November 2, 2025

In this edition:


* AMSAT Receives Two ARDC Grants for Youth Initiative Program

* Alan Johnston, KU2Y, Presents CubeSat Simulator 2025 Updates

* ARISS 2025 Highlights Presented by Frank Bauer, KA3HDO

* GridMasterMap Satellite Top 100 Rovers November Rankings 2025

* VUCC Satellite Standing November 2025

* DXCC Satellite Standing for November 2025

* Changes to AMSAT-NA TLE Distribution

* ARISS News

* AMSAT Ambassador Activities

* Satellite Shorts From All Over


The AMSAT(R) News Service bulletins are a free, weekly news and information service of AMSAT, the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation. ANS publishes news related to Amateur Radio in Space including reports on the activities of a worldwide group of Amateur Radio operators who share an active interest in designing, building, launching and communicating through analog and digital Amateur Radio satellites.



The news feed on http://www.amsat.org publishes news of Amateur Radio in
Space as soon as our volunteers can post it.



Please send any amateur satellite news or reports to: ans-editor [at] amsat [dot] org .



Sign up for free e-mail delivery of the AMSAT News Service Bulletins via the ANS List. Join this list at: https://mailman.amsat.org/postorius/lists/ans.amsat.org/



AMSAT Receives Two ARDC Grants for Youth Initiative Program

Frank Karnauskas, N1UW, AMSAT Director/VP-Development is pleased to announce that two grant applications were approved this week by Amateur Radio Digital Communication (ARDC).



BuzzSat.com

The first grant is for additional software licenses for production of the BuzzSat.com series of online courses designed for high school students. The first course, "Introduction to Satellite Meteorology' was introduced at Hamvention 2025.



[cid:image001.jpg@01DC4B11.F07AA910]<https://www.amsat.org/ans-138-amsat-news-service-bulletins-for-may-18/satmet-title-01/#main>


The production cycle begins with content development by a volunteer subject matter expert. In the case of the satellite meteorology course, retired high school earth science teacher Eric Sonnenwald, N2XSE created content by harvesting open-source material, both text and illustrations, and organizing
it into a frame-by-frame presentation.

From there the frames are loaded into a specialized educational authoring program that adds a complex assortment of interactivity tools that help make the learning experience engaging and effective. Constant interaction required of the student helps prevent the lessons from becoming a mind-numbing "next - next - next" page turning sedative.

The authoring software has several AI assisted capabilities including the ability to generate audio narrative for the text and to translate the courseware into up to seventy different languages.



The theme of the lessons is "Satellites in Space Help Us Live a Better Life
on Earth." Fourteen courses are planned for completion by the end of 2026.
The courses are free to students, teachers, at-home educators, scouting
leaders and lifelong learners of all ages.



You can experience the "Introduction to Satellite Meteorology" course now at www.BuzzSat.com<http://www.BuzzSat.com> .



KidzSat.com

The second grant is for production of a satellite-themed coloring book for younger elementary-age kids. The coloring pages in the book show how
satellites play important roles in almost every aspect of modern life. Satellites and their role in agriculture, navigation, broadcasting, pollution control and wildfire fighting are a few of the twelve topics shown in the
book.



[cid:image002.jpg@01DC4B11.F07AA910]<https://www.amsat.org/kidzsat-coloring-book-cover-eng-approved-low-res_251020/>


Production of the coloring book began about a month before the application
for the grant was made. So, the finished book cover as well as sketches for a few inside coloring pages were shown at the AMSAT Space Symposium held in October.



The coloring books will be available before the end of this year for download free-of-charge from the AMSAT sponsored
www.KidzSat.com<http://www.KidzSat.com> website.



[ANS thanks Frank Karnauskas, N1UW, AMSAT Director/VP-Development for the
above information.]



________________________________

Only 8 Weeks Left to Get Your Coin!

Celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Amateur Radio on Human Spaceflight

Help Support GOLF and FoxPlus.


[2025 PC Coin Set]<https://www.amsat.org/ans-019-amsat-news-service-weekly-bulletins/2025-pc-coin-2-sided-color-web/#main>


Annual memberships start at only $120

Join the AMSAT President's Club today and help

Keep Amateur Radio in Space!

https://www.amsat.org/join-the-amsat-presidents-club/


________________________________


Alan Johnston, KU2Y, Presents CubeSat Simulator 2025 Updates

During one of the always popular CubeSat Simulator (CSS) presentations, Alan Johnston, KU2Y, AMSAT VP-Educational Relations showcased recent improvements
to the CSS at last months AMSAT Annual Space Symposium.



