ARISS International Team Teleconference

Tuesday, November 21, 2006, 12:00 UTC (7:00 am ET)

Participants:

Frank Bauer

Rosalie White

Mark Steiner

Sergey Samburov

Larry Agabekov

Masanobu Tsuji

Keigo Komuro

Robin Haighton

Daniel Lamoureux

Ken Nichols

Gaston Bertels

Lou McFadin

Keith Pugh

Carlos Eavis

Miles Mann

Ken Pulfer

Carol Jackson

Kenneth Ransom

Interpreter, Olga Frumkin

Unable to Attend:

Tadeu Fernandes

Dave Larsen

Bill Boston

Graham Shirville

Matt Keil

ARISS I Agenda:

Administrative Session

1. New Business (administrative only)

General Session

2. Kenwood Status, Presenter: K. Ransom

There has been no change to the misconfigured Kenwood, and the crew is manually inputting the frequencies for school QSOs. We had two good QSOs, yesterday.

3. SuitSat-1 Certificates, Presenter: F. Bauer

Frank has a draft of the certificate, and he and the artist are making changes. A draft will be circulated to the team in the next few weeks. Frank asked delegates to tell him the number of cards needed from each ARISS region.

4. Special QSL Cards/ QSL Managers, Presenter: S. Samburov

Sergey requested information about QSL managers. Carol asked Sergey for his World of Travel slides.

5. SuitSat-2 Status, Presenter: L. McFadin The team is making progress on several systems, the power component, antenna system and the internal housekeeping unit. Students are testing some of the circuit boards, and writing software for the project. NASA is providing surplus solar panels, and these will be mounted, hopefully, such that the tumbling of the suit doesn't stop power. The US Team will be working on the antenna system as part of the RF system. Lou has built a prototype antenna. A team is building the power point converter for the solar panels. Next meeting is in early December. Lou asked Sergey for information about the SuitSat battery. Rosalie gave an update on the educational team's work. The team is discussing new ideas plus a CD similar to the one on SuitSat-1. An email will be sent to everyone for their ideas. As initial information about the CD, teachers can submit students' work in the form of a digital picture, which must be in JPEG format not to exceed 1.2 megabytes. The SuitSat education team will provide ideas for the types of student work, but having it related to science, technology and mathematics is highly encouraged in order to meet NASA preferences. In early December, Lou will try to pinpoint the deadline for the CD work. Gaston requested that we allow the work to be submitted in various languages. Miles reminded us that we will need news releases for photos of students, and that form can be found at http://www.rac.ca/ariss/Release_Talent_Release.doc

6. New business

Gaston asked Frank for some parameters on the material covering the antenna, for Pavel. Frank reports the covering is very thin, and shouldn't change anything. Mikhail Tyurin has been making QSOs (with Canadian hams) that sounded like interviews, and possibly were about commercial issues. Kenneth is in dialogue with the hams, and described his email about it. The Canadians are Mikhail's friends, and didn't realize they were generating complaints and causing issues by being on the frequency for every pass overhead.

Carlos had Sergei Krikalev as a visitor to the GB4FUN van.

Miles asked about Bob Bruninga’s project with the shuttle. ANDE and RAFT are ham radio satellites that will be deployed on the next shuttle, prior to docking, although they will not be attached to the ISS. They’ll be close to the ISS orbit. They are not coordinated by ARISS because they aren't ISS activities. The satellites have been coordinated through IARU, and the frequencies should not have an impact on our frequencies. Also, Bob will be sending two proposals to the Project Selection & Use Committee, one is for PCSat-3 which is similar to PCSat-2, and the other is about use of the ISS radios.

Sergey reported new progress on the SHADOW ISS experiment that involves a packet repeater. Ground stations will be sending signals, and ISS signals will be marked with the time. This will be on ham frequencies, and use the PM-3 packet mode. Mikhail will put it in that mode, but we have to send procedures on how he is to do that. Kenneth reported that the mode hasn't worked since August, and we need a photo taken to see what the baseline is for PM-3, and then develop steps for how to restore the mode. We might change the frequency in PM-4. The experimenters are asking ARISS for what frequencies are best; Kenneth said the default frequencies might be best. If we could get the radio reprogrammed now, that would solve this problem and all others. This experiment is publicized on the Shadow Web pages, but signals will be transmitted only by the ISS and the experimenters. It is the first step of the Shadow experiment, which ARISS received a presentation on, to see if signals can be sent and received.

Gaston discussed a QSO for Schliegel, and has asked for a copy of his license. The Swedish hams are meeting with Gaston to get telebridge equipment for Fugelsang, and Kenneth should have pass options soon.

The next teleconference should be December 19.

Respectfully submitted,

Rosalie White, K1STO

ARISS Secretary