The Arsenal Files 6/The Arsenal Files 6 (Arsenal Computer).ISO/ham/amsat063.zip/AMSAT063.TXT

Text File | 1996-03-10 | 14KB | 326 lines

SB SAT @ AMSAT  $ANS-063.01
AMSAT MEETING IN FRANCE

HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 063.01 FROM AMSAT HQ
SILVER SPRING, MD March 3, 1996
TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT
BID: $ANS-063.01


On Saturday February 23th, Vincent Magrou F5JFT representing
the REF Union at IARU, welcomed in Tours REF Headquarter 230 Km
south of Paris an AMSAT delegation including Bill Tynan W3XO,
President of AMSAT-NA, Vice President for Engineering Dick Jansson WD4FAB
and Peter Guelzow DB2OS from AMSAT-DL one of the OSCAR 13 control station.

Were also present Gerard Auvray F6FAO and Bernard Pidoux F6BVP
Vice Presidents of the Radio Amateur Club de l'Espace and three
representatives of the Club Aerospatial de la Celle Saint Cloud,
who are awaiting callsigns after having obtained successfully their French
Novice radioamateur license exams.

Members of the CAC, RACE and DELTAC a third Club interested in space
telecommunications have decided to create AMSAT France in order to promote
activity in the field of amateur per satellite service in France.

During the meeting Peter DB2OS was presented a 30,000 French Frank check by
Jean Marie Gaucheron F3YP REF Union President representing a
donation from REF to Phase 3-D Project.

At the same occasion RACE presented to Dick Jansson WD4FAB two L band
antenna reflectors for use on the Phase 3D satellite. They are composed of
a 500 mm disk with a straight 78 mm border all in one piece without
soldering and manufactured using a special process.  The realization
of these antennas have been supported by RACE and performed by a
company near Bordeaux with the help of hams from the Club Jeune Science.

Those contributions were performed by AMSAT France in order to
significantly and effectively contribute to the Phase 3D satellite
project. They follow $2700 of individual donations from french
radio amateurs recorded by AMSAT-NA for Phase 3D.

AMSAT France expressed the hope that it will be receiving additional
contributions in order to help Phase 3D's successful achievement.

ANS thanks Henri ORLAND,  and Bernard PIDOUX, F6BVP

/EX

SB SAT @ AMSAT  $ANS-063.02
DARC SUPPORT OF PHASE 3D DETAILED

HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 063.02 FROM AMSAT HQ
SILVER SPRING, MD March 3, 1996
TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT
BID: $ANS-063.02

DARC contribution now total 900,000 DM, or about $ 600.000 according to
Norbert Notthoff, DF5DP (DARC Staff Satellites And Space Projects.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

He states that in 1991 the Deutscher Amateur Radio Club (DARC) signed an
agreement with AMSAT-DL to support the Phase-3-D Project with 150,000 DM
per year over a period of six years to a total sum of 900,000 DM.  The DARC
is the national German amateur radio organization within the IARU and
represents nearly 60,000 hams in that country.

In 1991 the DARC General Assembly had agreed to provide a major support to
Phase-3-D, which it felt to be an important project for the whole Amateur
Radio Service.  The Assembly felt that this project demonstrates the state
of the art of Amateur Radio as a means for technical development and self
education. Additionally Phase-3D will enforce the usage of the ham radio
microwave bands, which are under high pressure from other services.
These are the main reasons why the DARC General Assembly decided to support
the Phase-3D Project with contributions amounting to about $ 10 per member.

In the recent years, DARC believes that its decision to support Phase-3D
was very wise, because there are many threats against the Amateur Radio
Service not only in Europe but elsewhere.

DARC welcomes that meanwhile some more national IARU member societies
support the AMSAT groups with donations for Phase 3-D.

DARC's first payment was made in 1990, and the sixth and last in 1995
completing its pledge of 900,000 DM.  DF5DP expressed pride that DARC
could help to realize Phase3-D with this substantial contribution.

ANS thanks Norbert Notthoff, DF5DP of DARC for this valuable information.

/EX



SB SAT @ AMSAT  $ANS-063.03
ARIANE-501 LAUNCH CAMPAIGN BEGINS

HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 063.03 FROM AMSAT HQ
SILVER SPRING, MD March 3, 1996
TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT
BID: $ANS-063.03


Preparations for the launch campaign for the first Ariane-5
qualification flight (501) are under way in Europe and at the
Guiana Space Centre, Europe's spaceport.  The main launcher
elements (cryogenic main stage, storable propellant stage,
vehicle equipment bay, Speltra and fairing) arrived in Kourou
on 14 February on board the Toucan.  The solid booster stages
are assembled on site in Guiana.

