Saturday activation. For some reason, on some browsers the incorrect video is shown.
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And rescue operation of the KNRM starts at 4h 52m 7s

The KNRM guys were also viewing my zoom camera footage to check on the team at sea

The colloquium was a great success. We had some breaking news and many contacts were made and old friends reunited.

I have put a lot of the video material online on the AMSAT-UK YouTube Channel together with Noel G8GTZ and Trevor M5AKA.

Playlist:

http://batc.tv/live/events/amsatuk/

Exciting news announced yesterday:

Satellite demo by Drew KO4MA:

I have been receiving some S-band and C-band up- and downlinks from the tour the france reporters together with Nils von Storch (his idea!).

We first put S-band up (feed and LNA) to see if we could spot the Cineflex video helicopters. We think we got one uplink from the heli to the planes flying over the parcours.

After that, we switched to C-band using a downconverter to L-band.
We got two planes at 13000 feet and one at 27000. We think we have seen the two at 13000, continuously fading as they bank and steer the antennas.

Due to adverse weather, we could not switch out the C-band feed back to S to try and detect the mobile video links from the motorcycles. We got a nice thunderstorm with rain and strong winds. Not the kind of storm that you would want to find yourself in on the TU Delft roof at 100m ASL!

I have returned home from the five-day radio camp VERON Pinkster kamp (VPK) organised by the dutch radio society VERON.

The camp was situated in Sellingen on Camping “de bronzen eik“, JO32nw.

I had a lot of FUN and decoded some satellites on the camp as well as operating on HF and assisting during the soldering projects Fokzbox, My Morse Guide and WaveLights

Pictures are in my photo album

Some video’s of the QSO with Wouter Jan PE4WJ operating at 4U0ITU in Geneva:

And some high-speed video shots of the campfire after the barbecue:

AMSAT-NL is delighted to announce that an initial series of tests of the FUNcube transponder payload aboard the QB50p1 CubeSat have been successfully completed.
QB50p1 is one of two QB50 precursor spacecraft that were launched from Yasny in Russia in June 2014.

The primary science payloads are still being extensively tested but it has now been possible to undertake a short test of the transponder payload as well. The transponder is intended as a long term secondary mission following the initial technology demonstration and de-risking phase.

After spending ten months in space, the transponder was commanded on for short periods during each of the three morning passes over Europe on Monday 27th April 2015. A number of FUNcube team members in the Netherlands and in the UK were standing by to run through a predefined test plan.

The transponder appears to have a similar performance to that of FUNcube-1 but the passband is nominally 5 kHz wider by design.

It is not yet known when this transponder may be available for regular usage but AMSAT-NL is delighted to be able to report that the hardware is functioning and is very grateful to the QB50 project, the Von Karman Institute and ISIS B.V. for their ongoing support.

More information about the QB50 project can be found at https://www.qb50.eu/
AMSAT-NL: http://amsat-nl.org
AMSAT-UK: http://amsat-uk.org

The satday was a big success. We estimate about 100 people attended the day and we got lots of positive feedback.

I have announced the Nayif-1 project to the public during the satday, kindly allowed by the Emirati Institute of Advanced Science and Technology (EIAST) in Dubai.

This was instantly tweeted around the world by several attendees, and a press release was done after the announcement at the satellite day.

Read it at http://amsat-uk.org/2015/04/25/nayif-1-cubesat-mission/

Also, the demo sessions turned out to be a success, despite the slight drizzle outside.

The second edition of the dutch “satellite interest day” will be organised again on Saturday 25th of April 2015. This day will be part of the annual VHF-day organised by dutch amateur society VERON.

We have reached the maximum number of visitors registered, and have published the attendance list at this webpage.

I look forward to meeting you all in Apeldoorn!

Hi All,

FUNcube-1 has shut down its transmitter around 2018 UTC yesterday.
We have reasons to believe this may have been due to the large geomagnetic storm hitting earth at the moment.

The team is still investigating the situation, but we have concluded from earlier telemetry analysis that it was safe to switch back to nominal operations.
During the 09:30 UTC pass over The Netherlands, I have commanded it back to nominal mode with full automatic mode switching.

At this time, there is no reason to believe this event was dangerous to the spacecraft, all systems were nominal and the battery is nearly full.

Please enjoy FUNcube-1!

Wouter PA3WEG
FUNcube command team