
SB SAT @ AMSAT   $ANS-008.01
FINAL FREQUENCIES SELECTED FOR PHASE 3-D

HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 008.01 FROM AMSAT HQ
SILVER SPRING, MD JANUARY 8, 1995
TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT
BID: $ANS-008.01

Following a series of discussions, a number of iterations and intensive
study, the builders of the Phase 3-D communications equipment have made
their final selections of the frequencies to be employed on the satellite
scheduled to be launched in April 1996.  These selections have since been
approved by the P3D Project Leader Dr. Karl Meinzer (DJ4ZC).

These frequencies were carefully selected to minimize mutual interference
with other amateur satellites and have been coordinated with IARU bandplans
by the P3D Frequency Coordinator, Freddy de Guchteneire (ON6UG) with
assistance from Peter Guelzow (DB2OS) and Werner Haas (DJ5KQ).

Crystals have been ordered for all receivers and transmitters to implement
these frequencies.  In accordance with the Phase 3D design concept, all
receivers and transmitters are connected to the IF matrix which allows
interconnection of the various receivers and transmitters to create what
have been known as transponders on former amateur satellites.

The selected Phase 3D frequencies are as follows:

UPLINKS

  BAND        DIGITAL (MHZ)              ANALOG (MHZ)          CENTER (MHz)
 ------       -------------              ------------          ------------
 15M              N/A                  21.210 -   21.250           21.230
 2M        145.800 -  145.840         145.840 -  145.990          145.915
 70CM      435.300 -  435.550         435.550 -  435.800          435.675
 23CM(1)  1269.000 - 1269.250        1269.250 - 1269.500         1269.375
 23CM(2)  1268.075 - 1268.325        1268.325 - 1268.575         1268.450
 13CM(1)  2400.100 - 2400.350        2400.350 - 2400.600         2400.475
 13CM(2)  2446.200 - 2446.450        2446.450 - 2446.700         2446.575
  6CM     5668.350 - 5668.550        5668.550 - 5668.800         5668.675


DOWNLINKS

 BAND         DIGITAL (MHz)            ANALOG (MHz)            CENTER (MHz)
 ----         ------------             ------------            ------------
 10M        29.330 MHz +/-5 KHz  (To be used for digitized voice bulletins)
  2M        145.955 -  145.990       145.805 -  145.955          145.880
 70CM       435.900 -  436.200       435.475 -  435.725          435.600
 13CM      2400.650 - 2400.950      2400.225 - 2400.475         2400.350
  3CM     10451.450 -10451.750     10451.025 -10451.275        10451.150
 1.5CM    24048.450 -24048.750     24048.025 -24048.275        24048.150

All downlink passbands are inverted from the uplink passbands.

BEACONS:

  BAND       Beacon-1       Beacon-2
  -----      --------       --------
  2M           N/A             N/A
 70CM        435.450        435.850
 13CM       2400.200       2400.600
  3CM      10451.000      10451.400
 1.5CM     24048.000      24048.400

Note: The absence of a 2M beacon is due to strictly to characteristics of
the IF matrix and the limited bandwidth available on that band.  Studies
are underway with the intent of providing a 2M beacon but it is not clear,
at this time, that this effort will be successful.  The beacons on the other
bands are for various purposes including providing spacecraft engineering
data to the command stations.  All beacons can be modulated with 400 bits
per second BPSK and possibly other formats.

[The AMSAT News Service wishes to thank Phase 3-D International Satellite
 Team members Freddy de Guchteneire (ON6UG), Peter Guelzow (DB2OS), Werner
 Haas (DJ5KQ) and Karl Meinzer (DJ4ZC) for the information that went into this
 bulletin.]

