Category: Ham Satellite news

Did you miss the recent AMSAT Space Symposium in Irving, Texas? Were you unable to participate in the Symposium Livestream event? Perhaps you are eager to rewatch a specific presentation. You’re in luck because AMSAT has shared more than twelve hours of video recordings on their YouTube page. You can easily find these videos by clicking on the Live tab under The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation channel. Furthermore, YouTube offers Closed Captioning for these recordings; just click on the ‘CC’ icon in the video player’s lower right corner. If you’d prefer, you can also enable subtitles in multiple languages by clicking the gear icon, then choosing Subtitles/CC > Auto-translate and selecting your preferred language. To help you quickly access video from the AMSAT Annual General Meeting along with the sixteen presentations given at this year’s AMSAT Symposium, we have included direct links for you below.

AMSAT 41st AMSAT Space Symposium Welcome Robert Bankston, KE4AL, AMSAT President https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcO4-h7bbxs&t=380s

A Survey of Small Satellite Propulsion Systems Jonathan Brandenburg, KF5IDY, AMSAT Assistant VP Engineering https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcO4-h7bbxs&t=465s

Microwave Ambitions for GOLF Satellites Zach Metzinger, N0ZGO, AMSAT Board of Directors https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcO4-h7bbxs&t=2270s

AMSAT Engineering Update Jerry Buxton, N0JY, AMSAT VP Engineering https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcO4-h7bbxs&t=3825s

ASCENT and Fox-Plus Updates Jonathan Brandenburg, KF5IDY, AMSAT Assistant VP Engineering https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcO4-h7bbxs&t=8575s

PACSAT Update and Demonstration Bill Reed, NX5R, PACSAT Project Manager https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcO4-h7bbxs&t=10095s

CubeSatSim Update and Demonstration Alan Johnston, KU2Y, AMSAT VP Educational Resources https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzKKHTBxyY8&t=720s

ThinSat Project for High Schools Nick Pugh, K5QXY, and Bob Twiggs, KE6QMD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzKKHTBxyY8&t=4040s

AMSAT Youth Initiative Frank Karnauskas, N1UW, AMSAT VP Development https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzKKHTBxyY8&t=6595s

Amateur Radio Spectrum Use in the Lunar Environment Frank Bauer, KA3HDO, ARISS-NA Executive Director https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzKKHTBxyY8&t=8650s

Amateur Satellite Secondary Payloads Drew Glasbrenner, AMSAT Board of Directors/VP Operations https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzKKHTBxyY8&t=10500s

AMSAT-HB Update Michael Lipp, HB9WDF, President, AMSAT-HB https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzKKHTBxyY8&t=12150s

AMSAT-UK Update David Bowman, G0MRF, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzKKHTBxyY8&t=13205s

ARISS Update Dave Taylor, W8AAS, AMSAT US Delegate to ARISS International https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzKKHTBxyY8&t=18600s

40th Anniversary of Hams in Space & 2024 Anniversary Event Frank Bauer, KA3HDO, ARISS-NA Executive Director https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzKKHTBxyY8&t=21305s

Planned Non-AMSAT Amateur Satellites Paul Stoetzer, N8HM, AMSAT Executive Vice President https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzKKHTBxyY8&t=22970s

Space Qualified Antennas Kent Britain, WA5VJB https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzKKHTBxyY8&t=23880s

AMSAT Annual General Meeting & Awards Ceremony Robert Bankston, KE4AL, AMSAT President https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzKKHTBxyY8&t=27575s

AMSAT South Africa has announced that the 2023 AMSAT SA Space Symposium will be held on Saturday, 23 September 2023.

It will be a virtual event opening participation to people anywhere in the world. The event will be hosted on the Bluejeans platform from 09:00 – 15:00 SAST (07:00 – 13:00 UTC). Those registered will receive an email with logon details.

The aim of the AMSAT SA Space symposium is to take amateur radio into space, encourage more amateur satellite operation, development, and research.

Registration is required and will be free but a donation to the AMSAT SA managed SARL Next Generation Beacon fund would be appreciated. Registration opened 24 August at bit.ly/45SynOJ

Call for papers

Proposals for papers are invited. Send a summary of the proposed paper in MS word to admin@amsatsa.org.za. The closing date for paper proposals is 4 September 2023. The final programme will be published on on 6 September 2023.

