|    OPERATIONS of the QIKCom Payload IN THE AMATEUR SATELLITE SERVICE       
|                                 13 Nov 2014
|------------------------------------------------------------------------
|                                                         
|
|There is sensitivity to the inapproprite attempts at licensing and
|operating some spacecraft and experiments in the Amateur Satellite 
|which should more appropriately be licensed via other services.
|
|QIKcom is an Amateur Radio Communications payload with the sole
|mission of providing an open digital packet radio transponder for use 
|by duely licensed radio operators around the world fully within the 
|intent of the Amateur Satellite Service.  This paper addresses how the
|licensing of the QIKCom payload is fully compliant with the intent and 
|specfics of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Radio
|Rules for the Amateur Satellite Service.  It extracts the pertinent 
|sections of the IARU (International Amateur Radio Union) guildelines 
|for INFORMATION FOR PROSPECTIVE OWNERS AND OPERATORS OF SATELLITES 
|UTILIZING FREQUENCIES ALLOCATED TO THE AMATEUR-SATELLITE SERVICE which 
|helps assure compliance with the ITU rules.   The IARU Rules document 
|may be viewed in its entirety at:
|http://www.iaru.org/satellite/prospective.html
|
|RULES:
|  "Amateur-Satellite Service: A radiocommunication service using space
|  stations on earth satellites for the same purposes as those of the 
|  amateur service." [RR S1.57]
|
|  "Amateur Service: A radiocommunication service for the purpose of 
|   self-training, intercommunication and technical investigations 
|   carried out by amateurs, that is, by duly authorised persons 
|   interested in radio technique solely with a personal aim and without 
|   pecuniary interest." [RR S1.56]
|
|QIKcom COMMENT:
|
|Sponsoring Organization:     US Naval Academy
|Operating Organization:      Volunteer Licensed Amateur Radio Operators
|Satellite Station Licensee:  Todd Bruner, WA1HAI
|
|Dr. Kang KB3UKS is a professor and Bob Bruninga, WB4APR is an engineer
|in the Naval Academy Aerospace Student project lab who gives engineering 
|guidance to student satellite projects.
|
|Todd Bruner, WB1HAI is an active friend of the Academy, a past Division 
|of Engineering Director at USNA and a retired US Naval Officer.  He is
|an unpaid volunteer with NO PECUNIARY association with the US Naval
|Academy, NASA nor any other Organization involved in this project.  His
|oversight as licensee is to assure the payload is operated within the
|rules of the FCC and ITU for Amateur Radio Payloads. 
|
|RULES:
|
|  "VI. OPERATIONAL GUIDELINES. The following operational guidelines,
|   based on interpretations by IARU of the Radio Regulations and good
|   amateur practice, are intended to help in planning the missions,
|   management, and control of satellites planned to operate in the 
|   amateur-satellite service.
|
|   Organisations building satellites should compare their mission plans
|   to the requirements of the amateur-satellite service. Then, they
|   should determine if it is possible to comply with the requirements of 
|   the amateur-satellite service or if licensing and operation should be 
|   in some other radio service which is more consistent with the nature 
|   and requirements of the mission.
|
|   A. The purposes of an amateur satellite should be:
|
|      (1) To provide communication resources for the general amateur
|          radio community and/or
|      (2) To conduct technical investigations in all respects consistent 
|          with the Radio Regulations. [See RR S1.56 and RR S1.57.]
|
|   Technical investigations carried out using frequencies allocated to
|   the amateur-satellite service should be relevant to the development 
|   of "radio technique," that is, have a reasonable possibility of 
|   application to the development of radio communication systems.  
|   [See RR S1.56 and RR S1.57.]
|
|   Examples of such technical investigations include: propagation 
|   studies, operational analysis of protocols used for digital voice and
|   data communication, development of attitude determination methods, 
|   development of command and control procedures, studies of radiation 
|   effects on various electronic components, studies of meteor trail 
|   reflection, and measurement of the orbital environment useful in 
|   designing future amateur satellites.
