Newsflash: Our last contact with Sunsat Oscar-35 was on Friday 19 January 2001 at 15:22:37 UTC. Unfortunately, little hope remains after two weeks of recovery attempts. Thanks to all who shared in our fun. Your feedback and encouragement made most of it happen. Hope to talk to you on Amsat Oscar-40 soon. See the complete press release. [2 February 2001]
All APRS frames, digipeated via Sunsat's APRSAT alias, are now fed into findu.com. The digilogs are downlinked four times a day over the Sunsat ground station at Stellenbosch, South Africa. Once our SANAE ground station is operational, digilogs should be fed into the world-wide APRS network every orbit (100 minutes).
Ronald Ross, KE6JAB, a member of Alain Hubert's The Wall expedition to Dronning Maud Land in Antarctica, will have deployed two Stanford University weather stations by the end of December 2000. One of the stations is already active at their Blue One base camp. Weather station data, captured by Sunsat, can be viewed at http://wx.findu.com/ke6jab-1. Follow the team's progress at Antarctica 2000.
On 6 December 2000, Bob Bruninga, WB4APR, announced the planned launch of the US Naval Academy's Prototype Communications Satellite, PCsat, in August 2001. As an increasing number of amateur satellites support low bandwidth, low overhead APRS services, the APRS Satellite Tracking and Reporting System, ASTARS, will continue to expand its coverage. Permanent global coverage is the long term goal for such a constellation, of which Sunsat and PCsat will be the first members.
Digital services are enabled continuously except during voice passes, as indicated in the schedule below. Sunsat will digipeat AX.25 UI packets (via SUNSAT or APRSAT). The satellite is set up in Mode B during voice passes and in Mode J during data passes. Note that these services may be disabled while some non-ham payloads are activated.
Due to the current unfavourable imaging conditions, there are no immediate need for UI broadcasts of data. Watch this space for new developments. To join a mailing list for breaking news regarding the digital modes, send a message to lochner@ing.sun.ac.za with "subscribe UIB/APRS" in its subject line.
Unless indicated otherwise, the voice repeater is active for 14 minutes at a time. Starting times are in UTC. Weekday operations may be cancelled to support the non-ham payloads. Suggest changes if you wish: we support special events and expeditions insofar as mission objectives permit.
Australasia
This region's schedule is coordinated by
Tony Langdon, VK3JED. His web site,
Satellites on Rails, contains a wealth
of information on satellite operations.
08/01/2001 05:59 80W Mode J
09/01/2001 05:18 38E Mode J
10/01/2001 06:18 47W Mode J
11/01/2001 05:37 63E Mode J
12/01/2001 04:57 24E Mode J
13/01/2001 04:19 09E Mode J
14/01/2001 06:56 17W Mode J
15/01/2001 06:13 45W Mode B
16/01/2001 05:33 64E Mode B
17/01/2001 06:32 27W Mode B
18/01/2001 05:51 77W Mode B
19/01/2001 05:11 38E Mode B
20/01/2001 04:32 15E Mode B
21/01/2001 07:10 10W Mode B
22/01/2001 04:49 24E Mode J
23/01/2001 05:47 76W Mode J
24/01/2001 05:07 39E Mode J
25/01/2001 06:06 44W Mode J
26/01/2001 05:24 66E Mode J
27/01/2001 06:25 27W Mode J
28/01/2001 04:06 10E Mode J
Eastern Asia (Japan)
This region's schedule is coordinated by
Yoshio Esaki, JA6BX and Mineo Wakita, JE9PEL.
Mineo's web site, WiSP Update Information,
features extensive information on WiSP, as
well as an archive of satellite telemetry.
08/01/2001 09:00 E.India
09/01/2001 08:18 China
10/01/2001 07:37
11/01/2001 08:37 E.India
12/01/2001 07:55 China
13/01/2001 07:15
14/01/2001 08:14 China
15/01/2001 07:34 China
16/01/2001 08:34 China & E.India
17/01/2001 07:53 China
18/01/2001 07:12
19/01/2001 08:11 China
20/01/2001 07:30
21/01/2001 08:30 China & E.India
22/01/2001 07:49 China
23/01/2001 07:08
24/01/2001 08:07 China
25/01/2001 07:27
26/01/2001 08:26 China & E. India
27/01/2001 07:45 China
28/02/2001 07:05
South-Eastern Asia
08/01/2001 10:46
09/01/2001 10:05
10/01/2001 09:25
11/01/2001 10:23
12/01/2001 09:43
13/01/2001 10:42
14/01/2001 10:01
15/01/2001 09:22
16/01/2001 10:20
17/01/2001 09:40
18/01/2001 10:39
19/01/2001 09:58
20/01/2001 09:18
21/01/2001 10:16
22/01/2001 09:36
23/01/2001 10:35
24/01/2001 09:54
25/01/2001 09:14
26/01/2001 10:12
27/01/2001 09:32
28/01/2001 10:31
Southern Africa
10/01/2001 14:35
13/01/2001 14:13
14/01/2001 13:32
17/01/2001 13:11
20/01/2001 14:28
21/01/2001 13:47
24/01/2001 13:25
27/01/2001 13:03
28/01/2001 14:01
Europe and North Africa
08/01/2001 15:35
09/01/2001 16:34
10/01/2001 15:53
11/01/2001 15:13
12/01/2001 16:11
13/01/2001 15:31
14/01/2001 14:51
15/01/2001 15:50
16/01/2001 15:10
17/01/2001 16:08
18/01/2001 15:28
19/01/2001 14:48
20/01/2001 15:46
21/01/2001 15:06
22/01/2001 16:05
23/01/2001 15:24
24/01/2001 16:23
25/01/2001 15:42
26/01/2001 15:02
27/01/2001 16:01
28/01/2001 15:20
South America
This region's schedule is coordinated by
Nicolaus Sallay, PP8DA.