[ANS thanks AMSAT SA for the above information]

Info from AMSAT-EA and ANS-225:

AMSAT-EA will be on the air on all available satellites with the callsigns AM1SAT and AM2023SAT from September 4th to 17th, 2023 to celebrate the fourth edition of the AM1SAT trophy contest as part of the URE activities within the IberRadio 2023 event, the largest one in the world of amateur radio in Spain and Portugal (http://www.iberradio.es), and which will open its doors during the weekend of 16-17 in Avila, a city near Madrid, capital of Spain.

The AMSAT-EA operators will activate the aforementioned callsigns from the different states and autonomous cities of Spain during the said period of time and with the objective in this edition to promote contacts with the maximum number of them.

As part of this activity and to encourage participation, SILVER and GOLD diplomas will be available for the different modalities of satellites according to their footprint and orbital height, LEO, MEO (IO-117 satellite) and GEO (QO-100 satellite), as well as a trophy for the station that works the greatest number of states in the total number of available satellites and another trophy for the one that contacts the greatest number of states on the satellite with the largest footprint and coverage (in this case, IO-117). These trophies will be physically sent at no cost to the winners.

The third edition of the AM1SAT satellite contest, in 2021, finished with 1327 QSOs including GEO and LEO contacts, with 57 different radio-countries, using 20 satellites and with the participation of 419 different competitors (callsigns).

Full rules can be found here:
https://www.amsat-ea.org/app/download/13570625/AM1SAT+CONTEST+2023+-+RULES.pdf

[ANS thanks Félix Páez, EA4GQS, AMSAT-EA President, for the above information]

According to IARU two new satellites, Veronica and ROM-3, has been coordinated and are planned to launch during 2023. Following are info from ANS-218:

Veronika
From the Technical University of Kosice, Veronika is a 1U CubeSat scheduled for launch on a Falcon 9 launcher on the Transporter 9 mission in October 2023. The satellite will be equipped with a 24/7 digipeater on two different bands, as well as experimental SSDV transmissions.

The satellite also has an education and outreach mission in that it is planned to involve Slovak grammar and high schools and to transmit special CW and AX.25 messages on several special occasions. From a platform perspective, the satellite will be equipped with a novel ADCS subsystem, including electromagnetic actuators and a GNSS receiver. This will also help to identify the satellite during the first days and weeks. The satellite will communicate o using Spacemanic’s well-known Murgas transceivers (BDSat-1, BDSat-2, Planetum-1).

Altogether, Veronika will provide: AX.25 telemetry; a CW beacon; a digipeater; AX.25 & CW messages on special occasions for community engagement; Experimental SSDV transmissions; and SATNOGS integration, decoder and dashboard. A downlink on 436.680 MHz has been coordinated and will use 9k6 G3RUH AX.25 and a CW beacon. Planning a SpaceX launch on Transporter 9 mission in Q4 2023 to a 500/600km polar orbit . More info at https://om3ksi.tuke.sk/en/home/

ROM-3
From the Romanian Radioamateur Federation, ROM-3 is a 50 x 50 x100mm picosat with three missions and objectives. Its primary mission is to act as a digital amateur radio repeater. Its secondary mission is to transmit low-resolution SSDV images in a GFSK Mode. The tertiary mission is to transmit a CW beacon that will help amateur radio operators detect the presence of the satellite and measure basic properties of the signals such as its strength, fading due to spin, Doppler to measure speed, etc. A downlink on 436.235 MHz has been coordinated for 20 wpm CW, 500bps GFSK telemetry and 5kbps GFSK SSDV. Planning a SpaceX launch in October or November 2023 into a 500km polar orbit. More info at https://rom-space.ro

LEDSAT is a 1U CubeSat by Sapienza University of Rome (S5Lab research team) and University of Michigan. It has the same AX.25 digipeater function as IO-117 (Greencube).

It has a very strong downlink and good RX ears. This is the frequency I has been using (+/- doppler):
TX (Uplink): 435.3087 MHz
RX (Downlink): 435.1885 MHz

I succeeded digipeating with the lowest power settings on the IC-9700 at 5 degree elevation.

Greencube Terminal by OZ9AAR is the recommended terminal software.