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WG3K > ANS 24.11.24 02:17l 59 Lines 3144 Bytes #152 (0) @ AMSAT
BID : ANS329.1
Subj: AMSAT OSCAR-7 50th Anniversary â€ö The Space Age, Morse Code
Path: IZ3LSV<DB0ERF<DK0WUE<DK0WUE<VK5RSV<K7EK<KA1VSC<WG3K
Sent: 241124/0114Z 10293@WG3K.#SMD.MD.USA.NOAM LinBPQ6.0.24
At first glance, there is something about Morse Code and the space age that
donâ€Öt go together. But, think about Morse in its simple beauty.
In addition to building a few spacecraft and pursuing a global amateur
radio allocation for satellites at the International Telecommunications
Union World Radio Conference, AMSAT was also busy developing an educational
curriculum. Before STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics)
was even a concept, AMSAT thought it would be quite exciting to allow
grade-school to high-school students the opportunity to understand the
basics of a spacecraft â€ö not by reading about it in a book, rather by using
a real spacecraft, in class.
*Artist rendering of AO-7*
One of AMSATâ€Ös members, Dr. Martin Davidoff, K2UBC, decided to write a
curriculum at the secondary education level and received a grant from the
Department of Energy to write it. The *Satellite Experimenter's Handbook*
was distributed by the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) and AMSAT to
anyone who might want to teach others about spacecraft technology. The book
especially targeted secondary school educators. Key among the concepts was
the idea of giving a teacher, who may or may not be a radio amateur, the
information necessary to assemble a receiving system, which could act as a
student demonstration tool in school. This receiver and antenna would allow
a class to “receive and decode” telemetry. This process, then, required the
students to think through some orbital mechanics, the technology of
antennas and receivers, and finally, the principles of demodulation and
decoding.
This is where Morse came in. For just the numbers, 0-9, in Morse can be
learned in 10 minutes by just about anyone. And, so it is a perfect tool
for any eighth grader!
The Morse Code Telemetry Encoder System (TLM) was designed and fabricated
by John Goode, W5CAY. This unit was built in one of the small modules that
comprised the AO-7 spaceframe. This little box used fixed logic comprised
of 34 ICâ€Ös and one op-amp for the A/D converter. Using CMOS components was
amazingly efficient; it required 2 mA of current at 10V DC from the power
bus – a whopping 20 mW!
This TLM encoder had 24 analog input channels that were organized in 4
columns and 6 rows. They were divided, basically, into current, voltage and
temperature channels. All were scaled to a 1.0 V full- scale input to the
A/D converter. The encoder produced decimal values and was organized into
two Morse characters between 0 and 99. The first number of each word is a
digit giving the row number of the datum. This reduces the ambiguity of
where in the frame the encoder was; in case the student got a bit lost.
AMSATâ€Ös commitment to STEM education continues today with its CubeSat
Simulator program and its developing Youth Initiative – all fueled by a
fifty-year-old satellite that is still in operation today.
Persons wanting to read more about the life and history of AMSAT OSCAR-7
are invited to visit
https://www.amsat.org/amsat-ao-7-a-fifty-year-anniversary/.
[ANS thanks Frank Karnauskas, N1UW, AMSAT VP-Development, for the above
information]
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