Not exactly top band but definitely different
Japan mini-satellite to flash code from space
by Staff
Writers
Tokyo (AFP) Oct 5,
2012
A palm-sized Japanese satellite in orbit around Earth will flash
a Morse code message that will be visible around the world from next month, the
mission commander said Friday.
Researchers hope the
satellite, measuring 10 centimetres (four inches) cubed and launched from the
International Space Station on Friday, will become the first orbiter to
transmit an LED message across the night sky.
The message it will send is
"Hi this is Niwaka Japan". Niwaka is the satellite'snickname and reflects a
play on words in the local dialect of southwestern
Japan.
Besides transmitting its LED
message, the camera-equipped satellite will also take images of Earth and send
them to a base station in an experiment on high-speed data transmissions.
The solar-powered devicewas released from the International Space Station 390
kilometres (242 miles)
above Earth and is now in a regular orbit.
Specific timings and
locations will be announced later on the institute's website --
http://www.fit.ac.jp/kenkyu/fitsat1/ -- in Japanese and English.
The current ISS 33 crew includes 4 radio amateur operators
Commander Sunita
Williams, KD5PLB
Flight Engineer Yuri Malenchenko, RK3DUP
Flight Engineer
Akihiko Hoshide, KE5DNI
Flight Engineer Kevin
Ford, KF5GPP
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Remember the PreStew coming on October 20th. http://www.kkn.net/stew for more
info.
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