The AMSAT CubeSatSim, the CubeSat Simulator, is a small, low cost, spacecraft simulator that serves as a tool for academic education, public demonstrations and theory and design disciplines. It can be used in a classroom, lab or training setting to introduce the basics of satellite operations, or it can
be used to teach Science, Technology, Engineering, Math (STEM) exercises.


[cid:image004.png@01DC4B11.F07AA910]<https://www.amsat.org/?attachment_id=58065#main>


The pace of development in 2025 was similar to 2024 with several new features rolled out. The v2.1 software release added two new telemetry modes: FunCube Mode and Cross Band Repeater Mode. In addition, the Fox-in-a-Box v4 Beta Raspberry Pi Ground Station disk image was also released.



Cross Band FM Repeater Mode

The CubeSatSim Cross Band FM Repeater mode uses the FM transceiver module in receive mode, with the squelch pin read by the Raspberry Pi Zero to detect a transmission. This mode utilizes the USB sound card connected to the Pi Zero
2 with the OTG cable, and the audio jumper from the Main board to the sound card provides the received audio to the Pi Zero. The Pi Zero 2 then connects the microphone input to the rpitx transmitter. One of the CubeSatSim antennas is receiving the UHF signal, the other is transmitting the VHF signal at the same time, just like a real CubeSat with an FM repeater.



The v2.0 software release had a Repeater mode, but you couldn't turn it on
and off with the pushbutton, and it was unstable in that the repeater
function would stop working and require a reboot. It also had uplink and downlink frequencies in the UHF band which made reception difficult. The v2.1 software release has fixed these issues, and moves the downlink to the VHF band. This provides a "U/V" operation with an FM UHF uplink, VHF downlink similar to many AMSAT CubeSats such as AO-91 (RadFxSat / Fox-1B) and AMSAT-UK AO-73 (FunCube).



New FunCube Mode

The CubeSatSim now has a new FunCube Mode 7. This BPSK (Binary Phase Shift Keying) 1200 bps (bits-per-second) transmission mode emulates the AMSAT-UK FunCube CubeSat (AO-73) and several other CubeSats that also use this transmission including Nayif 1 (EO-88), UKube-1, and JY1 Sat (JO-97). The transmission is very similar to the Fox-1E BPSK 1200 bps transmission already supported by the CubeSatSim in BPSK Mode 3. However, it has a different data structure and error correction. Special thanks to Duncan Hills, the lead FunCube Dashboard developer from AMSAT-UK who provided technical details and support to get this code working! If you listen to this mode, it sounds
similar to BPSK, except for every four seconds it sounds like there is a
"beep" or tone.



To decode FunCube telemetry, you need a FunCube Dongle (FCDPro or FCDPro+)
and decoding software (an RTL-SDR dongle will not work). For the FunCube satellites in orbit, there is a Windows Dashboard for each satellite that decodes the telemetry and uploads the data to the AMSAT-UK Data Warehouse. We don't yet have a Windows Dashboard, but we do have a Raspberry Pi application which will decode it. It is part of the new Fox-in-a-Box-v4 beta image.



The telemetry data is a similar format to JY1 Sat (JO-97) with a camera image and telemetry data in each frame. Unlike the CubeSatSim SSTV mode 4 which
uses tones to transmit image pixels in Scottie 2 format, FunCube uses SSDV to encode JPEG images suitable for packetization. It uses the Reed-Solomon codec written by Phil Karn, KA9Q. You can see the image come in block by block, and if a frame is lost, there is a rectangular dropout in the image. Otherwise,
the image quality is perfect. This makes an interesting comparison with the analog SSTV Mode 4 in which the image quality degrades as the signal strength decreases.



Future Updates

We are also working on a software update for v2.2 which will add these capabilities:



* Improved simulated telemetry providing more realistic data.

* Support for humidity and gyroscope/accelerometer sensors attached to Pi Zero 2.


* Simulated failures.


Activity Guides

In 2025, we released the first set of CubeSatSim Activity Guides. The problem statement for the Activity Guides is "I just built (or borrowed) a
CubeSatSim. What can I do with it?" Activity Guides are step-by-step instructions for how to do a STEM educational activity using a CubeSatSim.
Most work with just a CubeSatSim (or even just a Lite). Some are very easy to do, such as listening to the sounds of the different modes on a HT and/or looking at modes on an SDR waterfall. Others are more challenging such as
doing telemetry analysis using FoxTelem. Activity Guides include questions
for students to answer as they do the activity. Each also has an Instructors Guide which has example data and answers to the questions.



