AMSAT-Switzerland Honours Historic Ham Satellite QSO

Satellite enthusiasts in Switzerland are inviting everyone to help pay tribute to a radio operator who was in the vanguard of making QSOs via those birds in the sky.

AMSAT-Switzerland proudly uses the callsign HB9RG as a way to honour Hans-Rudolf Lauber. Hans became a Silent Key in 2017 at the age of 92 but until then, the callsign belonged to this innovative Swiss amateur who completed the first amateur radio satellite QSO in March of 1965. The contact with Alfons Häring DL6EZA was completed via the OSCAR-Eleven satellite.

Hans-Rudolf will be honoured again by satellite enthusiasts in March, when AMSAT-HB hosts the Hans-Rudolf Lauber, HB9RG Memorial Trophy event.

In the spirit of this avid DXer, the trophy will recognise contacts made over significant distances during the two weeks between the 3rd and 16th March. Contacts must be made using only low-earth orbit, medium-earth orbit and high-earth orbit satellites

Disappointment Immediately after Liftoff

Taiwan's PARUS T1A satellite was to become one of the newest FM repeaters in space but it never got a chance. The rocket launch was aborted by Japanese startup Space One right after liftoff on Wednesday, December 17th. The rocket destroyed itself, according to news reports. Engineer Mamoru Endo, a company executive, said that an autonomous safety mechanism triggered the destruction, likely after a first-stage engine or control system abnormality caused the rocket to become unstable.

Hams worldwide had anticipated the eventual orbit of 3U CubeSat which had an FM crossband repeater and an APRS digipeater on 145.825 MHz, the same frequency as the International Space Station's APRS channel.

Meanwhile, the amateur satellite known as PARUS T1 is being scheduled for launch by SpaceX in January, carrying an APRS store-and-forward system.

Both satellites were student projects at National Formosa University.

MESAT1 Amateur Satellite in Orbit

A satellite of interest to the amateur radio community is MESAT1. Built by the University of Maine, in cooperation with AMSAT, this satellite carries a 30 kHz wide V/U Transponder plus a 1k2 BPSK telemetry downlink. Telemetry downlink 435.800 MHz with transponder downlink 435.810-435.840 MHz, and transponder uplink 145.910-145.940 MHz. Amateurs are encouraged to use AMSAT’s FoxTelem software to collect telemetry.

AMSAT - https://www.amsat.org/