/EX
SB SAT @ AMSAT   $ANS-008.02
NEW TAPR TRAKBOX FIRMWARE

HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 008.02 FROM AMSAT HQ
SILVER SPRING, MD JANUARY 7, 1995
TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT
BID: $ANS-008.02

A New Version Of TrakBox Firmware Available To Fix New Year S/W Bug

As most active TrakBox users must know by now, there is a bug in
firmware versions 3.30a through 3.30h. The problem relates to the
the clock settings now that we are in the year 1995.  New code is
available from various sources for the benefit of those users who
have programming capability.  The code will be posted on KO-23 and
KO-25 as soon as the birds are back in normal service.  You can
also find the code in DL5 of the HAMNET Special Interest Group (SIG)
on Compuserve.  TAPR expects it will become available in many more
places after that as users spread the word.  Speical thanks goes to
Sueo Asato, JA6FTL, for providing version 3.30i so quickly.

For the benefit of users not having programming capability, TAPR will
start taking orders starting on Friday, 06-JAN-95.  For more information
about how to obtains new ROMs for your TrakBox, please call TAPR head-
quarters at: (817) 383-0000.

[The AMSAT News Service (ANS) would like to thank Jack Davis (WA4EJR),
 TAPR TrakBox Manager, for the information which went into this ANS
 bulletin.]

/EX
SB SAT @ AMSAT   $ANS-008.03
NEW IARU FREQUENCY COORDINATOR

HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 008.03 FROM AMSAT HQ
SILVER SPRING, MD JANUARY 8, 1995
TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT
BID: $ANS-008.03

The IARU Names A New Amateur Satellite Frequency Coordinator

The International Amateur Radio Union International Secretariat in Newington, 
CT announced December 29, the appointment of Bruce Lockhart, (SM0TER) as the 
IARU Satellite Frequency Coordinator.  His main task as an IARU volunteer will 
be to provide a service to enable any group to coordinate frequencies and 
emissions of a planned amateur satellite with existing and any other planned 
amateur satellites.  The appointment was made after consultation with major 
AMSAT groups in Europe and North America.
 
Bruce's work will also include the maintenance of records of all 
frequencies and emissions of all operating and planned amateur
satellites and to provide advice as to suitable frequencies and
modes for all planned amateur satellites, having regard to
existing and planned usage of the amateur satellite bands and the
IARU band Plans.
 
While this is a technical position, the IARU Satellite Frequency 
Coordinator has an important role in assisting in the protection
of bands allocated to the amateur satellite service.  He will work
closely with the IARU Satellite Adviser, Hans van de Groenendaal,
ZS5AKV.
 
Bruce brings extensive experience to the appointment.  Trained as
an engineer, professionally he is self employed as an international 
consultant in the process control industry, doing hardware and soft-
ware development.  He was first licensed as K3ZAQ in 1963 and has 
operated on all bands from 1.8 MHz to 2.4 GHz.  He is a member and 
Technical Secretary of AMSAT-SM, is a member of AMSAT-UK and AMSAT-NA, 
and in the amateur satellite community is known as the original designer
of the TrakBox.
 
AMSAT-NA President Bill Tynan (W3XO) expressed pleasure at Bruce's
appointment and said that AMSAT-NA looks forward to working with him.

ANS thanks the IARU Secretariat for this bulletin information.

/EX
SB SAT @ AMSAT   $ANS-008.04
AMSAT FILES REPLY COMMENTS TO FCC

HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 008.04 FROM AMSAT HQ
SILVER SPRING, MD JANUARY 7, 1995
TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT
BID: $ANS-008.04

AMSAT Files Reply Comments In FCC Proceedings

AMSAT submitted Reply Comments in response to comments sent to the FCC in
connection with its Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) in ET Docket No.
94-32, released November 8, 1994.  This NPRM is an important step in a
process set up by legislation enacted by Congress in 1993, directing the
Government to release 200 Megahertz of spectrum to the private sector.  The
reason this affects hams is that much of this spectrum has been assigned 
the Amateur Radio Service on a Secondary basis, sharing with Government. 
This sharing has been successful for many years, but it is not known if
amateurs will be able to share with potential commercial users.  The
frequencies to be transferred immediately are 2390 to 2400 MHz and 2402 to
2417 MHz, with 2300 to 2310 slated for transfer in 1996.  The National
Telecommunication and Information Administration (NTIA), in its
recommendation to FCC of frequencies to be transferred, specifically
exempted 2400 to 2402 MHz citing its use by amateur satellites.  Thus, even
though none of the frequencies marked for transfer are used by any
existing, amateur satellites or for Phase 3D (See ANS-008.01), AMSAT
nevertheless feels that their possible loss will severely hamper the future
growth of the Amateur Satellite Service.  For this reason, it strongly
objected to the licensing of any new services on these frequencies.

