ARISS International Team Teleconference

Tuesday, October 16, 2012, 11:15 UTC (7:15 am ET)

Participants:

Gaston Bertels

Sergey Samburov

Mark Steiner

Rosalie White

Larry Agabekov

Masanobu Tsuji

Keigo Komuro

Lou McFadin

Keith Pugh

Carlos Eavis

Graham Shirville

Fabio Azzarello

Christophe Mercier

Carol Jackson

Kenneth Ransom

David Jordan

Darin Cowan

Dave Taylor

Trinesha Dixon

Frank Bauer

Ken Nichols

Interpreter, Tatiana Lind

Not attending:

Pam Fox

Daniel Lamoureux

Maurice André Vigneault

Carlos Neta

Francesco De Paolis

Barry Baines

Steve Ponder

Bill Boston

Tadeu Fernandes

Bertus Hüsken

ARISS I Agenda:

Administrative session

The team welcomed Sergey back to the monthly telecon meetings. We are happy that his schedule allows him to participate once again.

1. ARISS-I board elections - Gaston Bertels, ON4WF

Daniel was not available for today's meeting. He sent this email message:

Good morning Rosalie,

I will not be present on the ARISS telecon this morning as we have to leave for a doctor appointment. Please tell the delegates present that the nomination period has ended and that in a day or two, I will be asking the ones nominated if they are willing to let their name stand for the position they are nominated for. Once I have all the answers, I will report to the group and we will then know if we will need an election. If so, I will proceed accordingly. Any questions, I can answer by email.

73, Daniel, VE2KA

This topic will be discussed further, soon.

2. ARISS-I face to face meeting - Gaston Bertels, ON4WF

As announced last month, no annual meeting is planned for 2013 due to the inability of so many people having problems with travel expenses. We have not discussed when we may be holding the next meeting, but will do this in the future.

3. New Business

General Session

4. HamTV project - Gaston Bertels, ON4WF

A meeting is planned by ESA at ESTEC in the Netherlands during the week of 5 November. The meeting is intended to work on the integration of ham digital TV with all other ARISS activities onboard the ISS. Remember, ham digital TV is a downlink, the uplink will be only voice VHF FM, and possibly UHF, as is currently done. As of now, only the Ericsson UHF equipment is operable, but we hope to have VHF radio onboard soon. It will be low power compared to the power of a Kenwood D-700. We are using VHF antennas and have no experience using UHF antennas with school contacts, but we will be experimenting with how these will work. In April 2013, we will be testing the ham TV equipment.

5. Columbus module status - Kenneth Ransom, N5VHO

Current status of the Columbus equipment is that the VHF unit was returned on flight 30-S. The VHF replacement unit is slated to be launched to the ISS on 49-P -- launch date is October 31. The VHF unit would not replace the UHF unit until early 2013 because of the very busy schedule of crew members. A full complement of crew members will be back on board in early 2013. Astronaut Chris Hadfield has expressed interest in performing the replacement activities. The old VHF unit may be back in Houston in about two months.

6. New Business

The attitude and positioning of the ISS will probably be changed during 1-11 December, and this modification is due to a scientific experiment on the exterior of the ISS, involving the sun. If the experiment is approved, the positioning could affect a few ARISS contacts because our antennas would not be oriented toward Earth. Our ARISS Team will be working this issue. We may want to observe how such an attitude modification influences our transmissions -- it could be something teachers can use in classrooms.

A thank you goes to everyone for participating today.  Our next meeting should be 20 November 2012. With the time change in various parts of the world, the meeting hour should be 1215 UTC.

Respectfully submitted,

Rosalie White, K1STO

ARISS Secretary-Treasurer

October 18, 2012