Fox-1Cliff/AO-95 Receiver Suffers Apparent Failure 

The receiver on the newly launched Fox-1Cliff/AO-95 CubeSat seems to have suffered a receiver failure that could render the satellite unusable, AMSAT said over the weekend. Efforts continue by AMSAT Engineering to establish the cause of the problem and determine if a fix is possible. AMSAT Vice President-Engineering Jerry Buxton, N0JY, reported over the weekend that the issue cropped up during ...

News from the ARRL Contest Branch 

The ARRL Contest Branch reports that preliminary results now are available for the 2018 ARRL November Sweepstakes CW and for the 2018 September VHF Contest. The Contest Branch reminds participants that logs for the 2018 ARRL 10-Meter Contest are due by 2359 UTC on December 16, and the 2018 ARRL EME Contest logs are due by 2359 UTC on December 25.

ExseedSat Designated as VO-96 

At the request of Exseed Space, AMSAT has designated the 1U ExseedSat CubeSat, launched on December 3 on a Falcon 9 vehicle from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, as VUsat-OSCAR 96 (VO-96).

ExseedSat was built by a team of Indian radio amateurs, including Ashhar Farhan, VU2ESE; George Phillips, VU2GT; Gurudatta Panda, VU3GDP; Sasi Bhushan, VU3ELR, and Nitin Muttin, VU3TYG. Initial telemet...

The K7RA Solar Update 

After nine days with no sunspots, sunspot group 2729 emerged on December 5. The sunspot number on that date was 16. Average daily solar flux for the week was 68.9, unchanged from last week. On Thursday, December 6 the appearance of 2729 continued, with a sunspot number of 17 and the sunspot area increasing from 30 to 50 millionths of a solar hemisphere.

Average daily planetary A index rose from ...