AMSAT found that most of those commenting were not in compliance with the
will of by Congress in that their proposals failed to consider the impact
on Amateur Radio.  Such protection of Amateur Radio is an important part of
the legislation.  AMSAT's submission maintained that comments not
considering the effect on Amateur Radio are non-responsive and that the
Commission has no alternative but to dismiss them.  In addition, AMSAT
found that many of those commenting had very poor technical grounds on
which to base their proposals.  This was mainly due to a lack of proper
understanding of the difficulties inherent in operating in close proximity
to microwave ovens which use frequencies in the vicinity of 2450 MHz.  

AMSAT urged the Commission to follow the recommendations it submitted with
its comments of December 19th; namely that amateur radio be afforded a
segment in the vicinity of 2304 MHz on a Primary basis for weak signal
work, and that it retain access to 2390 to 2400 MHz and 2410 to 2450 MHz
and, along with the amateur satellite service, be granted Primary status in
the 2400 to 2410 MHz band.  AMSAT also said that the amateur satellite
service should also retain access to all of the 2410 to 2450 MHz band on at
least a secondary basis.   

AMSAT also expressed general agreement with those advocating the use of
2400 to 2450 MHz, or 2390 to 2450 MHz for unlicensed low power spread
spectrum Part 15 devices.  AMSAT stated the belief that, with proper
equipment design, such use appears to be compatible with the amateur
service and the amateur satellite service.   Strong disagreement was
expressed with those which propose that this spectrum be allocated to new
licensed services. 

AMSAT's reply comments were prepared by Ray Soifer (W2RS) and Bill Tynan
(W3XO).  Normally Perry Klein W3PK would take the lead in the preparation of
such comments, but he was out of town for the Holidays.

/EX
SB SAT @ AMSAT   $ANS-008.05
AMSAT OPS NET SCHEDULE

HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 008.05 FROM AMSAT HQ
SILVER SPRING, MD JANUARY 7, 1995
TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT
BID: $ANS-008.05

AMSAT Operations Net Schedule

To take full advantage of the upcoming "good" phase on AO-13, the
following AMSAT Operations Net Schedule will be in place.  The primary
downlink frequency for all Ops. Nets will be 145.950 MHz.  In case a
QSO is in progress on that frequency at net time, 145.955 MHz will be
used as an alternate.  Net control for all of these nets will be
Keith (W5IU); however, anyone is welcome to serve as an alternate.
Reports on all phases of OSCAR operations are welcome.  Guest speakers
on special topics will be scheduled as availability permits.

Day    Date       Time       Coverage
________________________________________________________

Sun  15-JAN-95     02:30      NA, WSA, Hi, NZ
Sat  21-Jan-95     19:00      NA, SA,  Eu, Af
Sat  28-JAN-95     23:00      NA, SA
Sun  05-FEB-95     02:00      NA, JA, NZ, EAus
Sat  11-FEB-95     18:00      NA, SA, WEu, Af
Sat  18-FEB-95     22:00      NA, SA

Note:  All times are in UTC; therefore, Sun. dates are actually Sat.
evening in USA.  Times do not conflict with ZRO Tests.

