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:
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You can sign up for free e-mail delivery of the AMSAT News
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In
this edition:
* Sean Kutzko, KX9X, Appointed AMSAT Volunteer
Coordinator
* AMSAT Office Closed Until Further Notice
* First Satellite
Contact to be Noted in May QST
* Amateur Radio Satellite Spreads Fight
Coronavirus Message
* Ham Talk Live! Interviews Frank Bauer, KA3HDO
* ISS
Crew Transition Affected by CoViD-19
* Upcoming ARISS Contacts
* Upcoming
Satellite Operations
* Satellite Shorts From All Over
SB SAT @
AMSAT $ANS-089.01
ANS-089 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins
AMSAT
News Service Bulletin 089.01
From AMSAT HQ KENSINGTON, MD.
DATE 2020 Mar
29
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-089.01
Sean Kutzko, KX9X,
Appointed AMSAT Volunteer Coordinator
AMSAT President Clayton Coleman,
W5PFG, has announced the appointment
of Sean Kutzko, KX9X, as Volunteer
Coordinator.
First licensed in 1982 as KA9NGH, Kutzko served as both ARRL
Contest
Branch Manager (2007-2013) and ARRL Media and Public Relations
Mana-
ger (2013-2017). He was the creator and co-administrator of the
ARRL
National Parks on the Air (NPOTA) program in 2016. An active HF
and
VHF contester, DXer and backpack QRP enthusiast, Kutzko started
work-
ing satellites in 2011 and has transmitted from over fifty
different
grid squares. He has written instructional materials on satellite
op-
erating for the AMSAT website, QST, and blogs regularly on
satellite
topics for the DX Engineering blog "On All Bands."
"It's an
honor to be able to volunteer for AMSAT," Kutzko said. "When
[new AMSAT
president] Clayton [Coleman, W5PFG] asked if I would help
coordinate a team
of volunteers, I jumped at the opportunity. AMSAT is
a great organization and
helping find good volunteers who are willing
to help all areas of AMSAT's
growth and development is the least I
could do for the organization that has
given me a lot of enjoyment and
technical skill."
Outside of Amateur
Radio, Kutzko is a freelance PR/communications
consultant and voiceover
artist, as well as a baker of artisan breads,
pizza and pastries. He also
plays drums in a classic rock/country
band, Silverweed. He lives in Urbana,
Illinois.
[ANS thanks AMSAT President Clayton Coleman, W5PFG, for the
above
in-
formation]
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AMSAT
Office Closed Until Further Notice
Due to Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan's
order closing all non-essential
businesses in the State of Maryland in
response to the COVID-19 pan-
demic, the AMSAT office is closed until further
notice, effective to-
day at 5:00pm EDT.
While the office is closed,
AMSAT will continue to accept new and
renewal memberships. However,
membership packets will not be mailed
until the office reopens. T-shirts,
hats, and other items stocked in
the office will also not be available until
the office reopens. Dig-
ital downloadable content, including SatPC32 and
MacDoppler will re-
main available from the AMSAT store. Antenna, name badge,
and awards
orders will be forwarded for processing.
The March/April
issue of The AMSAT Journal will be produced on time.
However, it may only be
possible to publish it in digital format. Stay
tuned for further
updates.
Any questions about memberships, orders, or office operations
can be
sent to info at amsat.org. Please note that no mail or phone
service
will be available until the office reopens. Vendors billing AMSAT
for
goods or services may email the above address to arrange
payment.
[ANS thanks the AMSAT office 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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First
Satellite Contact to be Noted in May QST
Those who are ARRL members may
be interested in the Technical Corres-
pondence article in the forthcoming
May 2020 QST, entitled "The 60th
Anniversary of the First Satellite
Contact."
The contact to which it refers took place on February 6, 1960,
six
months before NASA's Project Echo, between W2RS and K3JTE (now
W3PK),
making use of a propagation mode first reported by W8JK (SK), which
he
called "the satellite ionization phenomenon."
The May 2020 QST
article describes what we did and what has been learn-
ed since then about
the ionosphere and how W8JK's mechanism works.
For further reading about
the contact, see the article in Proceedings
of the Institute of Radio
Engineers, September 1961. For more about
the satellite ionization
phenomenon, see the chapter by W8JK in S.F.
Singer, ed., Interactions of
Space Vehicles With an Ionized Atmosphere,
Pergamon Press, 1965.
The
May issue of QST is expected to be published in mid-April.
[ANS thanks
Ray Soifer, W2RS, for the above
information]
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Amateur
Radio Satellite Spreads Fight Coronavirus Message
Indonesia’s national
amateur radio society ORARI reports the ham radio
satellite LAPAN-A2 (IO-86)
is being used to send a Fight Coronavirus
message using APRS.