The CubeSatSim Activity Guides are released under a Creative Commons with Attribution license so anyone can edit and modify them as long as they
indicate they were originally developed by AMSAT. This allows teachers to customize them and include them in their lesson plans.



To read Alan's complete presentation, go to https://drive.google.com/file/d/19o1GsO-R3Btt35AqIsXj4EJPn3eNADcd/view .



[ANS thanks Alan Johnston, KU2Y, AMSAT VP-Educational Relations for the above information.]



________________________________


Need new satellite antennas?

Purchase M2 LEO-Packs from the AMSAT Store


[cid:image005.png@01DC4B11.F07AA910]<https://www.amsat.org/ans-007-amsat-news-service-weekly-bulletins-for-january-7-2024/leo-pack1-png/#main>


When you purchase through AMSAT, a portion of the proceeds goes towards

Keeping Amateur Radio in Space.

https://amsat.org/product-category/hardware/


________________________________


ARISS 2025 Highlights Presented by Frank Bauer, KA3HDO

The 43rd Annual AMSAT Space Symposium & Annual General Meeting featured a special presentation of the Amateur Radio aboard the International Space Station (ARISS) by Frank Bauer, KA3HDO, ARISS Executive Director. The prerecorded presentation highlighted many accomplishments for the year 2025.



A major accomplishment was achieving 25 years of continuous Amateur Radio operation aboard the space station.



[cid:image006.png@01DC4B11.F07AA910]<https://www.amsat.org/ans-103-amsat-news-service-bulletins/ariss-small-icon-png/#main>


While celebrating that achievement, ARISS is aware of substantial changes happening in the space industry and embraces the shift towards commercial missions.



With the upcoming decommissioning of ISS in the next five to six years, ARISS is listening to its NASA and ISS U.S. National Laboratory priorities. As a result, ARISS has modified the emphasis of its mission as follow:



* An independent backup communications capability for ISS

* Boosts ISS crew morale through enriching youth, community and Amateur Radio engagement


* Inspires, engages and educates K-16 youth in STEM/STEAM via 10-minute Amateur Radio contacts with the on-orbit crew - a workforce development powerhouse


* During 4-6 month pre-contact preparations, students learn about space exploration and science research, space communications, radio science & technology using Amateur Radio and on-going ISS research activities


* Youth contacts keep astronauts proficient in ARISS radio operations and ground stations proficient in support of ISS backup communications.



The main ARISS prime initiatives continue to be STEM/STEAM education, spaceflight hardware development and spaceflight operations. Now, ARISS 2.0 educational vision for the future is to inspire, engage and educate students and lifelong learners. This means:



* More extensive educational outcomes for all

* Engaging educational projects and lesson plans

* Multiple space stations on ISS and commercial missions, and

Lunar orbiters and landers


Bauer described the initiative that are currently underway including:


* The ARISS payload is now a facility on ISS, enabling partnerships to employ ARISS facility


* Expansion to Axiom commercial space station flights

* Expansion to Crew Dragon via Fram2Ham missions

* More SSTV opportunities

* Educational Extension initiatives:

* STEREO/SPARKI kits

* ARISS STAR astronaut contacts

* Student Mission Control program


Frank then spoke in detail about several outstanding successes for the year such as the Fram2Ham mission and the ever popular slow-scan television (SSTV) operations. Both events enjoyed exceptional exposure and impressive participation by students around the world.



Bauer went on to thank NASA, the ISS U.S. National Laboratory, the ARRL and AMSAT for financial and in-kind support and to Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) for critical resources.



You can view the complete presentation AMSAT?s You Tube channel at https://youtu.be/loM80Jr8RUk .



[ANS thanks Frank Bauer, KA3HDO, ARISS Executive Director for the above information.]



________________________________


GridMasterMap Satellite Top 100 Rovers November Rankings 2025

The November 2025 rankings for the Top 100 Rovers (Mixed LEO/MEO/GEO) in satellite operations, as determined by @GridMasterMap on Twitter, has been released. The ranking is determined by the number of grids and DXCC entities activated, taking into account only those grids where a minimum number of
QSOs logged on the gridmaster.fr website have been validated by a third
party. Grid numbers do not directly reflect the exact number of activations. Satellite operators are encouraged to upload their LoTW satellite contacts to https://gridmaster.fr in order to provide more accurate data.


