‰ NOW 18 WPM transition file follows‰ The Amateur Radio Parity Act, H.R. 1301, will be among three bills that the US House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology will consider in a Thursday, February 11, markup session. The subcommittee will gather on February 10 for opening statements only. When it reconvenes the next day, its members could vote to send the measure to the House Energy and Commerce Committee for further consideration. The Subcommittee on Communications and Technology is chaired by Rep Greg Walden, W7EQI, R OR, who, during a January 12 Subcommittee hearing on H.R. 1301, called the measure a commonsense bill and urged his colleagues support. Subcommittee members may submit in advance any amendments they might have to any of the bills being considered in the February 11 markup. The House bills sponsor, Rep Adam Kinzinger, R IL, also spoke in favor of H.R. 1301 at the January 12 hearing, explaining that hams in some neighborhoods are outright prohibited from erecting antennas on their properties. He cited Amateur Radios role in emergency communication support, and said his bills reasonable accommodation standard would not mandate placement, size, or esthetics regarding an outdoor antenna, leaving ham radio operators and homeowners associations to decide those issues. Three Japanese satellites, ChubuSat 2, ChubuSat 3, and Horyu 4, carrying Amateur Radio payloads are expected to launch between 0845 to 0930 UTC on Friday, February 12 into a 575 kilometer, 31 degree inclination orbit. ChubuSat 2 and ChubSat 3 are message store and forward Amateur Radio payloads. Horyu 4 will transmit a telemetry in the 70 centimeter band. According to Yasutaka Narusawa, JR2XEA, Nagoya University and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries cooperated in developing the 50 kg ChubuSat 2, JJ2YPN, and ChubuSat 3, JJ2YPO, microsatellites. They will head into space from the JAXA Tanegashima Space Center. The Komaki Amateur SATCOM Club will operate these satellites. ChubuSat 2 and 3 are piggy back payloads on the ASTRO H x ray astronomical satellite. Both satellites were built by Nagoya University graduate students. The primary mission of ChubuSat 2 is to support ASTRO H celestial observations by monitoring radiations which can be a background noise for onboard instruments of ASTRO H in the same orbit and epoch as ASTRO H, a mission statement on the ChubuSat website explains. A message exchange service can be made publicly available to world wide ham fans via Amateur Radio system onboard ChubuSat 2. Furthermore, we plan to observe solar neutrons, which were proposed by graduate students in the ChubuSat instrument development project. ChubuSat 3 also will include a VHF/UHF message exchange payload. ChubuSat 3 also will include a message exchange payload. According to the ChubuSat website, its primary mission is to observe the effects of global warming, such as reduction in the size of glaciers. For this mission, ChubuSat 3 has a high resolution camera, which also will be used to observe space debris. The ChubuSat 2 uplink is 145.815 MHz FSK 1200 bps. The downlink is 437.100 MHz GMSK 9600 bps and CW. The ChubuSat 3 uplink is 145.840 MHz FSK 1200 bps. The downlink is 437.425 MHz GMSK 9600 bps and CW. Horyu 4 has downlinks on 437.375 MHz and 2400.300 MHz 1200 bps AFSK, 9600 bps GMSK, SBPSK, CW. Horyu 4s primary mission is to measure discharge current waveforms and capture images of the discharges occurring on solar cells. The satellite also has a Facebook page. ‰ END OF 18 WPM transition file ƒ