SB SPACE @ ARL $ARLS008
ARLS008 AMSAT announces satellite developments

ZCZC AS08  
QST de W1AW  
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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