A
translation of the ORARI post says:
The satellite spreads the text message
“Stay Healthy, Stay at Home
#LawanCorona”.
This was conveyed by
Researcher of the Center for Satellite Technology,
Sonny Dwi Harsono when
contacted, Friday, March 20, 2020.
Sonny explained, this action was a
form of support for government pol-
icies on social distancing. The policy
encourages all of us to reduce
activities outside the home and interactions
with others. “So this mes-
sage was sent by the LAPAN A2 satellite via the
APRS (Automatic Packet
Reporting System) beacon which was transmitted
throughout Indonesia.
APRS is a text based communication system for short
messages such as
SMS on mobile phones. But this APRS message can only be
received
through HT (Handie Talkie) which has the recipient of the APRS
mess-
age,” he said.
Sonny explained, messages that have been
disseminated can be received
by anyone by setting the HT radio frequency to
145.825 MHz. To date
corona’s message has been received by dozens of members
of the Indo-
nesian Radio Amateur Organization (ORARI) spread throughout
Indonesia.
The dissemination of the message was carried out starting
March 20.
For the time being the message dissemination was carried out on
the
APRS mission only. But it will try to spread the message one time at
a
LAPAN-A2 / LAPAN-ORARI track every 100 minutes. “Later if possible,
we
try to distribute 24 hours nonstop every 100 minutes under certain
con-
ditions. Currently we are discussing the technicalities. The
messages
from the government can also be disseminated via the LAPAN-A2
satel-
lite," he concluded.
Source ORARI https://tinyurl.com/IndonesiaORARI
Follow
LAPAN-A2 https://twitter.com/lapansat
[ANS
thanks AMSAT-UK 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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Ham
Talk Live! Interviews Frank Bauer, KA3HDO
Ham Talk Live! host Neal Rapp,
WB9VPG recently interviewed Frank Bauer,
KA3HDO, for an informative look at
recent events in the ARISS program.
Bauer, who is AMSAT Vice President, Human
Spaceflight and ARISS Inter-
national Chair was interviewed on Thursday,
March 26, 2020.
In the interview Bauer covers ARISS' four-year effort to
update the
ISS Amateur Radio station with its next generation radio system,
the
Interoperable Radio System (IORS). The IORS consists of a
specially
modified JVC-Kenwood TM-D710 transceiver and the AMSAT-NA
developed
multi-voltage power supply.
The complete interview can be
heard at
https://tinyurl.com/ANS-089-Bauer
[ANS
thanks Neil Rapp, WB9VPG for the above
information.]
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ISS
Crew Transition Affected by CoViD-19
The International Space Station
Expedition 62 crew, consisting of NASA
Flight Engineer Jessica Meir, Flight
Engineer Andrew Morgan, KI5AAA,
and Commander Oleg Skripochka, RA0LDJ, are
readying their Soyuz MS-15
crew ship for departure on April 17. Meanwhile,
the crew that will re-
place them is nearing its launch scheduled for April 9
aboard the Soyuz
MS-16 crew ship. NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy, KF5KDR, and
Roscosmos
cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner arrived this week at
the
Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for final training. The
Expedition
63 trio is due to live aboard the station for 195 days with
Cassidy as
commander.
(ANS thanks spaceref.com for the above
information)
NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy’s family will be watching
remotely from
halfway around the world when he blasts off April 9 from
Kazakhstan to
begin a six-month expedition on the International Space
Station. That’s
because travel restrictions and stringent social distancing
guidelines
instituted to slow the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic
will
limit the ability for family members to travel to the Baikonur
Cosmo-
drome for the launch. Launch day at Baikonur is usually a festive
af-
fair. “But it’ll be completely quiet,” Cassidy said in a satellite
in-
terview from Star City, Russia. “There won’t be anybody there."
(ANS
thanks spaceflightnow.com for the above information)
NASA already has a
long-held strategy in place for preventing astro-
nauts from carrying any
nasty bugs with them to space. All astronauts
going to orbit must go through
a two-week period of quarantine called
“health stabilization,” according to
NASA. That way, the agency can
make sure the crew is not incubating any
illnesses before launch. How-
ever, NASA said it “will continue to evaluate
and augment this plan,
in coordination with its international and commercial
partners” if
needed.
In the meantime, Russia’s state space
corporation, Roscosmos, has de-
cided to shut down all media activity
surrounding the Soyuz launch,
barring journalists from covering the mission
in person. Russia will
still live stream the launch, and NASA typically airs
all of its crew-
ed launches on its own online TV channel.
The return
of the Expedition 62 crew in mid-April would typically in-
volve large
numbers of recovery personnel. SpaceX will be ready to send
its first crew of
NASA astronauts to the International Space Station
aboard its Crew Dragon
capsule sometime in May. NASA has not provided
any details if those
operations would change in light of the pandemic.
