5 Years of HAMSAT - an interaction with ISRO.

On the occasssion of HAMSAT (VO-52) completing five years in orbit ISRO-ISTRAC had invited some members of AMSAT India and general Users of HAMSAT to attend the HAMSAT MMB (Mission Management Board) and user meet at ISTRAC , Bengaluru.

Senior officials from ISAC and ISTRAC addressed the gathering. Data was shared on the five years of operations of the HAMSAT and the data shows that the satellite is in good health and will provide many years of service to the Amateur radio community. We were also introduced to the people behind HAMSAT - and it was an eyeopener!!!! So many departments and divisions who have helped make HAMSAT and keeping tabs on its health.

The officials are very happy with the performance and usage of HAMSAT and are happy with the fond title HAMS have given HAMSAT - "THE DARLING OF AMATEUR RADIO OPERATORS"

I had the opportunity to make a presentation on OSCAR's and HAMSAT usage. The presentation had information on what as OSCAR means to a HAM, what interested them to take up communiation through satellites, the equipment and station setup requirements, the limitations, shack and equipment phots, etc which was well received.

SWL Ganeshan from AMSAT India who is the designer of the HAMSAT II Xponder presented his design to the ISRO audience and also shared inititial information on his cubesat transponder which is under development.

VU2WMY, Mani of VU2URC presented future plans for payloads with Amateur Radio capability and the possible elevation slots and its effective coverage - which was interesting

We had a guided tour of the Tracking and command facilities at ISTRAC and understood how the Tracking,Telemetry and command is done for the satellites including HAMSAT. This was really impressive and the infrastructure truly world class.

We were well taken care of - fantastic lunch, snacks and hospitality.

I would like to thank ISRO- ISTRAC for this oppurtunity,hospitality and Upagraha Radio club (VU2URC) for their help.

Hams who attended the meet were - VU2UV, VU2POP, VU2RMS, VU2PCP, VU3STJ, VU2SWG, VU2GUR, VU2ABS, VU3TYG, VU3BJZ, VU2GZ, VU2DPE, VU2RVJ, VU2WMY, VU3PSZ and other HAMS working with ISRO.

SATELLITE USERS - STATION SETUP - VU2GUR

Popularly called the “SAT-Guru” – OM Guru has been active on the Satellites for a decade now – starting under the tutelage of OM Bindu – VU2IR (SK) during 2000.

He has at present worked through 8 Satellites with more than 2000 QSO’s and has recorded and reported reception of the Digitalker aboard FO-29. The Impressive list of satellites and the number of stations contacted are :

UO-14 – 35 VU + 5 DX = 1137 QSOs

SO-35 – 13  VU + 7 DX = 90+ QSOs

SO-50 – 4 VU + 1 DX = 15 QSOs

AO-51 – 25 VU + 20 DX = 235 QSOs

VO–52 – 44 VU + 8 DX = 525 QSOs

SO-67 – 3 VU + 2 DX = 7 QSOs

HO-68 – 7 VU + 4 DX = 11 QSOs.

ISS – ARISS – SPACE STATION – 20 VU + 2 DX + 1 DIRECT TO V/V REPEATER = 54 QSOs.

He has contacted the following DX countries:

Thailand, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and ND9M both from the International Waters and from Diego Garcia.  

He uses a FT-2600 M VHF Base and a FT – 530 UHF handy for both terrestrial and satellite use.

He has a set of four Antennae – 2 for VHF and 2 for UHF

                    

1  VHF - Slim Jim for Vertical polarisation                   1 VHF - Dipole for Horizontal polarization                       

2 UHF - Slim- jim and Dipole on the same mast - seperate cables.

He has been instrumental in coaxing a lot of us into taking to the BIRD HUNTING – working the OSCARs.

Thanks Guru – “SAT-GURU” for showing us that we too can work the OSCARs with simple setup – a lot of dedication – and a Zeal to learn.

SATELLITE USERS - STATION SETUP -1 - VU2TQC

I recently had an idea of running a series of posts giving details of the station setups of the HAMS frequently or regularly working through the OSCARs.

The main intention is to spread the awareness of the basic requirements required to work the OSCARs.  It is also to dissolve any misconcept Hams may have as regards the expertise required to establish contacts through the OSCARs.

I therefore requested a few of the HAMs to send in their station details so that we can create a comparative catalogue of different working setups and their success stories.

First is this series is from OM Jayant - VU2TQC.

