sb space @ arl $arls008
arls008 amsat announces satellite developments
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space bulletin 008 arls008
from arrl headquarters
newington, ct june 11, 2004
to all radio amateurs
sb space arl arls008
arls008 amsat announces satellite developments
the amsat-oscar echo satellite is on its way to its launch site in kazakhstan. amsat's chuck green, n0adi, said echo's final check was an hour-long stay in the vacuum chamber with both 70-cm transmitters running at full power. green indicated that everything that could be tested in this configuration worked well.
"we also checked the sensitivity of all the 2-meter receivers and the 'sqrx' wideband tunable receiver, and they were all very good,"
he said. engineers also measured the output of the 70-cm transmitters at various power settings.
amsat-na president robin haighton, ve3frh, offered his congratulations for a job well done.
amsat also recently announced that its echo launch fund took a big leap forward at dayton hamvention 2004 and now stands at slightly more than $93,000. amsat needs $110,000 to launch echo. haighton said amsat can meet the goal quite easily "if every member of amsat and everyone who works the satellites--including nonmembers--is prepared to meet the target." the echo launch window begins at the end of june.
in other news, amsat-na says the so-50 satellite--also known as saudisat-1c--now is available to all, and users can switch on the mode j transponder via a ctcss tone. previously, only one of the three control operators could turn on the spacecraft for amateur communication.
taking doppler into account, transmit on 145.850 mhz using a ctcss tone of 74.4 hz to arm the onboard 10-minute timer. then, transmit fm voice on 145.850 mhz using a ctcss tone of 67.0 hz to actuate the repeater within the 10-minute window. so-50 takes a half second or so to start transmitting once a signal is received, so users should pause briefly before talking. so-50's downlink frequency is 436.800 mhz.
sending the 74.4 hz ctcss tone again within the 10-minute window resets the timer.
there's more information on the amsat web site at,
http://www.amsat.org.
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