Minutes of ARISS International Monthly Meeting
Go To Meeting/Teleconference
March 15, 2022 – 1100 UTC
 
 
Participants:  
Oliver Amend 
Frank Bauer 
Emanuele D’Andria
Stefan Dombrowski
Shizuo Endo
Ana Guzman
Bertus Husken
Keigo Komuro 
Chet Latawiec 
Glenn MacDonell
Will Marchant 
Lou McFadin
Ciaran Morgan 
Martha Muir
Eric Oosterbaan  
Jan Poppeliers 
Sergey Samburov 
Marty Schulman
Graham Shirville
Dave Taylor 
Rosalie White 
 
Interpreter:  Alexandre Khalimov
 
Unable to attend: 
Fabio Azzarello 
Kerry Banke
Armand Budzianowski
Darin Cowan 
Rita DeHart
Francesco De Paolis
Martin Diggins
Gianpietro Ferrario
Bruce Hunter 
Tony Hutchison 
Micol Ivancic
Peter Kofler 
David Jordan 
Michel Nawrocki 
Ken Nichols 
Kenneth Ransom 
Gordon Scannell 
Mark Steiner 
Masanobu Tsuji
Satoshi Yasuda 
 
 
Meeting Agenda  
 
Roll Call—Martha took attendance by using the names shown on the Go To Meeting screen. 
 
Welcome—Frank Bauer, KA3HDO           Frank welcomed everyone to this teleconference and said that we work together as a family to support activities on the ISS.  New activities coming up involve Axiom flights.  Two of the four astronauts who will be on those flights will be involved in ARISS contacts with schools in Canada and Israel.  ARISS-Canada and ARISS-Europe will be supporting those contacts respectively. 
          As these commercial programs continue, we will work with these commercial astronauts.  “I’m impressed with the number of ARISS contacts around the world” Frank said.  “This is only possible because we are a ‘close family’ and our passion to make ARISS goals possible.”

 1. Call for Acceptance of Minutes—Frank Bauer and Martha Muir
 
          For the ARISS-International Monthly Meeting on February 15, 2022 Martha recorded the minutes and distributed the file to ARISS Delegates prior to this ARISS-I meeting. Ciaran made a motion to accept the minutes. Glenn seconded that motion. The minutes was adopted without dissent and will be sent to Carol Jackson to be posted on the ARISS-I webpage.

 2. Face to Face or Ear to Ear International Meeting in 2022 -  Oliver Amend
          [Informational]
 
          Oliver said that he recommends for the Ear to Ear meeting this year over the Face to Face meeting.  Though COVID protocols are relaxing in Europe, they are not yet relaxed enough that all ARISS regions will be able to attend.  Oliver looked at the calendar for weeks with minimal known conflicts like major hamfests and found three in July that should work for our meeting:  July 5 to 8, July 12 to 15, or July 19 to 22. 
          Formally, as a delegate, Oliver recommends we have an Ear to Ear meeting and invites others to comment on this.
          Rosalie said that an Ear to Ear meeting is not what we’d prefer but it is what we need to do.

          Shizuo said that intenational travel is not clear yet but may be clear by this summer so that we could have a Face to Face meeting but we can’t decide on that at this point because airline fares are high due to conditions in the world. So, he offers a hybrid meeting – meet in person if you can, if not, meet virtually.
          Oliver summarized the comments made by saying that we have three options to choose from – a Face to Face meeting, an Ear to Ear meeting, or a hybrid meeting.  Oliver proposes we meet during the first week option (July 5 to 8).  Frank said the we’ll go with the Ear to Ear format since no one spoke up definitively for the Face to Face format.  Ciaran said that he would not be available for the first two proposed meeting weeks.  Ana said that Kenneth may be unavailable during that first week also.
          Frank asked everyone to think about the proposed dates and vote via email or at the next meeting.  Delegates, especially, should send their thoughts to the ARISS-I officers.  Interested others should send in their votes, too. 
          Martha will send out a survey via email asking for votes of preference(s) and weeks folks cannot support.  It is requested that these votes be sent in by March 25.  
          Oliver reminded folks that he will need their reports for the Ear to Ear meeting plus other items to be brought up including SSTV.  (See list of expected reports at end of minutes.)  Rosalie asked if there will be a URL set up to send those reports and other things for the meeting.  Frank said yes, we will set up a DropBox for such things. 
        