Rigs used are:-


a) Yeasu FT 60R ( Dual Band VHF/UHF Handy; max. power output 5w).
b) ICOM 2200 (VHF Rig, max power output 65 watt)

The antennas which he uses are:-

VHF:- 5/8 (from VU2GT), di-pole (home brewed using stainless steel radio whip)
UHF :- Slim Jim (home brewed using 5 mm brass rod), dipole (home brewed using 6mm aluminum rods)

The dipole on top - the slim jim suspended from the cross boom

He has been having QSOs through satellites using di-poles in case of overhead or near overhead (65 degrees and above). For other lower angle passes, he uses the slimjim for UHF and 5/8 for VHF.  He has worked on VO-52, AO-51, SO-50 quite regularly and has had successful QSOs with DX stations - EX8MLT KYRGYSTAN and UK8GDW UZBEKISTAN.  One big advantage being in the cetral part of the Indian sub-continent.

And this is the operator operating from his rooftop - with a beam.

You will be able to follow his Satellite activity on on his blog (Click Here to go to his Blog)

Thanks Jayant for sharing your details.  I am sure this will be of motivation to others who want to come on the OSCARs

Birthday Luck??????????

Call it Birthday Luck???????

on 5th May, 2010 - the 5th Birthday of our beloved satellite - HAMSAT - VO52, we were lucky to have an overhead pass @ 2113 IST - 85 deg peak elevation. 

My VHF Moxon has become a inverted vee MOXON :( Birds sitting on the horizontal elements have bent the elements downwards when the fly off.  I have not been able to bring down the antenna and rectify it.  In this situation, the only hope of working the satellite was with rubberducky from the roof.  Luckily, it was a clear - non rainy - evening . 

Up on the terrace, (I am lucky to have a near - clear visibility allround) I gave it a shout - and I had a 59+ report QSO with VU2GUR and later on I got reports that I was going through 59 to VU2DPE and VU3STJ.

Thank you HAMSAT - for giving me a real memorable experience on your BIRTHDAY - goes to show no sophesticated setup is really required to work the BIRDS.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY - HAMSAT - VO-52

HAMSAT- VO-52 Celebrates 5th Successful year in Space - AND GOING STRONG

Heres Wishing one of the Most Popular and Successful of the OSCARs - HAMSAT - VO-52 - The PRIDE of INDIAN HAMS - A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY - In Space.


During the last one year, since I started working the OSCARs - I have had many successful QSO through the HAMSAT and found that the signals are more stable and accessible compared to other Sats at the same angle of elevation.

I am sure that this Bird will have many more years of successful and active passes.

KEEP FLYING - HAMSAT

I thank all those who were part of the planning, testing, integration, launch and operation of the HAMSAT. Special thanks to AMSAT-INDIA and ISRO for taking up this cause that has put INDIA on the OSCAR Map.

Eagerly awaitng the HAMSAT - II

Indian Small Satellite Systems Conference -1 - A Report

This is the brief report on the just concluded Indian Small Satellite Systems Conference organised by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) which was attended by Colleges and others participating in or involved with Small Satellite Systems. 

One such Small Satellite is scheduled to be launced by ISRO on the 9th May, 2010. 

Technical Director of AMSAT INDIA, OM Pratap - VU2POP who attended the conference has circulated this report on the conference by email and the same is reproduced here for larger viewership.

(reproduced with permission of OM Pratap)

Hi All

Amsat India was invited to attend the Indian Small Satellite Systems Conference -1 conducted yesterday at ISRO Bangalore.

Amsat India was represented by Ganesan (our Hamsat 2 designer) and myself VU2POP. ISSSC was a one day Programme from 9 am to 5.30 pm. It was very interesting and as many papers were presented & topics discussed the time was short it got over by 7 pm.

One day is too short and hopefully next year it will be 2 days. However we thank ISRO for kick starting a very interesting platform for interaction of ISRO with various educational institutions including Amsat India who are into ham satellite projects.

Important topics were on the current Small satellite developments and the future trends of small satellites including Mini, Micro, Pico sats etc. Hamsat VO-52 too falls into the small sats, to add many students all over the world have been building student sats as projects and in India too, nearly 26 Universities have got into building student sats with various payloads.

Most Ednl. institutions already have a ham club and some institutions are now setting up ham clubs in their institutions to help learn more of ham satellite operations and facilitate building ham band payloads. As of now most of them are both digital with only beacon downlink and no voice transponder. In the next couple of months you will find many cube sats etc with experimental payloads launched.

Amsat India has 2 linear tranponder is ready and we Amsat India are asking ISRO for a higher orbit to cover a larger foot print and longer pass duration. It’s no use having another LEO as HAMSAT 1

Hamsat 1 will be celebrating its 5th birthday on 2 May and ISTRAC has been monitoring its health and its utilisation, they report that Hamsat 1 is in good health and should serve the hams for many more years.

