karn (02/08/83)
The following is courtesy of K1HTV, VP Operations for AMSAT:
Here are some notes on some of the presently operating Radio
Amateur satellites.
The RS5 telemetry beacon (29.452 MHz) was heard today (Feb 7)
in the dwell mode, sending a series of either "E01" or "EG01".
This is normally the battery voltage telem. channel and a
reading of 01 translates to a dead battery. The RS-5 satellte
however is far from dead and seems to be operating properly,
even in darkness so the meaning of the 01 raw data on channel
"E" and "EG" is unclear. Maybe it has something to do with the
codestore message mentioned later in this text.
Although the R5-5 transponder has been comanded off, three
channels have been operational, the 29.452 MHz telem. beacon,
the 29.350 MHz service channel which retransmits CW on 145.850
MHz, and the ROBOT-Codestore channel on 29.330 MHz. This latter
channel is presently being used by a Soviet Antarctic
expedition whose communications group is headed by Leo Labutin,
4K1CR (UA3CR), whose picture recently appeared in ASR #50.
Because of the unreliable HF propagation between the Antarctic
and the U.S.S.R. , the expedition is using the store and
forward (codestore) capability of RS-5 to exchange messages
between the Soviet Antarctic base(s) and Moscow.
On Monday, February 7th the following message was copied around
21:30 UTC from the RS-5 beacon on 29.330 MHz.
"UA3AJH UW3CX SRO(OE)NO [OE sent as one letter sounds like
cheh] DAJTE SEANSY KOSPASA QTH NEOBHODIMO OTMETITX KARTE
ULETAM 10 FEW DE 4K1CR 4VUV ".
Aquick call to Dex Anderson, W4KM, provided the following
translation of the above Russian message to English. It says
UA3AJH UW3CX (in Moscow), URGENTLY GIVE (us) PASSES (orbital
info) on KOSPASA . It is NECESSARY TO NOTE the QTH ON MAP.
FLY OUT on FEB 10 . FROM 4K1CR (call sign of Leo, UA3CR).
The KOSPASA mentioned in the above message refers to the Soviet
KOSPAS search and rescue satellite which was launched on June
30, 1982 as part of a joint international effort by the United
States, the U.S.S.R., France and Canada. KOSPAS and SARSAT
satellites are to be used to locate downed civil aircraft and
ships. The first rescue mission occured on Sept.10, 1982 when
a downed Canadian plane was found using the Soviet KOSPAS
satellite.
>From the message one can speculate that the reason for the
Antarctic expedition wanting the orbital data for the KOSPAS
satellite is that they are going to do some transmitting on one
of the ELT (Emergency Locating Transmitter) frequencies to test
the bird. The results should indicate on the map just where on
the Antarctic continent the Soviet base is located.
The last part of Leo's message mentions TO FLY OUT FEB 10. It
is not clear if he means that they will be flying out of their
present are to another base or if they will be leaving the
Antarctic continent.
Switching to other Soviet birds, RS-6 and RS-8 have had their
transponders on lately and have been in favorable positions at
times for a number of long haul DX contacts between eastern
Europe and the U.S. east coast. In the past week, EQXs were
around 30 degrees West longitude and occured about 21:00 UTC.
Yours truly, K1HTV, located 12 miles NE of Washington, DC
worked YO2IS in Rumania on three different passes as well as
a number of Czech stations. Earlier in one of those passes,
TU2IE in the Ivory Coast was worked. For those who still need
Asia to complete Satellite WAC and don't mind waking up in the
middle of the night for an hour or so might I recommend a try
with UA0BBN. Mike is on especially on weekends, where he goes
begging for contacts at times. He often calls people who call
CQ and likes to operate about 20KHz up from the low end of the
RS6 & RS8 satellites' passbands . On Feb. 6th UA0BBN and K1HTV
worked on 6 different passes of RS6,7 & 8. The QSO via RS7 was
via the 145.850 / 29.350 MHz service channel.
On 6 Feb> RS7 was copied dumping a list of stations that had
made contact with its onboard ROBOT . Of the 50 call signs
dumped, there were stations from all continents except Africa,
(but ROBOT did work two stations in Antarctica). I wonder how
long it will be before ROBOT gets DXCC.
Reports continue to come in indicating that RS1 and RS2 are
both semi-operational. The 29.4 MHz beacon of RS1 can be heard
when the bird is in sunlight. The telemetry it sends is not
valid and the satellite identifies itself as "55". In fact all
letters in the RS1 telemetry are sent as the numeral "5".
A recent report from Europe indicates that RS2 is also active
at times, with its transponder occasionally on (and very
sensitive) but its 29.4 MHz beacon off. The last report of the
RS2 beacon being copied was from W6ELT who in mid January,
heard both RS1 with its NG telemetry and RS2 with its good
telemetry and its RS RS identifier which indicated that its
transponder was ON. Both birds were heard by George within the
same hour, about 30 minutes apart between the hours of 5:45
and 6:30 AM PST before local sunrise. So with RS1-8 and U-O-9
it looks like we presently have a total of 9 active ( or sem-
active) Radio Amateur satellites in orbit.
73 de Rich, K1HTV