SPUTNIK 40 YEARS

SPUTNIK
40 YEARS
4th October 1957 - 4th October 1997

Beacon frequency is 145.820 (+ - 5KHz) FM as reported by several Amateur Radio stations all around the World this morning.

3:1 scale model of Sputnik as shown at the AMSAT-UK Colloquium '97 - Images courtesy Reinhard DJ1KM, Hannover

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Sputnik is DIED !

On December 27 - 09:15 UTC over Italy I have recorded a 1352 Hz tone. Sputnik temperature was near 50°. I presume high temperature was due to a continuos exposure to the Sun.

I tried again on December 31 without success. No signal was heard from Space.

My station consists in 2 x 17 elements horizontal polariz. antennae with preamplifier. All system has azimuthal and elevation movement. Radio used for listen Sputnik was Kenwood TR-751e.
Here are images about my shack.

Several messages received all over the world have confirmed RS-17 is probably dead.

Battery end of life or too high temperature for transmitter ? ".......The transmitter will be activated in November during an EVA (Extra Vehicular walking in space) from MIR. The life time will be between 1 and 2 months......" (note from F6FAO Gerard).
Sputnik ceased transmission at the end of December therefore two months after activation.

Thanks to ALL and especially to Paolo Pitacco IW3QBN (AMSAT-Italy), Gregory S. Williams KE4HSM, Farrell Winder W8ZCF and many others for report's messages about frequency received from Sputnik.

We now have a new Satellite on the Air, Sputnik was launched this morning by the Mir station.
I had a nice talk with David Wolf this morning. He is a little tired from his long day at work. Anatoly and Paval, did the Out side work, while David controlled things from Inside Mir. Just before sputnik was launched, Anatoly turned on the Sputnik transmitter.
Then David Wolf tuned the Kenwood TM-733 radio in Mir to Monitor the 145.820 sputnik beacon. The beacon was coming in strong and on frequency. Then David gave the OK to launch Sputnik.
The 250 mw beacon can be heard in either FM, CW or SSB modes.
If you hear the Beep Beep Beep of the Sputnik satellite, you can send away for a special QSL card.
Envelopes should be well sealed and do not include cash. Send a SASE and an IRC coupon.
Do not make any notes on the out side of the envelope with Amateur Radio Call signs visible.
Dave Larsen MIREX / N6CO is not handling SWL cards for Sputnik, please use the address below.

QSL Information for SWL (Short Wave Listener):
Sergej Samburov
PO Box 73
Korolev-10 City
Moscow Area, 141070, Russia

There is another address given for QSL-ing on the Sputnik home page (http://www.oceanes.fr/~fr5fc/angspoutnik.html , the English language version), which states under "Listeners" and I quote:"PSE send your reports (envelope+irc) at FR5KJ radio club. FR5KJ radio club will send you back a diploma.

On the 20th February 1997, an agreement was signed between Russia and France to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the launch of the first artificial satellite of the Earth: Sputnik-1.

Two groups of high school students will cooperate to build a functional scale model (1:3) of the original Sputnik satellite. Students from NALTCHIK in Russia will build the body of the satellite, and students from Reydellet School in LA REUNION will build the radio transmitter that will "beep-beep" from space after launch from the MIR space station on the 4th October 1997.

This is an exceptional educational event which deserves full attention and which should be used to raise the worlds awareness that a truly new era in the evolution of Mankind has been opend 40 years ago.

Aero-Club de France and the Russian Federation of Astronautics will help raise funds for the transportation of the 4kg model to MIR and for the launch during an EVA. A world-wide fund-raising drive "40 sponsors for the 40 years of Sputnik" with 40 shares tagged at US$ 6,000 each is under way.


Example: Wav file
	Wav file SSB	Wav file FM	Wav file FM Equalized (No QRM)	Realaudio file SSB	Realaudio file FM
	121 Kb - 11 sec.	131 Kb - 12 sec.	130 Kb - 12 sec.	You can hear Doppler's effect

	The transmitter will be activated in october during an EVA (Extra Vehicular walking in space) from MIR. The life time will be between 1 and 2 months.
	The Spoutnik will be launched be hand so it will not be very far from MIR. But Mir is doing frequently orbit adjustments. So we don't know how long the orbital elements will be the same that MIR. It will be a good exercise for students to try to compute the orbitals elements following the doppler.
	The transmit power is between 100 and 200 mW. The antenna polarisation is circular, and will be right or left following how we will see the satellite. The Spoutnik has no attitude stabilisation, so we don't know how we will be in space. The modulation is FM and the BF [audio] signal is around 1.3 kHz and it will vary with the temperature. Another good exercise for students to measure the audio frequency and see the temperature. The RF signal sounds like a beep-beep as it is ON/OFF with a duty cycle of 5. The full cycle is around 4s. You can listen the beep-beep in FM position or SSB position. The sound is really nicer in SSB position, but if you want to measure the audio frequency you should be in FM. It will not be an easy exercise because it is a burst and the dynamic of frequency variation is low.
	Equipment to receive the signal. In the best case you should be able to receive it on a handheld receiver with an antenna gain of 0dB, but as we will not know the satellite attitude in space it will be better to have a yagi with 10 dB gain (around 9 elements).
	Frequency. Not fully finalized but between 145,810 and 145,850 MHz. I plan to make a full technical description of the project before the launch. Any reports of listening will be welcome.
Gerard Auvray, F6FAO Vice President AMSAT-F


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