Updated October 31, 2025


1

ND9M

26

KX9X

51

KE0PBR

76

SP5XSD

2

NJ7H

27

KG5CCI

52

XE3DX

77

DL4EA

3

UT1FG

28

DJ8MS

53

W7WGC

78

N6UTC

4

JA9KRO

29

N5BO

54

JK2XXK

79

N4UFO

5

N5UC

30

ON4AUC

55

PR8KW

80

VE7PTN

6

F5VMJ

31

K8BL

56

EA4NF

81

PT2AP

7

DL6AP

32

KE4AL

57

XE1ET

82

VE1VOX

8

WI7P

33

KB5FHK

58

N6DNM

83

KB2YSI

9

DP0POL

34

AC0RA

59

EB1AO

84

KI7UXT

10

K5ZM

35

PA3GAN

60

WD5GRW

85

AF5CC

11

OE3SEU

36

KI0KB

61

LU4JVE

86

AA8CH

12

WY7AA

37

F4BKV

62

W8LR

87

KJ7NDY

13

N6UA

38

VE3HLS

63

W1AW

88

BI1MHK

14

HA3FOK

39

KI7UNJ

64

KI7QEK

89

PT9BM

15

LU5ILA

40

VA3VGR

65

SM3NRY

90

FG8OJ

16

W5PFG

41

JO2ASQ

66

KE9AJ

91

YU0W

17

N9IP

42

BG7QIW

67

F4DXV

92

BG5CZD

18

AK8CW

43

HJ5LVR

68

VE1CWJ

93

WA9JBQ

19

AD0DX

44

LA9XGA

69

AA5PK

94

W8MTB

20

AD0HJ

45

VK5DG

70

AD7DB

95

N4DCW

21

ND0C

46

N7AGF

71

KM4LAO

96

VE3GOP

22

N4AKV

47

K7TAB

72

M1DDD

97

JM1CAX

23

WD9EWK

48

DF2ET

73

HB9GWJ

98

PS8BR

24

BA1PK

49

JL3RNZ

74

VA7LM

99

K0FFY

25

DL2GRC

50

KE0WPA

75

N8RO

100

KG4AKV













[ANS thanks ANS thanks Mitch Ahrenstorff, AD0HJ, and @GridMasterMap for the above information.]



________________________________


VUCC Satellite Standing November 2025

VUCC Satellite Award/Endorsement Change Summary for October 1, 2025 to
November 1, 2025.



WA4NVM

1676

1683

N8RO

1490

1505

JN2QCV

1075

1159

EA2AA

1125

1135

W2GDJ

1022

1075

VU2LBW

902

1000

W8LR

919

921

N8MR

783

801

WA4HFN

727

738

KA9CFD

608

704

N7ZO

669

670

KO9A

547

565

K6SFO

501

550

XE1BJ

304

501

DL8GAM

450

500

W3TI

465

469

KK7OVF

103

300

SV8CKM

215

273

KP4MV

175

200

EI8JB

New

175

WB5TX

144

151

WD9EWK/DM62

130

137

PT2VM

New

100

TI3IES

New

100


Congratulations to the new VUCC Satellite holders.


EI8JB is first VUCC Satellite holder from IO63

PT2VM is first VUCC Satellite holder from GH64

TI3IES is first VUCC Satellite holder from EJ89


[ANS thanks Jon Goering, N7AZ for the above information.]


________________________________


DXCC Satellite Standing for November 2025

DXCC Satellite Award/Endorsement Change Summary for October 1, 2025 to
November 1, 2025.



EA2AA

164

167

DL6GBM

160

165

PA7RA

147

148

E70A

135

139

W2GDJ

113

122

ZS2Y

New

109

OE3JAG

102

104

IW3SSA

New

100

ZS2Y

New

109

IW3SSA

New

100


Congratulations to the new DXCC Satellite holders.


ZS2Y is first DXCC Satellite holder from KF2S

IW3SSA is first DXCC Satellite holder from JN66


[ANS thanks Jon Goering, N7AZ for the above information.]


________________________________


Want to fly the colors on your own grid expedition?

Get your AMSAT car flag and other neat stuff from our Zazzle store!


[cid:image007.png@01DC4B11.F07AA910]<https://www.amsat.org/ans-222-amsat-news-service-bulletins/flagpole/#main>


25% of the purchase price of each product goes towards

Keeping Amateur Radio in Space

https://www.zazzle.com/amsat_gear


________________________________


Changes to AMSAT-NA TLE Distribution for October 31, 2005

Two Line Elements or TLEs, often referred to as Keplerian elements or keps in the amateur community, are the inputs to the SGP4 standard mathematical model of spacecraft orbits used by most amateur tracking programs. Weekly updates
are completely adequate for most amateur satellites. TLE bulletin files are updated daily in the first hour of the UTC day. New bulletin files will be posted immediately after reliable elements become available for new amateur satellites. More information may be found at https://www.amsat.org/keplerian-elements-resources/.