 3. SSTV Experiment Committee Status – Oliver Amend
Oliver said that the SSTV Committee has met 13 times since it was formed, roughly a meeting every two weeks.That committee has set up a Wiki to share information.They performed an experiment on February 20 using KG-STV software – Spaces over Europe which was organized by Eric, Jan, and Claudio using different modes.Ten images were sent and seen over Europe.They will continue doing different experiments using HAM DRM and Easy Pal software from April to June.Armand and the PZK team will coordinate certificates.ARISS telebridge stations are invited to participate.
Rosalie asked how many participants have been involved in receiving the images so far? Jan replied that 570 folks so far.Rosalie said ‘congratulations’ and that this is impressive. Will asked if there will be a certificate issued this time?Yes but there are other certificates being issued out there.This committee is staying focused on the experiments.Jan added that folks who uploaded a report were already sent a reply.
Rosalie said thank you to the team and congratulations to all involved in this.Dave Taylor said offering a certificate could encourage folks to provide feedback.Oliver agreed with Dave but said that certificates are a low priority right now; the focus is on the development of process not the issuing of certificates.
Frank thanked Oliver and the whole team for developing this from both an educational and operations viewpoint.
 
  
Ad Hoc
 
          Shizuo said that the Chinese Space Agency will be sending up equipment for a Amateur Radio station to their space station.  It is expected to be launched during the third quarter of this year.  The radio equipment will be able to send UHF/VHF signals involving crew voice, repeaters, digipeaters, and SSTV.  Frank thanked Shizuo for sharing this important info.  Sergey asked if antennas for this will be installed outside permanently or have to be put out each time.  Frank replied that this info is too new to know right now.  We want to make sure there will be no interference between their signals and ours.  Sergey added that there were similar concerns between signals sent from the Space Shuttle and MIR thirty years ago.  We need to check with the IARU to see what frequencies China applied for.
 
 The next meeting will begin at 1100 UTC on April 19, 2022.
 
 
Respectfully submitted,
 
Martha Muir, ARISS-I Secretary

Reports expected for the Ear to Ear meeting:

Minutes of ARISS International Monthly Meeting
Go To Meeting/Teleconference
February 15, 2022 – 1200 UTC
 
 
Participants:  
Oliver Amend 
Frank Bauer  
Darin Cowan 
Rita DeHart
Stefan Dombrowski
Shizuo Endo
Keigo Komuro 
Chet Latawiec 
Glenn MacDonell
Will Marchant 
Lou McFadin
Ciaran Morgan 
Martha Muir
Jan Poppeliers 
Kenneth Ransom 
Sergey Samburov 
Marty Schulman
Graham Shirville
Dave Taylor 
Rosalie White 
 
Interpreter:  Rita Dalinina Baker
 
Unable to attend: 
Fabio Azzarello 
Kerry Banke
Gaston Bertels                                                                                      
Armand Budzianowski
Emanuele D’Andria
Francesco De Paolis
Martin Diggins
Gianpietro Ferrario
Ana Guzman
Bruce Hunter 
Bertus Husken
Tony Hutchison 
Micol Ivancic
Peter Kofler 
David Jordan 
Michel Nawrocki 
Ken Nichols 
Eric Oosterbaan  
Gordon Scannell 
Mark Steiner 
Masanobu Tsuji
Satoshi Yasuda 
 
 
 
Meeting Agenda  
 
Roll Call—Martha took attendance by using the names shown on the Go To Meeting screen. 
 
Welcome—Frank Bauer, KA3HDO 
          Frank welcomed everyone to this meeting and said that he just got back from the Orlando Hamcation hamfest.  While he was in the ARISS booth there, many people came by and expressed appreciation for what we are doing to keep amateur radio alive and well on the ISS.          The first Axiom crew will launch no earlier than the end of March.  ARISS plans to conduct contacts with up to six schools, five in Canada and one in Israel.  We hope this is the beginning of a relationship with Axiom.  Axiom has plans to have their own space station eventually.
          Frank thanked everyone for their support of the ARISS program. Folks around the world are noticing what we are doing and are appreciative.  

