Subj : Amateur Radio Newsline (A To : All From : Daryl Stout Date : Fri Jul 05 2019 11:07 am Amateur Radio Newsline Report 2175, for Friday, July 5, 2019 Amateur Radio Newsline Report Number 2175, with a release date of Friday, July 5, 2019, to follow in 5-4-3-2-1. The following is a QST. A ham has an unprecedented QSO via a transponder in lunar orbit. Military auxiliary hams conclude a nationwide drill -- and a grid-square activation in Northern Ireland becomes a rescue operation. All this and more, as Amateur Radio Newsline Number 2175, comes your way right now. ** BILLBOARD CART ** UNPRECEDENTED 2-WAY QSO WITH TRANSPONDER IN LUNAR ORBIT STEPHEN/ANCHOR: On the 50th anniversary of the lunar landing, the moon is back in the news in a big way - this time, it's making amateur radio headlines, with a ham in Germany who achieved a "first" on Tuesday, July 2nd. Ed Durrant, DD5LP, picks up that story. ED: An unprecedented two-way contact has been made from an amateur radio operator here on Earth, via a transponder orbiting the moon. Reinhard Kuehn, DK5LA, logged the QSO with BG2BHC via DSLWP-B, which was launched by China, as secondary payload on the lunar relay satellite on May 20, 2018. Wei, BG2BHC, was at the Club station of the Harbin Institute of Technology, BY2HIT, in northern China. The Harbin Institute had announced earlier that QSL cards had been designed for different phases of the DSLWP mission's flight, in hopes hams would get involved in receiving telemetry or making contacts. Writing in his blog, Spanish engineer and researcher Daniel Estevez, EA4GPZ/M0HXM, noted that difficulties in using the GMSK-to-JT4G repeater, particularly in respect to signal power, needed to be overcome on the uplink. Daniel noted that Reinhard had hoped to achieve the contact some months earlier, but it was not possible. With barely a month to go before DSLWP-B crash-lands on the surface of the moon, he extended his congratulations to Reinhard for the confirmed contact. And so do we here at Newsline. For Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Ed Durrant, DD5LP. ** LIGHTSAIL2 TALKS TO MISSION CONTROL IN CALIF. STEPHEN/ANCHOR: More excitement in space: A very jubilant team at mission control in California has heard the first signals from Lightsail 2, a crowdfunded CubeSat, that had been sent into space on June 25 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. According to the Planetary Society website, the mission team received the first signals from its CW beacon, on the 2nd of July at 0834 UTC, as it passed over California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, home to mission control. Built by students at Georgia Tech, Lightsail2 is a project of the Planetary Society, and hopes to be the first spacecraft to orbit Earth while propelled by sunlight. Listeners will hear a beacon packet transmitted every few seconds. Once decoded, it will become 238 lines of text telemetry, describing the spacecraft's health, battery status, and other relevant details. The spacecraft will transmit its call sign WM9XPA every 45 seconds on 437.025 MHz, which is within the amateur radio 70-centimeter band. (THE PLANETARY SOCIETY) ** SABLE ISLAND DXPEDITION MAKING PROGRESS STEPHEN/ANCHOR: An encouraging word has come for another DXpedition off the Canadian shore, as we hear from Kent Peterson, KC0DGY. KENT: The green light for the Sable Island DXpedition just got a little greener: The team's leader, Murray, WA4DAN, will be making a trip in October, to prepare for the 2020 activation on the remote crescent-shaped island in the North Atlantic, which is one of Canada's farthest offshore islands, and a national park reserve. Murray will be making the trip in October, to review logistics with Parks Canada personnel. Of particular concern are the wild horses inhabiting the island, as well as the seals, birds, and vegetation, that must not be disturbed, while the ham radio team is active. The team will be required to flag all its guy wires and antennas ,and to use extra care routing coax to the antennas. Accessible only by boat or airplane, Sable Island is known for its fragile ecosystem. For Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Kent Peterson, KC0DGY. --- SBBSecho 3.07-Win32 * Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (801:1/2) þ Synchronet þ Temple of Doom BBS - tod.eothnet.com .