(ANS thanks theverge.com
for the above
information)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Upcoming
ARISS Contacts
Amateurs and others around the world may listen in on
contacts between
amateurs operating in schools and allowing students to
interact with
astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the International Space
Station. The
downlink frequency on which to listen is 145.800 MHz
worldwide.
Amur State University, Blagoveshchensk, Russia, direct via
RKØJ
The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be RSØISS
The scheduled
astronaut is Oleg Skripochka
Possible contact on Tuesday 2020-03-31 08:50
UTC
ARISS is very aware of the impact that COVID-19 is having on
schools
and the public in general. As such, we may have last minute
cancella-
tions or postponements of school contacts. As always, ARISS will
try
to provide everyone with near-real-time updates at the ARISS
webpage:
https://www.ariss.org/
The contact
scheduled for Wednesday 2020-03-25 with SPDW Voortrekker
Movement,
Oranjeville, South Africa, direct via ZS9SPD was postponed
due to COVID-19
concerns.
[ANS thanks Charlie Sufana, AJ9N, one of the ARISS operation
team men-
tors 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
River Bend Wireless Rove
(EN22, EN33, EN34, EN42,
EN43, EN44) April 2-4, 2020
Mitch Ahrenstorff, AD0HJ, is looking to add six
more grids to his ro-
ver basket just before the April 4 AMSAT
presentation/demonstration
at the River Bend Wireless and Mechanical Society
in Faribault, Minn.
Mitch will be activating the EN43/EN44 grid line on April
2nd, the
EN32/EN42 grid line on April 3rd, and the EN33/EN34 grid line on
April
4th, 2020. Watch Mitch’s Twitter feed as the dates approach for a
de-
tailed schedule. https://twitter.com/AD0HJ
From the
Mountains to the Bay
(CM88,89,98,99 DM09,19,29 DN00,01,02,10,11,20,21) April
12-21, 2020
R.J. Bragg, WY7AA, is hitting the asphalt again, roving from
Wyoming
to Vacaville, Calif. He’s attending a class from April 15-19, so
most
of the roving will be outside of this time. Grids to be covered
in-
clude: CM88,89,98,99 DM09,19,29 DN00,01,02,10,11,20,21. Specific
pass
details will be posted on WY7AA QRZ page and Twitter
(https://twitter.com/WY7AA) as the trip
approaches.
Please submit any additions or corrections to ke4al (at)
amsat.org
[ANS thanks Robert Bankston, KE4AL, AMSAT VP-User Services for
the
above
information]
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Satellite
Shorts From All Over
+ Nothing to do while quarantined by Covid-19? How
about making a paper
model of the satellite, DIWATA-1, the first satellite
designed and
built in the Philippines: https://tinyurl.com/ujukexd
(ANS
thanks JoAnne Maenpaa, K9JKM, for the above information)
+ There has been
lengthy discussion this week on the AMSAT email bul-
letin board, amsat-bb,
about inconsiderate operators on FM satel-
lites. A document by Sean
Kutzko, KX9X, published back in 2017, is
still an excellent guide to best
practices on these birds. See it at
https://tinyurl.com/ybw5e2ng
(ANS
thanks Mark Johns, K0JM, for the above information)
+ The coronavirus has
had effects on many space activities this week:
Virgin Orbit is reassessing
schedules, Blue Origin in hard-hit Seat-
tle is mostly working online,
Arianespace suspended launches from
French Guiana and Russia recalled and
quarantined its personnel, ESA
mission control is working from home, and
some spaceports are closed
worldwide.
(ANS thanks orbitalindex.com for
the above information)
+ One thing astronauts have to be good at: living
in confined spaces
for long periods of time. Find yourself in a similar
scenario? NASA
astronaut Anne McClain recently posted a lengthy Twitter
thread with
pro-tips for getting through your time at home. It begins
at:
https://tinyurl.com/tqh3hke
(ANS
thanks orbitalindex.com for the above information)
+ At least on the ISS
astronauts don't have the added task of caring
for and educating kids. If
your current confinement capsul is equip-
ped with youngsters in grades
K-4, there are resources for you at:
https://www.nasa.gov/stem-at-home-for-students-k-4.html
(ANS thanks NASA for the above information)
+ The Folding@home project is a distributed computing
project that is
currently running calculations to analyze protein
structures on the
COVID-19 project. Donate your spare computer time to help
this project
and consider joining AMSAT's team (#67910). More information
at
https://foldingathome.org/covid19/.
AMSAT's team standings can be
found at https://stats.foldingathome.org/team/69710
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/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 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
_______________________________________________
Via the ANS mailing
list courtesy of AMSAT-NA
https://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/ans