The Flight Readiness Review for this first Ariane-5 mission
(Ariane 501/Cluster) took place on 19 and 20 February at the
CNES facilities in Evry, France.  After detailed examination
of the configuration and the quality of the hardware items
making up the launcher, and with due regard to the status of
current activities, the Review gave permission for the 501
launch campaign to start on 4 March.

Provided all operations proceed smoothly, the target date for
the launch is now set at 15 May 1996.

The European Space Agency has delegated the management
of its Ariane-5 programme to CNES, the French space agency.



SB SAT @ AMSAT  $ANS-063.04
EUROMIR 95 MISSION ENDS

HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 063.04 FROM AMSAT HQ
SILVER SPRING, MD March 3, 1996
TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT
BID: $ANS-063.04


Astronaut Reiter lands, ending longest ESA manned mission The
record-breaking six-month EUROMIR 95 mission of ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter
came to an end February 29th with the successful landing of the Soyuz TM-22
spacecraft.  Thomas Reiter and Russian cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei
Avdeev have been aboard the Mir space station since September 1995.  The
highlights of the mission included the first spacewalks by an ESA
astronaut, a docking by the space shuttle Atlantis and extensive scientific
research.  The EUROMIR missions are an important step for international
cooperation in view of ESA's participation in the International
Space Station program.

Reiter and his Russian crewmates landed in the steppes of
Kazakhstan at  13:42 Moscow time).  Their capsule touched down about 107
kilometres northeast of Arkalyk. Recovery teams were quickly at the scene
and the three men are reported to be in good health. Reiter was
greeted at the landing site by ESA astronaut Christer Fuglesang, his backup
and point of contact at mission control, Kaliningrad. ESA Director General
Jean-Marie Luton and Director of ESA's Manned Space Flight and Microgravity
Programme Jorg Feustel B¡echl will welcome the crew on
their arrival at Star City this evening.

The Soyuz TM-22 crew bid farewell to their two-man relief crew, Yuri
Onufrienko and Yuri Usachev, and undocked from Mir at 08h20 CET (10h20
Moscow time) . The craft's engines were fired at 10h47 CET (12h47 Moscow
time) to begin the descent. After jettisoning the spacecraft's orbital and
service modules, the Soyuz descent capsule reentered the atmosphere.
The fall to earth was slowed by parachutes and a last-minute
burst from the capsule's retro-rockets.

Reiter, a 37 year-old German, has entered the record books as
the first ESA astronaut to perform a spacewalk and the first
European to make a second walk in space. At 180 days, his
mission is the longest by a non-Russian.

Reiter made his spacewalks on 20th September, 1995, and 8th February 1996.
During the first walk, he mounted a European experiment, called European
Science Exposure Facility (ESEF), to the exterior of the Spektr module.
ESEF was designed to expose materials to space and capture man-made
space debris and naturally occurring cosmic dust.  On his second excursion
into space, Reiter retrieved two of the experiment's cassettes.

The Mir crew welcomed visitors to their orbital home when the space shuttle
Atlantis (STS-74) came calling. The shuttle arrived at Mir on 15th November
1995 and spent three days docked with the station.

Most of Reiter's time aboard the station was spent on an extensive
programme of research devised by European scientists.  The experiments
spanned the fields of live sciences, astrophysics, material sciences and
technology.


ANS thanks Bernard Pidoux F6BVP for this information.

/EX

SB SAT @ AMSAT  $ANS-063.05
AMSAT BULLETIN BOARD COORDINATOR RESIGNS

HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 063.05 FROM AMSAT HQ
SILVER SPRING, MD March 3, 1996
TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT
BID: $ANS-063.05


AMSAT's Bulletin Board Coordinator, John Wisniowski N6DBF has announced
that, because of new employment, he no longer has the free time that he
once did.  Because of this, he is no longer able to keep the AMSAT files up
to date on a regular basis and advises that the OCA BBS should be dropped
from the list of AMSAT bulletin boards and that he must resign as Bulletin
Board Coordinator.

John notes that, with the ever increasing use of the Internet to obtain up
to date information, the AMSAT BBS Network may not be as important as it
once was.

He thanks all the SYSOP's for their many hours of service to their fellow
ham's.

