The Amateur Amateur: Any-Bounce

“Other than the ionosphere, have you ever deliberately bounced your signal off of something in order to improve your propagation?” That was the question asked during one of our recent ARES nets.

Chinese Satellite XW-1 Receives OSCAR Designation

Less than one week after China’s first Amateur Radio satellite — XW-1 — was successfully launched, AMSAT has designated it Hope-OSCAR 68, or HO-68. “Amateur Radio Operators around the world have received beacon signals from XW-1,” said AMSAT-NA OSCAR Number Coordinator Bill Tynan, W3XO. “XW-1 has been coordinated through IARU Amateur Satellite Frequency Coordination Panel. As XW in Chinese means ‘hope,’ it had been requested that this word be used as the prefix for the new OSCAR number. Therefore, with the above information and the authority vested in me by the AMSAT-NA President, I hereby designate this latest Amateur Radio satellite as Hope OSCAR 68 or HO-68.” HO-68’s communications payload includes a beacon and three crossband transponders operating in FM, SSB/CW and digital modes. Uplink and downlink frequencies can be found on the CAMSAT Web site. For the latest Keplarian elements for XW-1 and other satellites, check out the W1AW Keplerian Bulletins.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009 at 4:06 am and is filed under Short Wave Radio News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.