ARISS-International Monthly Teleconference Meeting

January 17, 2012

Attendees:

Gaston Bertels

Mark Steiner

Rosalie White

Larry Agabekov

Masanobu Tsuji

Keigo Komuro

Ken Nichols

Lou McFadin

Keith Pugh

Carlos Eavis

Graham Shirville

Dave Taylor

Trinesha Dixon

Francesco De Paolis

Carol Jackson

David Jordan

Daniel Lamoureux

Not Present:

Sergey Samburov

Fabio Azzarello

Tadeu Fernandes

Carlos Neta

Darin Cowan

Steve Ponder

Gould Smith

Bill Boston

Maurice André Vigneault

Kenneth Ransom

Barry Baines

ARISS I Agenda:

The roll was called by Rosalie.

A Happy New Year and a successful year for ARISS was wished to all by Gaston.

Administrative Session

1. ITU notification of ARISS frequencies, Presenter: G. Bertels

At our last monthly teleconference meeting, Rosalie reported a summary of the past history for ARISS in regard to an ITU filing. Since then, Gaston contacted Attila Matas, who is the satellite education department of ITU. Attila said that after the May 2009 Circular Letter was written and on record, it now seems that the circular letter applies to ARISS, among others and a filing is an obligation for ARISS. AMSAT-Italia had offered to prepare the paperwork for the filing, as they have an obligation under the Kayser-Italia contract, and will work with the Italian government’s telecommunications administration. Gaston reported that because ARISS is a multi-national working group, Attila agreed that having AMSAT-Italia work with the Italian administration would be an acceptable way of proceeding with the ITU filing. Attila said that it would be acceptable to have only that administration prepare and sign the paperwork for the filing. The first step for filing is a notification listing the frequency bands to be used. The second step requires a listing of the frequency band segments, but not the specific frequencies.

2. New business (administrative only)

Gaston shared information that was recently received from Maurice-Andre that a proposal has been submitted by amateur radio operators that nominates 14-year-old Vanessa from Quebec as Canadian Amateur of the Year. The nomination was proposed because of her hard work in submitting a proposal that was accepted to have her school participate in an educational ARISS QSO, and because she did much of the work that was required to make the QSO and the educational activities a success.

General Session

3. Columbus module status, Presenters: G. Bertels, K. Ransom

The ham TV working group meets most weeks via teleconference. They are waiting on more information from Kayser-Italia, including how to integrate power supplies into the plans and how they might be able to handle the beacon aspect. Emanuele is talking with Kayser-Italia about these things, and is working on reports.

4. ARISSat-1 status, Presenter: L. McFadin

Lou gave a report on ARISSat. It worked as planned, everyone on the team is proud of the results, stations from all over the world collected data that is now stored, a great deal of SSTV images were transmitted, and many people followed ARISSat. AMSAT has seen informal reports showing that several hundred school students having experienced ARISSat either through contacts or by receiving one or more of the several signals being transmitted.

AMSAT-NA is deciding what should be done next for the satellite that is still in Russia. One item being considered for potential use is a super-capacitor as a replacement for standard rechargeable batteries. Other considerations will be how to take advantage of the three available slots for student experiments. No firm plans or dates are set at this point.

5. New business

Our next teleconference meeting will be February 21, 2012.

Respectfully submitted,

Rosalie White, K1STO