Space Station Alpha given permission to assemble the Amateur Radio Station November 9, 2000 By Miles Mann WF1F, MAREX-NA (Manned Amateur Radio Experiment, North American Division) ISS ALPHA: The first full time crew for ISS ALPHA has docked and moved in. One of their first official requests was to give the International space station a name. Astronaut Bill Shepeard ask Dan Goldin of NASA for a request on behalf of the first ISS ALPHA crew. Bill asked to use the call sign of the Space station as Alpha. Congratulations to Bill Shepherd, Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev for cutting through all the red tape and giving ISS ALPHA a name. Let's hope her name stays and she flies as long as the successful Russian Mir program. For more information on this mission please check the NASA web pages. http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/index-n.html Space Station Alpha given permission to assemble the Amateur Radio Station: The ISS crew received permission to assemble the Amteur Radio 2-meter station this weekend, if time permits. The crew's workload is still very high and they may not have time to complete the project until later in the week. The plans call for testing the amateur radio station with a few selected NASA and Russian ground stations to test out the signal performance. If all goes well, then the system could be placed in service for the public to chat with the ISS crew during their off times on weekends in the near future. The Amateur Radio system also includes a simple email system called packet mail. The packet system can be used to send and receive email from earth and will be open to all licensed amateur radio stations. The system uses standard AX.25 1200-baud packet. The TNC as is it called has its own CPU and 32k of memory for mail storage. ISS Alpha VHF / UHF radio links: The ISS uses three different types of communications links to earth: VHF Ground Relay stations S-Band commercial satellites TDRS NASA satellites VHF: The Alpha crew has been using the old MIR VHF and UHF radio links to communicate with Mission control. The VHF link is usually active while the ISS is orbiting over North America and Russia. There are approximately 9 VHF Ground Relay stations in operation (6+ in Russia and 3+ in the USA). When ISS passes in range of a Ground Relay station, it is connected to Mission control in Russia. The VHF / UHF links are used for voice and low speed data only. During a typical 90 minute orbit, the ISS will typically have less than 20 minutes of communication time with Mission control per orbit. If you are watching the NASA channel with the world map displayed, the circles over North American and Russia are the Ground Relay stations. The ISS can only communicate over the VHF links while it is inside one of those circles. The Amateur radio community in Europe and the USA have been having fun listening to ISS via the direct VHF links. When ISS is over the Indian Ocean and pacific oceans, it is usually out of communications range of all Ground Relay stations. Note: I do not post the ISS commercial frequencies. S-Band commercial satellites: The ISS has also been intermittently using an S-Band commercial satellite to pass voice and high-speed data, when ISS is over Europe. Last week we saw the ISS crew using a PC videophone using the protocol H.323 Video. The image quality was quite good, and I assume there were running QCIF at 768kbit. The new video standard will eventually migrate to Amateur radio in the form of Compressed Digital Amateur TV (CDATV). More on this topic in the future. TDRS NASA satellites: The ISS crew has not installed the Antenna needed for the TDRS links. The new antenna will be delivered and installed next year. After the TDRS link is working, the ISS will have over 70% link coverage to Mission control with both voice and high speed data. The web page below will describe how TDRS works. New satellites will be added in the future to bring up the orbit coverage to over 95%. http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/sts-jsc-comm.ht ml International Space Station Alpha Amateur Radio Call signs: The ISS ALPHA is keeping the international flair by hosting several amateur radio call signs from around the world. So far the ISS ALPHA has three calls signs from three different countries, Russia, USA and Germany. Also each of the crewmembers of expedition 1, has their own personal Amateur Radio call sign. William Shepherd, Expedition commander, KD5GSL Yuri Gidzenko, Soyuz commander (unknown) Sergei Krikalev, flight engineer, U5MIR Russian Module call sign: RZ3DZR Other club call signs ISS used: NA1SS and DL0ISS ALPHA Ground Station: What will you need to Hear the ISS ALPHA Amateur Radio 2-meter Station. That's a tricky question because there are good orbit pass and poor low orbit passes. On a good 45 degree orbit pass, since the ISS ALPHA is only 250 miles high, you will be able to hear the 2-meter signal from the space