Satellite Presentation In Surrey, BC

You're Invited... 

Amateur Radio satellites are easy to work with very basic equipment. You can even listen in on a scanner.

ARRL Instructor and Legacy Circle Club member Clint Bradford, K6LCS, will be presenting his satellite talk at the Surrey (BC) Amateur Radio Club on March 14, 2018. All are welcome to attend.



The meeting will be held at the LDS Church and Hall at 6270 126 St. Surrey, at 7:00 PM.
Attendees will be shown EVERYTHING needed to work the FM voice ham satellites – with a re-occurring theme of, “Most hams already have most of the necessary equipment… ”

Attendees can download a four-page tutorial beforehand at: http://www.work-sat.com and pre-presentation questions are welcomed:
Leave voicemail at 909-999-SATS (909-999-7287), or send email to k6lcs@ham-sat.info

It promises to be an entertaining and informative evening.

More information about Amateur Radio Satellites?

See our February Communicator newsletter, and 

Our International Space Station Astronaut contact: https://tinyurl.com/SARC-ISS

And a typical Ham radio satellite exchange: https://tinyurl.com/SARCsatellite

Our Spring Basic licensing course is coming up: More information

The February 2018 Communicator

Here is the latest Communicator. In this edition you will find:

Over 50 pages of Amateur Radio News from the South West corner of Canada. This issue focuses on Amateur Radio satellites, especially for beginners. Yes, you too can listen, or work Low Earth Orbit satellites with a homemade antenna and a cheap handheld transceiver.

We'll show you several antenna projects, programming tips and How-To's

You can read or download the SARC February 2018 Communicator

Your feedback is always welcome. My deadline for the March edition is February 20th. If you have news from your Vancouver area club, events or other items of interest please email them to the communicator@ve7sar.net

The first 'nation in space' has officially left Earth!

Asgardia, a self-declared nation, is now floating above us, drifting toward the International Space Station... and perhaps destiny.

Eric Mack - CNet News

An odd but intriguing experiment in technology, diplomacy, governance and space exploration, among other things, has officially begun its journey.

After being delayed one day, an Orbital ATK Antares rocket carrying a cubesat named Asgardia-1 launched from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia early Sunday. The milk carton-sized satellite makes up the entirety of territory of the self-proclaimed "Space Kingdom" of Asgardia.

"Asgardia space kingdom has now established its sovereign territory in space," read an online statement.

Over 300,000 people signed up online to become "citizens" of the nation over the last year. The main privilege of citizenship so far involves the right to upload data to Asgardia-1 for safekeeping in orbit, seemingly far away from the pesky governments and laws of Earth-bound countries.

But if you really dig down into Asgardia's terms and conditions, you'll find that those privileges are still subject to earthly copyright laws -- they're set up under the laws of Austria.

As of now, Asgardia's statehood isn't acknowledged by any other actual countries or the United Nations, and it doesn't really even fit the definition of a nation since it's not possible for a human to physically live in Asgardia.

For now, though, Asgardia is a tiny satellite inside a Cygnus spacecraft set to dock with the International Space Station Tuesday morning. There, Asgardia-1 will patiently wait while Orbital ATK completes its primary mission to resupply the ISS.

After about a month, the Cygnus will detach and climb to a higher altitude where the nation-in-a-box will be deployed into orbit.

We'll see if the activation of Asgardia-1 heralds the beginning of a new era of extra-planetary citizenship, or if it slowly fades into obscurity with each trip around our planet and its nearly 200 more conventional nations.

SARC Member Sets UHF Contact Distance Record

Dave VA7THO - 2001 Miles

Our October presentation was given By Dave VA7THO. Dave is particularly interested in digital communications on the high bands. 

One use of APRS is to exchange messages via satellite, sometimes over long distances. Dave set an ISS Digipeater (UHF) distance record recently between himself at White Rock, BC and Jerry W8LR of Middletown Ohio, a distance of 3224 km.

They each used a Kenwood TH-D72 and Arrow antenna. The International Space Station digipeater at that time ran at a frequency of 437.550, but has since returned to its usual frequency of 145.825 so their record may be tough to beat for a while.

Dave talks about the contact

Congratulations on this notable achievement!

Dave's record is included at: https://www.amsat.org/satellite-distance-records/

Tiny “Sprite” Satellites Deployed

Transmitting on 70 Centimeters

According to Scientific American, six tiny “Sprite” satellites, each consisting of a 4-gram circuit board but packed with electronics, were deployed in late June. The Sprites are the brainchild of Zac Manchester, KD2BHC, whom Scientific American interviewed for the article.
The Sprites went into low-Earth orbit as secondary payloads on the Latvian Venta and Italian Max Valier satellites, launched from India. Signals on 437.325 MHz from at least one of the exterior-mounted Sprites have been received in California and New York.
Manchester launched 104 Sprites into orbit in 2014 aboard KickSat-1, but they failed to deploy.