President Bill Tynan W3XO expressed thanks to John for his work on behalf
of AMSAT.

/EX


SB SAT @ AMSAT  $ANS-063.06
SATELLITE STATUS

HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 063.06 FROM AMSAT HQ
SILVER SPRING, MD March 3, 1996
TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT
BID: $ANS-063.06

RS-10

Gary Rogers WA4YMZ counters the rumor that RS-10 has been having problems,
He says that he likes to work the early morning passes (about 0900-1100UTC)
and will often find himself in the middle of a passband that's empty except
for his signal which sounds fine.  What he has noticed, though, have been
some difficulty on the evening passes where the signals are way down except
for one or two loud signals that seem to say "HELLO TEST"  etc.

He notes that these signals are invariably about 5 times stronger than
everyone else.   He speculates that RS-10's problem may simply be
overloading of the bird by folks that don't know better.

WO-18

WEBERSAT (WO-18) is currently sending telemetry, photos, weekly whole orbit
data (WOD), and light spectra of the Sun or Earth, on Mondays.

The satellite's digipeater continues in operation using an uplink on
145.900 MHz.  Using a terminal program connected to your TNC/PSK modem,
try connecting to yourself using the following TNC command:

cmd: c yourcall via weber-1

If you're successful, try a few CQs and see who is listening...Enjoy!

Photo 10/14 of Southern Chad is the current image.  It has very good
contrast with very few clouds and land features clearly visible.  Use WW1.3
to convert the photo to a GIF image, then use your favorite graphics
program to size it, and adjust the contrast and brightness slightly.

The satellite continues to have a weak and relatively steady tone of about
1200 Hz in the downlink signal, which can cause reception problems with
some modems.  If this problem occurs, a ground-based solution is to adjust
the IF-shift of the receiver to suppress the carrier into the skirts of the
IF filter.  Night reception seems to be better than in the daytime.

WOD collection and broadcast will adhere to the following schedule:

 3 March/Week3: BCR, 21 22 29 2F 33 36
10 March/Week4: Temperatures and impact detector, Ch# 14 2F 30 35 3B 40
17 March/Week1: Array currents, Ch# 26 27 28 29 2A 2B

This information come from Tom Davis, IK3WVJ through Space News.  ANS
thanks both for making it available.

LU-19

Chuck, W9ODI reports that there is a corrupt directory header on the LUSAT
OSCAR-19 satellite.  The header belongs to file 48CD, dated 24-Dec-95.
Corrupt directory headers cause confusion to groundstation software,
such as PB, WiSP, and SatLink.  A solution to the problem is to delete
the PFHDIR.HOL file and request a new LUSAT directory when accessing
the satellite.  He cautions everyone to remember not to request a directory
that goes back to 1995, or you may pick up the bad header again.

This information is from W9ODI via SpaceNews.


OSCAR-13

The latest Transponder Schedule for AOI-13 is as follows:

N QST *** AO-13 TRANSPONDER SCHEDULE ***  1996 Jan 01 - Apr 01
Mode-B  : MA   0 to MA 140 |         ***  P R O V I S I O N A L
Mode-BS : MA 140 to MA 240 |
Mode-B  : MA 240 to MA 256 |        Alon/Alat 220/0
Omnis   : MA 250 to MA 140 |  Move to attitude 180/0, Apr 01

Continuous up-to-date information about AO-13 operations is always
available on the beacons, 145.812 MHz or 2400.664 MHz, in CW at 0 & 30
minutes past the hour, RTTY at 15 & 45 minutes past the hour and 400 bps
PSK otherwise.  These bulletins are also posted to Internet, ANS, Packet,
PacSats etc, and many international newsletters.

Internet users wanting the latest AO-13 information should always check:
  ftp://ftp.amsat.org/amsat/satinfo/ao13/
  http://www.amsat.org/amsat/

Telemetry is archived at:
  ftp://ftp.amsat.org/amsat/satinfo/ao13/telemetry/

The active command stations are listed below, and constructive feedback
about operations is always welcome.

  Peter   DB2OS  @ DB0FC.#NDS.DEU.EU
  James   G3RUH  @ GB7DDX.#22.GBR.EU
  Graham  VK5AGR

They may also be reached via Internet ([e-mail]) and KO-23.
Please remember to state clearly a return address.

This information comes from James Miller, G3RUH via SpaceNews operated by
John A. Magliacane, KD2BD


/EX