Subject: [sarex] Mir ARS Status March 17, 1999, Hardware Move

From: "Miles Mann" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 09:44:24 -0500

Mir Amateur Radio Status:  March 17, 1998

by Miles Mann WF1F,
MAREX-NA (Manned Amateur Radio Experiment, North American Division)

Mir's Random Radio Schedule:

The Mir crew is in the process of moving the Personal Message System (PMS)
and the MAREX-NA SSTV Amateur Radio equipment from the Priroda Module to
the Mir-Core or Base-Block module.
This move will give the crew better access to the Amateur Radio equipment.
And it will give us access to the Mir-Core Antenna.  The Mir-Core antenna
is a Larsen-Dual band mobile antenna, mounted out side of Mir.  The dual
band antenna will give us access to 2-meters and 70 cm.
In the Priroda module, we only had access to the 2-meter antenna.  The
Priroda Module 2-meter access limitations and the power supply limitations
caused a little confusion to the a few hams, who did not understand the
hardware limitations of the project.  I still expect all operations, SSTV
and Packet to stay on 145.985 FM simplex, until we are able to run both
projects simultaneously.  Since we only have enough power to run one
project at a time, there is no
reason to use the 70cm band at this time.

The Mir Core module is where the crew spends most of their time, this means
there will be more opportunity to see and hear the Mir crew from the new
location.
During the move, we can expect some down time for the Amateur Radio
Station.

New Mir Crew Members:
The current crew consists of:

Current Crew
SOYUZ TM-29 arrived at Mir on February 20, 1999.  Mir Soyuz TM-29 crew
consisted of French cosmonaut Jean-Pierre Heignere, Viktor Afanasyev  and
Slovakian Cosmonaut Ivan Bella
On February 28, some of the crew returned to earth, they were:
Slovak Ivan Bella and Gennadiy Paldalko.
Gennadiys mission lasted approximately 6 months (August 16 1998 – February
28 1999)

The remaining crew consists of:

The French cosmonaut Jean-Pierre Heignere
Cosmonaut Viktor Afanasyev
Cosmonaut Sergei Avdeyev.  Sergei mission began August 16, and is expected
to last a total of 9-11 months.

This will make the Mir crew 27 a three man crew. Energia informed me that
the French Cosmonaut Jean-Pierre did receive training on the MAREX-NA SSTV
project, and he has already sent a few SSTV images of him self and the rest
of the Mir crew.

Current Schedule for Packet PMS and SSTV:
No activity last weekend due to the hardware move.

The crew will do their best to keep the SSTV system active on weekends and
packet PMS operational on weekdays.

Equipment Pictures:
I am looking for Pictures of the Amateur Radio equipment currently on the
Russian Space Station Mir.
I have searched a few of the NASA archives, with limited luck.  Most of the
equipment shots I have received from other sources.  This week I received a
nice shot from Tony VK5ZAI.  The picture shows Astronaut Andy Thomas
talking on the 2-meter station from the Pirioda module on Mir.  In the back
ground you can see good shot of the MAREX-NA DCI filter.  The filter was
needed to keep the Mir 143 MHz commercial radio from De-sensing the 2-meter
station.

Current inventory list of amateur radio hardware on Mir:
SUFAX II Repeater (Icom)
Kenwood TM-733 (for PMS)
Kenwood TM-V7A (for SSTV)
Packcom TNC (old PMS modem)
Kantronics KPC-9612 (current PMS modem)

If you do find a good shots taken from Mir of the Amateur radio hardware,
please send the JPG or GIF to my E-mail address. The best pictures will be
posted to the MAREX-NA web page.

Tracking Mir

The best way to track satellites is to get access to a good satellite
tracking program.
There are numerous programs on the market, both for sale and share ware.

The best place for current satellite position date (Kep’) data is at the
CelesTrak web page http://celestrak.com/

Copyright 1999 Miles Mann, All Rights Reserved.  This document may be
freely distributed via the following means - Email (including listservers),
Usenet, and WorldWideWeb.  It may not be reproduced for profit including,
but not limited to, CD ROMs, books, and/or other commercial outlets without
prior written consent from the author.
Images received from the MAREX-NA SSTV system on the Russian Space Station
Mir
are considered public domain and may be freely distributed, without prior
permission.

Miles WF1F

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