Jim Walls, coordinator for the North American
passes (see below), made the following suggestion:
"...stations in northern South American
should check the North American secion of the
schedule as I have been scheduling some North
American passes to include portions of northern
South America at the end of the pass.
...they have at times a good opportunity
to speak to stations in the southeast US and the
Caribbean Sea areas."
08/01/2001 19.16 mode B
09/01/2001 20.18 mode B
10/01/2001 19.32 mode B
11/01/2001 20.35 mode J
12/01/2001 19.55 mode J
13/01/2001 19.10 mode J
14/01/2001 19.09 mode J
15/01/2001 19.30 mode B
16/01/2001 18.46 mode B
17/01/2001 19.43 mode B
18/01/2001 19.08 mode B
19/01/2001 20.02 mode B
20/01/2001 19.25 mode B
21/01/2001 18.45 mode B
22/01/2001 19.45 mode B
23/01/2001 19.05 mode B
24/01/2001 20.02 mode B
25/01/2001 19.23 mode B
26/01/2001 18.43 mode B
27/01/2001 19.38 mode B
28/01/2001 20.36 mode B
North America
This region's schedule is coordinated
by Jim Walls, K6CCC. His web site,
The Amateur Radio Connection, has a
section on amateur satellites, one of
his many ham interests.
08/01/2001 22:14 18 min
09/01/2001 21:34 19 min NW S. America
10/01/2001 22:32 18 min
11/01/2001 23:31 19 min
12/01/2001 22:50 18 min
13/01/2001 23:48 20 min Alaska
14/01/2001 21:29 19 min NW S. America
15/01/2001 22:28 16 min
16/01/2001 23:27 18 min
17/01/2001 21:07 19 min North S. America
18/01/2001 23:45 18 min Alaska
19/01/2001 23:04 19 min
21/01/2001 00:03 18 min Alaska
21/01/2001 21:44 17 min NW S. America
22/01/2001 22:42 18 min
23/01/2001 23:41 18 min Alaska
24/01/2001 21:21 17 min NW S. America
25/01/2001 22:20 17 min
26/01/2001 23:18 18 min
28/01/2001 00:17 17 min Alaska
28/01/2001 21:57 18 min
The centre frequency for Sunsat's uplink is 436.291 MHz. The IF bandwidth is 18 kHz, and the receiver has about a 3 kHz AFC capability, so you can probably be up to 9 kHz off-frequency for voice. On an overhead pass, the doppler shift at AOS is almost 10 kHz, so to be spot-on, you should be uplinking on 436.281 MHz, and on 436.301 MHz at LOS. Since you may be on the side of the pass and get lower Doppler shifts, we suggest you uplink at 436.285 MHz in the first part of the pass, and shift up by 10 kHz once Sunsat has passed overhead.
For voice and 9k6 PAM/FSK data, uplink at 145.825 MHz. For 1k2 AFSK data, uplink at 145.900 MHz. The downlink for voice and data is at 436.250 MHz. AFC should take care of doppler shift on the uplink. Depending on your receiver, some doppler correction will be needed for the downlink (for example: +5 kHz at start of pass; +0 halfway through; -5 kHz near the end).
QSL cards for Sunsat are coming in in a steady flow, from Europe, Japan, Australia, USA, South American countries, but only one from RSA if I remember correctly. Those who want a QSL card must supply a SAE and IRC, or a SASE for RSA. Send applications for QSL cards to the QSL manager. Reports are generally very good, strong signals are reported, and a lot of appreciation.
Applications for the Bronze, Silver or Gold awards for contacts via Sunsat must go to SA-AMSAT. If anyone is putting RealAudio recordings of Sunsat passes on the web, please let saamsat@intekom.co.za know, so that we can let all know where to find them. The Sunsat operations staff enjoy hearing repeater operation on the other side of the world!
Comments on Amateur Radio Operations
For those who may have missed it, this picture shows the Sunsat bulletins announcing the beginning of digital operations. These were received by my D700 and a 40" mag mount. — Mike Riffle, KC8MZM.
During the Dayton Hamvention Sunday morning SUNSAT pass, I was trying to demo 9600 baud handheld reception in the fleamarket area using nothing but my HT and whip antenna. Hearing nothing but 60-over S9 interemod, I gave up and put the HT in my pants pocket and continued my shopping. A few minutes later I heard the tale-tale beep from my HT indicating a new message.
Thinking it was just another message from my buddies at the hamfest, I casually pulled it from my pocket and was surprised to see that it was a BULLETIN from SUNSAT! It was one of the handful of Bulletins that SUNSAT downlinks and it was announcing that this capability was now open for general use. There could not have been a better and more fulfilling conclusion to our previous testing than this serendipitous reception. — Bob Bruninga, WB4APR. [Source: AMSAT-BB]