Subj : Amateur Radio Newsline (A
To   : All
From : Daryl Stout
Date : Fri Jul 05 2019 11:07 am

Amateur Radio Newsline Report 2175, for Friday, July 5, 2019

Amateur Radio Newsline Report Number 2175, with a release date of
Friday, July 5, 2019, to follow in 5-4-3-2-1.

The following is a QST. A ham has an unprecedented QSO via a transponder
in lunar orbit. Military auxiliary hams conclude a nationwide drill --
and a grid-square activation in Northern Ireland becomes a rescue
operation. All this and more, as Amateur Radio Newsline Number 2175,
comes your way right now.

**
BILLBOARD CART

**

UNPRECEDENTED 2-WAY QSO WITH TRANSPONDER IN LUNAR ORBIT

STEPHEN/ANCHOR: On the 50th anniversary of the lunar landing, the moon
is back in the news in a big way - this time, it's making amateur radio
headlines, with a ham in Germany who achieved a "first" on Tuesday, July
2nd. Ed Durrant, DD5LP, picks up that story.

ED: An unprecedented two-way contact has been made from an amateur radio
operator here on Earth, via a transponder orbiting the moon. Reinhard
Kuehn, DK5LA, logged the QSO with BG2BHC via DSLWP-B, which was launched
by China, as secondary payload on the lunar relay satellite on May 20,
2018.

Wei, BG2BHC, was at the Club station of the Harbin Institute of Technology,
BY2HIT, in northern China. The Harbin Institute had announced earlier that
QSL cards had been designed for different phases of the DSLWP mission's
flight, in hopes hams would get involved in receiving telemetry or making
contacts.

Writing in his blog, Spanish engineer and researcher Daniel Estevez,
EA4GPZ/M0HXM, noted that difficulties in using the GMSK-to-JT4G repeater,
particularly in respect to signal power, needed to be overcome on the
uplink. Daniel noted that Reinhard had hoped to achieve the contact some
months earlier, but it was not possible. With barely a month to go before
DSLWP-B crash-lands on the surface of the moon, he extended his
congratulations to Reinhard for the confirmed contact.

And so do we here at Newsline.

For Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Ed Durrant, DD5LP.

**

LIGHTSAIL2 TALKS TO MISSION CONTROL IN CALIF.

STEPHEN/ANCHOR: More excitement in space: A very jubilant team at mission
control in California has heard the first signals from Lightsail 2, a
crowdfunded CubeSat, that had been sent into space on June 25 from the
Kennedy Space Center in Florida, aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.

According to the Planetary Society website, the mission team received the
first signals from its CW beacon, on the 2nd of July at 0834 UTC, as it
passed over California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo,
home to mission control. Built by students at Georgia Tech, Lightsail2 is
a project of the Planetary Society, and hopes to be the first spacecraft
to orbit Earth while propelled by sunlight. Listeners will hear a beacon
packet transmitted every few seconds. Once decoded, it will become 238
lines of text telemetry, describing the spacecraft's health, battery
status, and other relevant details. The spacecraft will transmit its call
sign WM9XPA every 45 seconds on 437.025 MHz, which is within the amateur
radio 70-centimeter band.

(THE PLANETARY SOCIETY)

**

SABLE ISLAND DXPEDITION MAKING PROGRESS

STEPHEN/ANCHOR: An encouraging word has come for another DXpedition off
the Canadian shore, as we hear from Kent Peterson, KC0DGY.

KENT: The green light for the Sable Island DXpedition just got a little
greener: The team's leader, Murray, WA4DAN, will be making a trip in
October, to prepare for the 2020 activation on the remote crescent-shaped
island in the North Atlantic, which is one of Canada's farthest offshore
islands, and a national park reserve. Murray will be making the trip in
October, to review logistics with Parks Canada personnel. Of particular
concern are the wild horses inhabiting the island, as well as the seals,
birds, and vegetation, that must not be disturbed, while the ham radio
team is active. The team will be required to flag all its guy wires and
antennas ,and to use extra care routing coax to the antennas. Accessible
only by boat or airplane, Sable Island is known for its fragile ecosystem.

For Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Kent Peterson, KC0DGY.
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