This week there are no additions or deletions to the AMSAT TLE distribution.


[ANS thanks Joe Fitzgerald, KM1P, AMSAT Orbital Elements Manager for the
above information.]



________________________________


ARISS NEWS

Amateurs and others around the world may listen in on contacts between
amateurs operating in schools and allowing students to interact with
astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station. The
downlink frequency on which to listen is 145.800 MHz worldwide.



[ARISS News]<https://www.amsat.org/ans-021-amsat-news-service-weekly-bulletins/ariss-logo-2/#main>


Upcoming Contacts

Petofi Sandor Evangelikus Gimnazium, Kollegium es Altalanos Iskola,
Mezobereny, Hungary.


Telebridge via K6DUE.

The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be NA1SS.

The scheduled crewmember is Zena Cardman, KJ5CMN.

Contact is go for Thursday, November 6, 2025 at 09:00:17 UTC.


The crossband repeater continues to be active (145.990 MHz up {PL 67} &
437.800 MHz down). If any crewmember is so inclined, all they have to do is pick up the microphone, raise the volume up, and talk on the crossband repeater. So give a listen, you just never know.



The packet system is also active (145.825 MHz up & down).


As always, if there is an EVA, a docking, or an undocking; the ARISS radios
are turned off as part of the safety protocol.



Note, all times are approximate. It is recommended that you do your own
orbital prediction or start listening about 10 minutes before the listed
time.



The latest information on the operation mode can be found at https://www.ariss.org/current-status-of-iss-stations.html



The latest list of frequencies in use can be found at https://www.ariss.org/contact-the-iss.html



[ANS thanks Charlie Sufana, AJ9N, one of the ARISS operation team mentors for the above information.]



________________________________


AMSAT Ambassador Activities

AMSAT Ambassadors provide presentations, demonstrate communicating through amateur satellites, and host information tables at club meetings, hamfests, conventions, maker faires, and other events.



[AMSAT Ambassador News Logo]<https://www.amsat.org/ans-217-amsat-news-service-weekly-bulletins/ambassador-logo-2024/#main>


None currently scheduled.


[ANS thanks Bo Lowrey, W4FCL, Director ? AMSAT Ambassador Program, for the above information.]



________________________________


Satellite Shorts From All Over


* With SpaceX's 10,000th Starlink satellite launched to orbit, and 8,562 active as of Oct 20th, a staggering 2/3rds of humanity's active satellites in orbit are controlled by a single private company. [ANS thanks The Orbital
Index for the above information.]



* Two former NASA administrators criticized the agency?s current
approach to using SpaceX?s Starship for the Artemis 3 crewed lunar landing, calling for an urgent redirection to reach the moon before China. In a
fireside chat at the American Astronautical Society?s von Braun Space Exploration Symposium on Oct. 29, former administrators Charlie Bolden and
Jim Bridenstine expressed skepticism that NASA?s current Artemis
architecture. China aims to conduct the first launch of its Long March 10 rocket and a lunar-capable crew spacecraft next year, according to a top official. The announcement from the China Manned Space Engineering Office
comes as the U.S. prepares to send its Artemis 2 crewed mission around the
moon as soon as February 2026.[ANS thanks Space News This Week for the above information.]





________________________________


Join AMSAT today at https://launch.amsat.org/


[cid:image010.png@01DC4B11.F07AA910]<https://www.amsat.org/amsat-partners-with-umaines-wise-net-lab-to-develop-maines-first-small-satellite/amsat_16-9/#main>


In addition to regular membership, AMSAT offers membership to:

* Societies (a recognized group, clubs or organization).

* Primary and secondary school students are eligible for membership at
one-half the standard yearly rate.


* Post-secondary school students enrolled in at least half time status shall
be eligible for the student rate for a maximum of 6 post-secondary years in this status.


* Memberships are available for annual and lifetime terms.


Contact info [at] amsat.org for additional membership information.


73 and remember to help Keep Amateur Radio in Space!


This week's ANS Editor, Frank Karnauskas, N1UW.

f.karnauskas [at] amsat [dot] org


ANS is a service of AMSAT, the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation, 712 H Street NE, Suite 1653, Washington, DC 20002.



AMSAT is a registered trademark of the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation.






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