Thanks - Keith, W5IU, AMSAT VP of Operations

/EX
SB SAT @ AMSAT   $ANS-008.06
UOSAT-22 CURRENT STATUS

HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 008.06 FROM AMSAT HQ
SILVER SPRING, MD JANUARY 7, 1995
TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT
BID: $ANS-008.06

G0SYX Provides Explaination of UO-22's Anomalistic Behavior

Over the past couple of weeks numerous reports have been recieved
concerning the anomalistic operation of the UO-22 broadcast server. Ground
controllers have looked at the activity logs of the spacecraft and have
come up with the following conclusions:

1.- The problem that is being observed where the broadcast server stops
servicing the user queue is being caused by the file system running out
of available directory entries.  As users upload files which render the
available number of directory entries down to zero, the file system begins
to scan the entire directory structure looking for files that can be
purged from the system.  This process can take several minutes thus result-
ing in the lapse of messages from the broadcast server.

2.- The number of files that are available to delete at any given time is
very small.  Review of the activity logs has shown that the file system only
deletes a handful of files at a time and once these entries are reused there
are no slots left for new entries, which causes the file system to go off
again and spend its time hopelessly scanning its directory for more files to
delete.

3.- Ground controllers believe that this situation has been brought about
due to the increased UO-22 activity because the other 9600 baud satellites
have not been available for use over the past several weeks. As a result the
file system on UO-22 has simply become overloaded with the traffic that is
being diverted from the other spacecraft.

In light of the conclusions listed above, it is highly recommended that
users of the UO-22 spacecraft limit the number of files they attempt to
upload to the spacecraft until the overload situation is resolved. This
may take several days as it will first be necessary for the other spacecraft
to come back on line with their store-and-forward communications systems.
UoSAT controllers will monitor the situation and inform the user community
when the activity level returns to a normal state. Until then, please limit
the number of files to be uploaded to the spacecraft. Your cooperation will
be greatly appreciated.

[The AMSAT News Service (ANS) would like to thank Doug Loughmiller (G0SYX),
 UoSAT Spacecraft Operations Manager, for this bulletin item.]

/EX
SB SAT @ AMSAT   $ANS-008.07
WEEKLY OSCAR STATUS REPORTS

HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 008.07 FROM AMSAT HQ
SILVER SPRING, MD JANUARY 7, 1995
TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT
BID: $ANS-008.07

Weekly OSCAR Status Reports: 07-JAN-95

AO-13: Current Transponder Operating Schedule:
The Mode Schedule from 19-DEC-94 until 20-FEB-95 will be:
Mode-B  : MA   0 to MA 100 |Omnis : MA 230 to MA  25
Mode-BS : MA 100 to MA 130 |
Mode-S  : MA 130 to MA 132 |<- S beacon only
Mode-S  : MA 132 to MA 155 |<- S transponder; B trsp. is OFF
Mode-S  : MA 155 to MA 160 |<- S beacon only
Mode-BS : MA 160 to MA 180 | Blon/Blat 180/0
Mode-B  : MA 180 to MA 256 | Move to attitude 230/0, Feb 20
[G3RUH/DB2OS/VK5AGR]

RS-15: A brief reminder for those who have not committed to memory yet
the correct frequencies. The following is the bandplan and becon frequen-
cies of amateur radio's newest OSCAR:
              RS-15 Transponder Bandplan
Uplink:    145.858 - 145.898 MHz (from Earth to Sat.) - aprox. 100 Watts IERP
Downlink:   29.354 -  29.394 MHz (from Sat. to Earth) - up to 5 Watts
Beacon 1:   29.352.5 MHz  - 0.4/1.2 Watts
Beacon 2:   29.398.7 MHz  - 0.4/1.2 Watts

The AMSAT NEWS Service (ANS) NEEDS YOUR HELP! The ANS looking for volunteers
to contribute weekly OSCAR status reports.  If you have a favorite OSCAR
which you work on a regular basis and would like to contribute to this
bulletin, please send your observations to WD0HHU at his CompuServe
address of 70524,2272, on INTERNET at wd0hhu@amsat.org, or to his local
packet BBS in the Denver, CO area, WD0HHU @ N0QCU.  Also, if you find
that the current set of orbital elements are not generating the correct
AOS/LOS times at your QTH, PLEASE INCLUDE THAT INFORMATION AS WELL.
The information you provide will be of value to all OSCAR enthusiasts.

/EX