1.  Call for Acceptance of Minutes—Frank Bauer and Martha Muir

 
          For the ARISS-International Monthly Meeting on January 18, 2022 Martha recorded the minutes and distributed the file to ARISS Delegates prior to this ARISS-I meeting. Rosalie made a motion to accept the minutes. Dave Taylor seconded that motion. The minutes was adopted without dissent and will be sent to Carol Jackson to be posted on the ARISS-I webpage.
 
      2.   Face to Face or Ear to Ear International Meeting in 2022 -  Oliver Amend
          [Informational]
 
          Oliver reported that he looked at the calendar for June through August at weeks (Tuesday through Friday) when this meeting could be held without interfering with known conflicts such as major hamfests.  The meeting will include the usual Welcome Day, Education Day, and Wrap Up Day.  We will expect reports from committees and regions.
          Previous meetings were held in Japan in 2015, in Houston/USA in 2016, in Rome in 2017, in Maryland/USA in 2018, and in Canada in 2019.  The Covid-19 pandemic forced us to change to virtual online Ear to Ear meetings in 2020 and 2021.  We need to decide if we will have a Face to Face or Ear to Ear meeting this year.  If we opt for Face to Face, we need to decide where we want to have it.  Options for that include ESA, KSC, Bremen, or other places.
          Frank asked for comments and suggestions.
          Stefan said that the Covid situation is improving in Europe at this time.  Things could be okay by June.  Perhaps we could have a hybrid format with folks choosing to attend in person or online.
          Shizuo said that we don’t know at this point if travel restrictions will be lifted by June.  We may know more about this by the end of March.  Rosalie concurred with Shizuo and suggested we wait until the end of March to decide.
          Glenn said that is important that we meet in person this year – it has been such a long time.  It will be a challenge, of course, to predict what the Covid situation will be in the summer.  Restrictions are being lifted around the world but there may be a new variant to deal with.  Let’s plan for a hybrid meeting and let circumstances determine how people will attend.
          Sergey said that we haven’t seen each other in a long time.  He would like to demonstrate some new equipment.  He will be busy in August with some EVAs and with a 100th anniversary celebration in September. Today, there will be a launch that will carry 6 satellites to the ISS.  Eventually, 4 more satellites will be sent up.  Frank congratulated Sergey on the launching of the satellites and on the launching of the Kenwood radio that will be installed in the Russian segment.
          Frank summarized what has been said so far about the Ear to Ear vs. Face to Face meeting by saying that the world is not yet stable as far as the pandemic is concerned.  Perhaps we could get together in our own countries but not internationally early this summer.  We need to be mindful of the dates for the AMSAT-UK and AMSAT-NA meetings.  It looks like it will be challenging to find a date for a Face to Face meeting.  Perhaps we will know more next month.
          Oliver said that ESA ESTEC does not know if they could host such a meeting in June.  Oliver recommends we have an Ear to Ear meeting again this year but would be okay with a hybrid meeting format.  He agrees to wait until next month to decide.

     3.  Extension of Waiver Request Process – Frank Bauer
          [Informational]

Frank said that a direct or telebridge contact requires a waiver request which helps the school think through and show how they plan to mitigate the virus risk across the school (students teachers, administrators), hams, and others present .A multipoint telebridge contact does not require a waiver request.The current waiver request policy is scheduled to end on June 30th.This policy is being extended to the end of 2022.The Covid situation is not stable yet, Frank said.If things get better, the waiver request policy can be removed in the future.
Frank recognized the Technical Mentors for their help with this.We can see how this helps schools think through their plan for this.This is more work for the Technical Mentors but this process minimizes school contacts being cancelled at the last minute.Frank thanked Stefan for pulling all the waiver requests together so ARISS-Officers can evaluate them efficiently.
       

      4. Status of the SSTV Experiment Committee – Oliver Amend
           [Informational]

Oliver stated that the committee started in August 2021.Its purpose is to look at new SSTV modes and opportunities to conduct SSTV through the Columbus module radio voice repeater before the ARISS Raspberry Pi is on board (which will allow on-orbit downlinks of SSTV). They have met 11 times since then.Key members of the committee include Oliver DG6BCE, Eric PA2EON, Claudio IK1SLD, Jan ON7UX, Ciaran M0XTD, Lou W5DID, and Kenneth N5VHO.Several modes for SSTV have been discussed including PD120, ROBOT, KF-STV, and HAM DR.
A Wiki has been set up at wiki.amsat-on.be to collect and display information about this project.The first test using KF-STV software, which was created by a ham in Japan, is scheduled to be run for 5 passes on February 20.The next event will use HAM DR and will run 5 to 6 weeks later.
Sergey asked for a copy of Oliver’s PowerPoint slides after the meeting.He also asked for a description of the KF-STV software.
 