station with a very small antenna (0 dBd to minus 12 dBd (rubber duck)). During a very low orbit passes under 20 degrees you may need a much larger antenna. The Amateur Radio station on ISS ALPHA will be transmitting in the satellite 2-meter band (ITU 144.000 - 146.000 mc). I have listed a frequency chart below. The ISS ALPHA transmitter power output is approximately 3 watts, into a vertical antenna rated at minus 3 dBd. I do not have the coax loss values at this time. This combination of power and antenna gain will provide an ERP rating of approximately 1.5 watts. The 1.5-watt value is not that bad, I was able to hear the RS-17/18 satellites from my car antenna (minus 3dBd) and those satellites were only running 0.5 watts. If you only have a zero dBd gain antenna and a police scanner you will still be able to hear the ISS ALPHA on some good orbits. (note: if your antenna is rated in dB rather than the correct dBd value, subtract 3 to convert the dB value to the correct dBd rating) Suggested receiving station: Casual listening for ISS ALPHA and Mir 2-meter vertical or scanner antenna (0 dBd or better) Police scanner or amateur radio with the ability to receive in the 144 - 146 mc or MHz range, FM mode. Antenna cable should be a low loss RG-8 style cable less than 100 feet long (RG-213 best choice). You will not need to mount the antenna very high, just try to get above the roof ridgeline. And of course you will need to find / buy a satellite tracking program. I recommend the InstantTrack 1.5. It's a simple easy to use program, which can be purchased from Amsat. http://www.amsat.org/amsat/instanttrack/ ISS ALPHA frequencies: The Amateur Radio frequencies for ISS ALPHA have been posted. Worldwide downlink for voice and packet: 145.800 Worldwide packet uplink: 145.990 Region 1 voice uplink: 145.200 Region 2 & 3 voice uplink: 144.490 You will need to dig out the manual for your radio and program in the following frequency combinations. Note that some of the older FM mobile and Walkie-talkie HT style radios over 15 years old may have some difficulty in saving these combinations into memory. The channels listed below will help you compensate for the speed of the space station, called Doppler. If the smallest channel step your radio supports is 5k, then only program in channels 2, 5 and 8. If your radio supports the smaller 2.5k channel step, then program in all channels listed. After you have determined your smallest channel step supported by your radio, then program in the channels. You can either use the procedures for storing ODD-Splits or you can reprogram your repeater off set for each of the channels and then save the new combination in a new memory location. This channel procedure has been successfully used on the Mir Amateur Radio program for years and is the choice of usage for school schedules (you do not want to fiddle with VFO's during a 10-minute pass). I also recommend you program in all channels, no mater what part of the world you live in. The World Map ISS ALPHA location display used by the ISS ALPHA crew is not located next to the Amateur Radio station. Voice operations Region 2 & 3 (North and South America and Pacific) Chan Receive Transmit Offset (Meg) 1 145.802.5 144.488.5 -1.314 2 145.800.0 144.490.0 -1.310 3 145.798.5 144.492.5 -1.306 Packet operations Regions 1, 2 & 3 (Europe, North and South America and Pacific) Chan Receive Transmit Offset (Meg) 4 145.802.5 145.988.5 +0.186 5 145.800.0 145.990.0 +0.190 6 145.798.5 145.992.5 +0.194 Voice operations Region 1 (Europe) Chan Receive Transmit Offset (Meg) 7 145.802.5 145.198.5 -0.604 8 145.800.0 145.200.0 -0.600 9 145.798.5 145.202.5 -0.596 Usage Example: Lets assume ISS ALPHA is approaching for a good 10 minute over head pass, running Packet. When ISS ALPHA comes over the horizon the Doppler frequency error will initially be 3.5k plus 145.990 = 145.993.5. This means the frequency ISS ALPHA will appear to be transmitting on is 145.993.5. Set your radio to channel #4 for the first 3 minutes of the pass. Then for the next 3 minutes use channel #5 and for the last three minutes use channel #6. Follow the same procedure for Voice operations. Since we are using the Mode FM, we do not have to have our Transmit and receive frequency exactly on frequency. We can be off frequency 1-2khz and still get reliable Voice and Data. The MAREX-NA team has been using this procedure for 10 years with excellent results. QSL card: A QSL card is a post card, which you can request to confirm you made a two-way or heard the crew on the Amateur Radio band. The QSL procedure for ISS ALPHA is under development, please check the AIRSS web pages for the latest updates and QSL procedures for ISS ALPHA. http://arISS Alpha.gsfc.nasa.gov/ Copyright 2000 Miles Mann, All Rights Reserved. This document may be freely distributed via the following means - Email (including listservers), Usenet, and World-Wide-Web. 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.