By Miles Mann WF1F, MAREX-NA (Manned Amateur Radio Experiment, North American Division)

MIR Status:
The Mir crew began sending SSTV images last Sunday at approximately 12:00 UTC time.  Images continued to be sent for the next 5-8 hours. 
If you have any good images, you may want to post them to your web page and then publish the web link.  Please do not send images to large mailing lists such as sarex or amsat because they would bog down the internet too much.
Also, if you do have a great shot you can send the image directly to wf1f@amsat.org
And I will post the best on the MAREX-NA web page.

One of the reasons for the sporadic amateur radio activity from the Mir station is because the Mir crew has temporally shifted their SLEEP CYCLE.  I have posted below the Normal sleep cycle for the Mir crew.
However, this week the crew has shifted their sleep cycle several hours.  This week the Mir crew are going to sleep at approximately 0900 UTC, and are waking up around 1700 UTC.

(Normal) Mir Crew Sleep / Wake times:
The Mir crew is using a time Sleep/wake cycle which I will call Mir-Time (MT).  
Mir-Time is UTC time plus 3 hours.  
Mir-Time does not make any adjustments for daylight-savings time.

Here is a list of an approximate time schedule for the Mir crew.

The Mir crew sleeps from approximately 19:00 UTC, until 04:00 UTC.
Mir crew is awake and working from approximately 04:00 UTC - 18:00 UTC
Another way to think of it is, take the UTC time and add 3 hours to equal Mir-time.

Mir Amateur Radio Status:
Intermittent Voice and SSTV on 145.985 FM Simplex (SSTV mode Robot 36). 

SSTV:
The Mir Space Station has begun activating the amateur radio projects, including the MAREX-NA SSTV project.  The International Space Station (Alpha) may also be installing a new MAREX-NA SSTV called SpaceCam1 system as early as Q4 2000.  Now is the time to start getting your satellite station  ready to transmit and receive Slow Scan Television signals. I have provided a few web links, which can help you, get your satellite station ready to receive SSTV images.
The tentative SSTV/Packet Mir broadcast school is:
Saturday, Sunday and Monday SSTV. 145.985 FM Simplex
Tuesday - Friday  1200 baud AX.25 Packet 145.985 FM Simplex

Suggested Receiving Station for Satellite SSTV Images.
http://www.siliconpixels.com/marex/MirSSTVStation.htm

MAREX-NA home page
http://www.siliconpixels.com/marex

SSTV Repeaters:
The MAREX-NA team has posted some information regarding testing of the new SpaceCam1 SSTV software.
http://www.siliconpixels.com/marex/RepeaterOperations.htm

Mir QSL Update:
The card proofs have been sent to Energia/MAREX-RU for final approval. We think we have all of the minor typographical errors corrected.  And an updated QSL fax was sent to Energia on the 7th for approval. We hope to send the final card to the printers in May 2000.

Note:  We are currently out of QSL cards for the Mir Amateur Radio program. 
I  would like to thank you all for being patient on getting your QSL cards.  We hope to begin shipping the new cards in Q2 2000.  The cards we are making are just for the Mir crew QSL cards, we are not associated with any of the special event QSL cards such as Sputnik.

Copyright 2000 Miles Mann, All Rights Reserved.  This document may be freely distributed via the following means - Email (including listservers), Usenet, and World-Wide-Web.  It may not be reproduced for profit including, but not limited to, CD ROMs, books, and/or other commercial outlets without prior written consent from the author.
Images received from the MAREX-NA SSTV system on the Russian Space Station Mir are considered public domain and may be freely distributed, without prior permission.

DOSVIDANIYA Miles WF1F