In this regard there was an email by VU2WMY Mani a few days ago asking for USER feedback like utilisation & experiences by hams all over the world with Hamsat.

Please send in your reports, utilisation and experiences with Hamsat by email and the same will be forwarded to ISRO. Looking forward to all your reports comments.

We would like to thank ISRO for the HAMSAT 1 and we look forward to HAMSAT 2.

Finally we thank Programme Dir and Project Director - Small Satellite & Upagrah Amateur Radio Club (VU2URC) for the kind invitation to participate in the ISSSC-1 and we look forward to many such platforms for the development of small satellite systems with the participation Educational Institutions & Amsat India.

Pop

VU2POP

Dir Technical

Amsat India

Hams who attended VU2WMY, VU2GDX, VU2RVJ, Ganesan, Chandrasekhar new hams &myself VU2POP

All those who work through VO-52 are requested again to send in their User Opinion and Experiences to wmy@isac.gov.in or vu2mud@gmail.com;

Satellite activity for 24th April, 10

Day time activity was affected by frequent power cut.

AO-51 is on a different Mode - VHF uplink and S-Band Downlink - until tomorrow.  It will be back on VHF/UHF mode from 26th Apr.

Tried the VO-52 at 2103 IST and was able to work VU3STJ - 59 and VU2DPE - 59. 

It was an interesting night.  This pass was immediately followed by the SO-50 pass along with the HO-68 (ofcourse no FM activiation)

This is the screen shopt for the Orbitron Satellite tracking software showing the Passes.

Should try HO-68 @ 0902IST on 25th April for the FM activiation.

HAMSAT Transponder Performance and Utilization

May 5th 2010 is a red letter day for Indian Ham Radio Operators, especially those who are working through OSCARs - the 5th Anniversay of the Indian OSCAR - HAMSAT - VO52.

In this regard the Operations Director of HAMSAT is seeking details on the useage, utility and experiences of HAMS using the HAMSAT.  The email request is reproduced below.  Please share your experiences with all of us - so that we can compile a database of the users of VO-52 and their personal experiences.  This should go a long way in an early launch of HAMSAT-II.

Respond directly to VU2WMY or to this blog so that we can compile the responses at an early date and forward to the HAMSAT team.


(Email Reproduced with permission of VU2WMY)
Dear friends,


On behalf of the Programme Director, Mission Director, Operations Director and the entire "HAMSAT" project team, I convey their message to the Global Amateur Radio Satellite enthusiasts & users through my mail.

It gives us a great pleasure to inform the World Amateur Radio community that, on 4th May 2010, HAMSAT (VO-52) is completing 5 years of successful existence in Space rendering useful and fruitful services to the Amateur radio community.

We as well take this opportunity with great pleasure to inform the Global Amateur Radio community, that the overall system health and performance of "Hamsat" - "The gift from INDIA/ISRO to World of Ham Radio" is good and satisfactory.

To commemorate this mile stone achievement, we have intended to bring out a 'Comprehensive Performance & Utilization Report' of the payload (Transponder) based on the user feed backs from across the Globe. In this regard, we request all the Amateur Satellite Enthusiasts and users to kindly send us their feed backs about the performance and utilization of the transponder. A detailed report expressing their views, suggestions, comments, ratings and preferably a comparison note made with other linear transponders, those already been flown and currently available one's would be greatly appreciated.

The feed backs may kindly be copied to my mail ID as well.

I have herewith attached the mail received from Operation Director, HAMSAT.

Looking forward to hear from you all.

Thanking you

73 de

Mani, VU2WMY
Secretary & Station-In-Charge
Upagrah Amateur Radio Club VU2URC
ISRO Satellite Centre
Airport Road, Bangalore-560 017.
Phone:(O)91- 80-2508 2054/2192/2537
Mobile: 91-80-98803 41456
E-mail ID: wmy@isac.gov. in
vu2wmy_mani@ yahoo.com
isrohams@yahoo.com

----- Forwarded message from tprangan@istrac. org -----
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2010 10:00:58 +0530
From: tprangan@istrac. org
Reply-To: tprangan@istrac. org
Subject: HAMSAT Transponder Performance and Utilization - Reg.
To: wmy@isac.gov. in
Cc: tprangan@istrac. org

DEAR MR. SUBRAMANAI,

This is to bring to your kind attention that HAMSAT is COMPLETING 5 YEARS of successful existence in space. I am sure, HAMSAT continues to be the DARLING of the HAM Community.

