AMSAT News Service Bulletin 300.05 From AMSAT HQ

SILVER SPRING, MD. October 27, 2002

To All RADIO AMATEURS

BID: $ANS-300.05

The ISS packet mail systems mailbox (Personal Message System) was activated on February 21, 2002. Since then the system has been on the air for over 98% of the time (The rules require the Amateur Radio equipment on ISS to be turned off during docking missions). The Packet mailbox has handled over 2400 packet mail message to and from the ISS crew in 7 months.

On October 3, 2002 the message counter was at 2397, with about 20 new messages arriving daily. That is an average of 340 messages per month.

The packet system message counter was reset on October 8, 2002 back to message number 1 as part of a planed reconfiguration of the PMS. One of the parameters, which changed, was the call sign of the Mailbox. The call sign of the PMS mailbox has changed from RS0ISS to RS0ISS-1 (rs ZERO iss dash ONE). The old call RS0ISS is not being used. If you connect to the RS0ISS port, all of you data will go into the giant bit bucket in the sky.

For more information on how to use the ISS Amateur Radio packet system, please review the suggested operating procedures on the MAREX web page. http://www.marex- a.org/fileshtml/isspacketmanual.html

Recently, the ISS PMS was off line for 6 days due to a TNC lock up. Valery power cycled the PMS and then on the next orbit he loaded the current date and time. No messages were lost. It seems that only the clock takes a hit when you power cycle.

[ANS thanks Miles WF1F for the above information.]