 
Ad Hoc
 
          Graham asked if there are any updates about Ham TV.  Frank said that Kaiser Italia has the Fed Ex shipping invoice but has not sent it yet so there is no news.
 
          Frank thanked everyone for attending the meeting today.
.  
 
 The next meeting will begin at 1200 UTC on March 15, 2022.
 
 
Respectfully submitted,
 
Martha Muir, ARISS-I Secretary

Minutes of ARISS International Monthly Meeting
Go To Meeting/Teleconference
January 18, 2022 – 1200 UTC
 
Participants:  
Oliver Amend 
Frank Bauer  
Gaston Bertels                                                                                      
Shizuo Endo
Darin Cowan 
Emanuele D’Andria
Stefan Dombrowski
Ana Guzman
David Jordan 
Glenn MacDonell
Will Marchant 
Lou McFadin
Ciaran Morgan 
Martha Muir
Eric Oosterbaan  
Jan Poppeliers 
Kenneth Ransom 
Sergey Samburov 
Marty Schulman
Dave Taylor 
Rosalie White 
Satoshi Yasuda 
 
Interpreter:  Gregory Khasin
 
Unable to attend: 
Fabio Azzarello 
Kerry Banke  
Armand Budzianowski
Francesco De Paolis
Martine Diggins
Gianpietro Ferrario 
Bruce Hunter 
Bertus Husken
Tony Hutchison 
Micol Ivancic
Peter Kofler 
Keigo Komuro 
Chet Latawiec 
Michel Nawrocki 
Ken Nichols 
Gordon Scannell 
Graham Shirville 
Mark Steiner 
Masanobu Tsuji
 
 
Meeting Agenda  
 
Roll Call—Martha took attendance by using the names shown on the GoTo Meeting screen. 
 
Welcome—Frank Bauer, KA3HDO   
          Frank welcomed everyone to the meeting and wished everyone “Happy New Year.”  He continued by saying that November marked the 25th anniversary of the existence of the ARISS team.  December marked the 21st anniversary of continuous ARISS school contacts. 
          This year, Sergey will be launching 10 satellites.  We anticipate 1 or 2 Axiom flights.  Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti should be back onboard the ISS making contacts.   HAM TV is ready to ship to Houston with hopes of having it back on the ISS by the end of the year.  The ARISS *STAR* program has been fully funded for one year.  We expect additional SSTV events in the future.  In other words, 2022 should be an exciting year!
 

1.  Call for Acceptance of Minutes—Frank Bauer and Martha Muir

 
          For the ARISS-International Monthly Meeting on December 21, 2021, Martha recorded the minutes and distributed the file to ARISS Delegates prior to this ARISS-I meeting. Darin made a motion to accept the minutes. Ciaran seconded that motion. The minutes was adopted without dissent and will be sent to Carol Jackson to be posted on the ARISS-I webpage.
 

1. December SSTV Event featuring Lunar Explorations – Sergey Samburov, Will Marchant, Marty Schulman, Oliver Amend, and Frank Bauer

