Ailing ARISS “HamTV” Transmitter Back Returns for Inspection

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Ailing ARISS “HamTV” Transmitter Back Returns for Inspection

The malfunctioning Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) “HamTV” transmitter now is back on Earth for repair or replacement, and it likely won’t be until sometime in 2020 at the earliest that Amateur Radio TV (DATV) capability will be restored to the orbiting laboratory. An onboard repair was not possible.

Also known as “Ham Video,” the DATV system transmissions were not seen by ARISS ground stations as of last April, and a subsequent test using a second L/S band patch antenna on the ISS Columbus module failed. The DATV transmitter since February 2016 has served to provide a visual dimension to ARISS school and group ham radio events.

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PW-Sat2 Deorbit Sail Deployment Footage

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PW-Sat2, the second Polish student satellite, also launched on the SpaceX Falcon 9 SSO-A flight with AMSAT Fox-1Cliff, is a student project with the goal to test a new deorbit sail.

Amateur radio operators are invited to take part in this mission.

Dashboard software to receive, decode and upload PW-Sat2 frames to the PW-Sat2 cloud is available on their website - https://radio.pw-sat.pl/

More Information - https://github.com/PW-Sat2/HAMRadio/wiki

PW-Sat2 transmits on 435.275 MHz using 1k2 and 9k6 BPSK AX25.


D-STAR ONE Launched, Telemetry Received

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D-STAR ONE Launched, Telemetry Received

German Orbital Systems reports a successful telemetry downlink has been received.

D-Star ONE Sparrow and D-Star ONE iSat were successfully launched on 27th December 2018 as part of an ECM smallsat cluster on the Soyuz-2/Fregat from Russia's Vostochny launch site.

During the first orbits, beacons were received in the US, Germany, Czech Republic and Belarus, confirming the successful separations of the satellites on their target orbit 585 km, 97.73 deg, SSO.

D-Star ONE Sparrow and D-Star ONE iSat are a pair of 3U cubesats which are equipped with four identical radio modules with D-Star capabilities, all being operated in a half-duplex mode. At press time DSTAR One Sparrow was planned to be used for amateur radio.

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