 grant from the ARRL Foundation This grant, the maximum amount, will be immediately applied to Phase 1 of the Digital Multiplex Transponder research and development program This grant allows hardware prototypes for broad- band microwave digital payloads to proceed much more quickly

Established in 1973 by the American Radio Relay League, Inc (ARRL) as an independent and separate 501(c)(3) organization, the ARRL Foundation administers programs to support the Amateur Radio community

Funded entirely by the generous contributions of radio amateurs and friends, ARRL Foundation administers programs for Amateur Radio award scholarships for higher education, award grants for Amateur Radio projects, and award special Amateur Radio program grants for The Victor C Clark Youth Incentive Program and The Jesse A Bieberman Meritorious Membership Program

[ANS thanks Michelle Thompson, W5NVY, CEO and Director, ORI for the above information]

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ORI Announces YASME Foundation Grant Award

ORI, a 501(c)(3) dedicated to open source research and development in amateur radio, has been awarded a $30,000 grant from the Yasme Foundation This grant completes the Phase 1 fundraising campaign and allows ORI’s communications prototype work for geosynchronous and interplanetary amateur radio satellites to proceed

The Yasme Foundation is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation organized to support scientific and educational projects related to amateur radio, including DXing (long distance communication) and the introduction and promotion of amateur radio in developing countries Yasme supports various projects relating to amateur radio, with an emphasis on developing amateur radio in emerging countries and encouraging youth participation in amateur radio

The Yasme Foundation makes supporting grants to individuals and organizations providing or creating useful services for the amateur radio community Regardless of originality or novelty, Yasme supports these programs in order to further the development of amateur radio around the world

[ANS thanks Michelle Thompson, W5NVY, CEO and Director, ORI for the above information]

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38th Annual AMSAT Space Symposium and Annual General Meeting Moving to Virtual Event

The 38th Annual AMSAT Space Symposium and Annual General Meeting in-person event scheduled to be held in Bloomington, Minnesota has been canceled The event will be shifted to a virtual, online platform This comes after a decision made between AMSAT's Senior Leadership and Board of Directors in response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic While AMSAT recognizes the national challenges related to recent events in Minneapolis, they have no bearing on the Symposium decision whatsoever We anticipate holding the 2021 Annual Space Symposium at the previously announced 2020 venue

The in-person event was scheduled to occur Friday, October 16 through Sunday, October 18 As the 2020 virtual event plans are developed, they will be announced via the usual AMSAT channels

[ANS thanks the AMSAT Office for the above information]

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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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Upcoming Satellite Operations

• Quick Hits DN65/66 (Sunday 6/22/2020) N7EGY

• Major Roves: DL88: Ron (@AD0DX) and Doug (@N6UA) are making another run at the elusive DL88 in Big Bend National Park, TX As we know they tried this grid back in March, and due to the mud couldn't get to the grid, so never ones to quit, off they go again Today the tentative date is Monday July 6, 2020 They will be using the K5Z call sign More information is available at the K5Z QRZ Page

https://www amsat org/satellite-info/upcoming-satellite-operations/

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

[ANS thanks Paul Overn, KE0PBR, 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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ARISS News

ARISS lets students worldwide experience the excitement of talking directly with crew members of the International Space Station, inspir- ing them to pursue interests in careers in science, technology, engineering and math, and engaging them with radio science technology through amateur radio

No upcoming events reported

The ARISS team continues to test and firm up a plan to transform ARISS contacts and how ARISS interacts with youth and education institutions ARISS will provide distance learning with every student and staff mem- ber in their own homes (even quarantined)

[ANS thanks ARISS for the above information]

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Hamfests, Conventions, Maker Faires, and Other Events

Want to see AMSAT in action or learn more about amateur radio in space? AMSAT Ambassadors provide presentations, demonstrate communicating through amateur satellites, and host information tables at club meetings, hamfests, conventions, maker faires, and other events

Due to COVID-19, many hamfest and events around the United States have been canceled or postponed While we make every effort to ensure the information contained below is correct, there may be some that we missed We wish all of you safekeeping and hope to be at a hamfest near you soon

*No events currently scheduled

A copy of the AMSAT hamfest brochure is available for download from: https://bit ly/2ygVFmV This color brochure is designed to be printed double-sided and folded into a tri-fold handout

To include your upcoming AMSAT presentation and/or demonstration, please send an email to ambassadors (at) amsat (dot) org

[ANS thanks Robert Bankston, KE4AL, AMSAT VP-User Services, for the above information]

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Satellite Shorts From All Over

• Diwata-2 (PO-101) has been active daily to provide emergency access during the COVID-19 pandemic Check https://twitter com/Diwata2PH for the daily activation schedule [ANS thanks DIWATA-2 Ground Team for the above information]

• The following satellite has decayed from orbit and has been removed From this week's AMSAT-NA TLE Distribution: 1KUNS-PF - NORAD Cat ID 43466 (Decayed from orbit June 11, 2020 per Space-Track)

• A new organization, the National Radio Society of Ireland (NRSI) has has been newly founded this year, 2020 Membership is open to all amateur radio operators and shortwave listeners who are either full- time residents or who have, in the past, spent a minimum of two months in Ireland as a visitor NRSI became member association of the European Radio Amateurs' Organization (EURAO) on June 11 For details, see https://www nrsi ie [ANS thanks EURAO 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,

Casey Tucker, KI7UNJ ki7unj at amsat dot org

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