           
Sergey thanked the many folks involved in this event and said that the event shows how unified we are as a team.  He thanked the US team for organizing and sending him the great images.  He also thanked Frank for his great logistical planning.  With that, everyone received what was needed on time. 
          Sergey’s team is planning to launch 10 micro-satellites this year.  He is hoping Samantha Cristoforetti will get involved in this.  The first six satellites are presently being loaded on a Progress vehicle with hopes they will be on the ISS by some point in February.  Eventually, the satellites will be deployed outside the ISS.  It is hoped that hams around the world can get involved in the testing of those satellites sometime in July or August. By the end of the year, they will be testing a low bandwidth TV system that will allow high school students in Russia to send images to the ISS.
          Frank thanked Sergey for all his efforts and for letting us know what is on the horizon.  He asked Sergey to let us know the frequencies that will be used to for the testing of the satellites so that we can get that information out to the Amateur Radio community.
          Will Marchant presented the SSTV Image Gallery report.  He said that this SSTV event, which ran from December 26 to December 31, was the second most popular SSTV event (behind the 20th anniversary event),  He thanked Sergey for making sure the images got up to the ISS in a useable format and Marty for preparing the slide deck.  He also thanked the review team that chose “best of” images from the 16,000 images sent in to the gallery.  Images were sent in from every continent except Antarctica.  About half of the images came in from Europe.  There were about 8,000 unique visitors to the website.  They visited the site about 12,000 times.  276 pre-college students and 348 pre-college teachers and 310 college students and 685 college educators visited the site.
          Sergey chimed in to thank Armand and Slavic for preparing the diplomas for this event.     
          Oliver presented Armand’s report.  Oliver began by thanking Armand and Slavic for developing the diplomas.  This was a very successful event.  More than 3900 diplomas have been claimed.  The majority of those went to hams, some to students using Software Defined Radio dongles and some were not identified.
          The signals were good and strong.  A lot of handheld radios were used.  Some phone apps were used, too. 
          Oliver shared an interesting report from Armand about a ham in South Africa.  That man said that “his five year old son is very excited to get these images.” 
           On Armand’s behalf, Oliver thanked everyone who contributed images to this project.
          Marty supported SSTV image development.  He said that his use of an Apple computer made the images in a different file format (JPEG vs JPG) than what the cosmonauts could use with the on-board SSTV software.  This caused some initial problems that were quickly corrected by the cosmonauts.  Marty said that he created a document to use in future SSTV events that should help new SSTV team members to quickly support the SSTV project.  He said it will eventually be available on the ARISS website.
           
          Oliver began his report by saying that the diplomas for these events are very popular.  Unfortunately, there are about 15 awards popping up that are not from ARISS.  Some of these non-ARISS approved awards are using the ARISS logo.  These include one from a Turkish club and another from Indonesia. These unofficial awards are causing confusion.  Only the PZK award and the Russian award are the “official” ARISS awards.  Oliver asked the team for their advice on a forward action.  Stefan suggested we allow it but control it.  Have groups register with us to use the logo.  Sergey asked if the ARISS logo has a copyright.  Frank said no, it doesn’t but it does require permission from ARISS to use.  Perhaps we need to set up a permission system set up in advance of future SSTV events. Oliver and Shizuo said that they had tried to contact the groups improperly using the logo.  So far they had failed to get a response from them.  Glenn suggested we add to the diplomas something like “these are the official diplomas” or “approved by ARISS.”  Dave Taylor suggested that identify the ARISS SSTV Gallery and the PZK diploma site as ARISS official sites.  Some non-ARISS organizations are trying to raise money from folks who think they may be contributing to the real ARISS program.  Gaston said that perhaps the official diplomas have a signature from Frank or other ARISS-I official.  Rosalie suggested we let each of the IARU regions know about the official certificates and to have something unique and special on our certificates like something related to the series that would only be available from the official certificate.  Sergey suggested for the upcoming SSTV event in April, that we post the official certificate design on our website. 
Frank summarized those suggestions by saying that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. This shows how successful this program is.  Perhaps we need to send out a big press release to clarify which sites are the official SSTV sites.  We need to identify and contact the folks who are doing this.  Given the hundreds of hours of ARISS volunteer support involved in an SSTV event, these organizations should, rightfully, divert these donations to ARISS.  If they want to help with our program, we could let them know of some opportunities to help.  We could put something unique on our diplomas such as a QR code that would take folks to an official ARISS site. Perhaps we need to get the ARISS logo trademarked.
Frank thanked everyone for their thoughts on this.
 
 
Ad Hoc
 
          Ciaran asked if there were any news about this year’s Face to Face meeting.  Frank said that we are going to hold off on this discussion until the February meeting.
 
          Frank thanked everyone for a very good meeting.  There was a good dialog.  The SSTV events are so popular that folks are copying us.  It takes a worldwide effort to put these events on, selecting the themes, gathering images, processing the images, and finally Sergey’s working with the cosmonauts to send out the images.  
 
 The next meeting will begin at 1200 UTC on February 15, 2022.
 
 
Respectfully submitted,
 
Martha Muir, ARISS-I Secretary

For earlier meetings, see Archives.