To commemorate this event, ISTRAC is bringing out a "5-YEARS OF HAMSAT PERFORMANCE" Report. To make the report a comprehensive one, we would like to add the FOLLOWING INFORMATION.

1 PERFORMANCE of the HAMSAT TRANSPONDER as _perceived by the users_
2 COMPARISON of the HAMSAT Transponder with her CONTEMPORARIES
3 Details of SATELLITES providing SIMILAR SERVICES
4 Approximate NUMBER OF USERS of HAMSAT in _India / over the globe_
5 GROWTH of HAMSAT USERS, since launch
6 Approximate HAMSAT TRANSPONDER UTILISATION (transponder interaction period) over the globe (transponder is ON always)
7 Any more INTERESTING INFORMATION on HAMSAT

KINDLY _DO THE NEEDFUL_ BY CIRCULATING THIS REQUEST TO OUR HAM FRIENDS.

With Best Regards,
T.PARIMALARANGAN
Operations Director
HAMSAT

Satellite Activity - VO-52 - 28nd Feb, 10 - evening

VO-52 evening Pass @ 2145 IST was a rather unsuccessful experience as generally it was found that the downlink side was rather noisy today.

In-spite of this, the other stations heard on the VO-52 today were VU2GUR, VU2GZ, VU2ZUB, VU2SWG were heard independent of each station i.e, most stations heard most of the other stations - BUT NO 2-WAY QSO REPORTED. I heard VU2GPS for only one call and then nothing heard.

Surprising phenomenon.  Better luck tomorrow.

Satellite Activity - VO-52 - 28nd Feb, 10

The VO-52 Pass at 0930IST at 73Deg elevation wrt to Bangalore once again was a succesful one with lot of activity during almost the entire pass period of about 13 minutes. First signals that I heard was from VU3TYG  -Nitin from Bangalore at around 0931 almost immediately followed by VU2TQC - Jayant from Mumbai and they had a successful 2 way QSO.

Then came in VU2SWG Shankar from Bangalore followed by VU2GUR - Guru also from Bangalore.

I was able to have successful 2 Way QSO with VU2TQC (59/58) and VU2GUR (59/59).  Although I called Nitin and Shankar I was not able to hear any reply.  There was also one other station calling me but did not get the callsign

Another interesting aspect of the activity today, was that Guru was giving a Demo at the SJR Science College, Bangalore for the students from over 100 colleges participating in a Science Exhibition organised there.  Guru was operating from the rooftop of the college and was using a rubberducky initially before switching over to a HB9CV antenna.

Great Show Guru.

Satellite Activity - 26th Feb, 10

There was a favourable HAMSAT (VO-52) pass of 57 deg elevation on the eastern side at 2108 IST today.  Was listening in on 145.900 MHz with the squelch open right from the Access of Satellite (AOS) time of 2108 IST.  I was giving CQ calls on 435.250MHz - the uplink central frequency but was unable to hear my signals on the downlink freq. As the satellite rose to about 13 deg elevation (I was parallely tracking the satellite using Orbitron satellite tracking software), I started hearing VU2GPS and a few seconds later VU2GUR.  I could hear Guru give a report to Partha who did not reply immediately.

As the satellite rose to about 22 Degs, signals from Guru and Partha increased to 59 - receiver quitening and both exchanged 59 reports.  I also was able to contact both of them with similar 59 reports and I was also able to hear myself on the downlink freq. very clearly as the satellite came to the peak elevation of about 57 Deg. 

Later on VU2GZ OM Hari, also put out a call a all three of us heard him and gave him a call.  But unfortunately Hari had not copied us. Probable reason - he was on a rubber ducky antenna from his rooftop !!!! But he made it through the satellite - that is for sure.

Additional information:
Guru was using his horizontal dipole for both VHF and UHF.
I was using a horizontal "Bazooka" for UHF and a Moxon Rectangle antenna for VHF
I am yet to get the Operating setup details of OM Partha VU2GPS

Looking forward to meeting more hams in the near future for two way QSOs.

Satellite Activity - VO-52 - 22nd Feb, 10

Immediately after posting the first writeup, it was time for the VO-52 pass @ 21.30 IST at a good elevation w.r.t. Bangalore @ 61 Deg.

Today we had OM Partha - VU2GPS from Chennai, VU2GZ - Hari, Bangalore, VU2GUR - Guru, Bangalore, and myself who were able to exchange reports.

Later on, as the satellite went northwards, VU2ZUB came in quite clear. OM Daya - VU2DPE was also able to hear the satellite downlink with his handy and rubberducky.

Gud Omen for the New Blog and the first Post.

We have a long way to go. :)