|
|   While many other types of technical investigations are conceivable, 
|   those not having a reasonable possibility of application to radio 
|   communication systems are probably not in accordance with the treaty 
|   requirements. An administration can reject whatever it decides is 
|   inappropriate use of the amateur-satellite service or questions may 
|   be raised by other administrations.
|
|QIKcom Comment A(1):  This project is fully in compliance.  The 
|communications payload on QIKcom serves as a bent-pipe relay for Amateur 
|Radio Operators worldwide identical to data transponders still flying on 
|the first USNA satellite PCSAT launched in 2001 and via the amateur 
|radio on the International Space Station on 145.825 MHz.
|
|
|RULES:
|
|   B. Station Control.
|
|   All stations operating in the amateur service and the amateur
|   satellite service, including space and Earth stations, must be 
|   controlled by "duly authorised persons," that is, licensed amateur 
|   radio operators who must be acting "solely with a personal aim and 
|   without pecuniary interest." [See RR S1.56 and RR S1.57.]
|
|   Even with these limitations, organisations and amateurs have common
|   interests and work together for their mutual benefit. (For this
|   discussion, an organisation can be a university, research institute,
|   for-profit or not-for-profit corporation, association, club, or other
|   similar entity.)
|
|   AMSAT-NA, for example, is an organisation which owns and builds space
|   stations to operate in the amateur-satellite service. But, because it
|   is an organisation and not an individually licensed radio amateur, it 
|   may not control an amateur station. Licenses under which AMSAT-NA 
|   owned amateur stations are operated are issued either in the name of 
|   an individually licensed amateur radio operator or an amateur radio 
|   club (in this case, AMSAT-NA itself) where a licensed amateur radio 
|   operator is named on the license as trustee (the person responsible)  
|   for the club station.
|
|   In every case, an individual licensed amateur radio operator, who is
|   neither employed nor paid by AMSAT-NA, is legally responsible for the
|   operation of every amateur station or amateur-satellite station.
|
|   Commonly, the licensee is an unpaid member of the organisation which 
|   owns the amateur station equipment or is a volunteer acting in close
|   association with it. In these cases, the owner's interest and the
|   licensee's "personal interest" are usually the same.
|
|   Of course, it is theoretically possible (although to the best of our
|   knowledge, it has never occurred in practice) that the licensee or
|   trustee of an amateur station or amateur-satellite station may 
|   determine that something he or she has been requested to do is not in 
|   accordance with the rules and regulations of his/her administration. 
|   If this happens, the licensee would inform the organisation and, if 
|   possible, they would work out a solution that satisfies and protects 
|   both.
|
|   Thus, the individual responsibility of the licensed amateur radio
|   operator, effectively imposed by the Radio Regulations, works as a 
|   kind of legal safety check for the organisation and the amateur to 
|   protect both of their interests as well as that of the amateur 
|   satellite service itself.
|
|QIKcom COMMENT:  This project is fully in compliance.  The 
|organizational structure and operators are compliant with these rules.  
|The operating organization are those volunteer operators around the 
|world that use the commmunications transponder for learning about the
|radio art and may participate by collecting telemetry and who may
|send commands as needed to maintain the proper operation of the pay-
|load. The Licensee of the spacecraft transmitter is a local volunteer 
|with his own home ground station only a few blocks from the Naval 
|Academy  Radio Club who is responsible for proper operation of the 
|payload transponder within the FCC and ITU rules.
|
|The interest of these individuals is in the operation of the satellite 
|for personal training and intercommunications with other satellite 
|experimenters in the amateur satellite service and without pecuniary 
|remuneration for such interest.  The Naval Academy volunteers, Dr Jin 
|Kang, KB3UKS and Bob Bruninga,WB4APR have decades of non-pecuniary 
|history with the Amateur Satellite Service, are the authors of dozens of 
|related papers in AMSAT and other Amateur Radio publications, and the 
|instigator of Packet Radio experiments on numerous other spacecraft such 
|as SAREX, MIR, ARISS, SUNSAT, SAPPHIRE, PCSAT,PCSAT2, ANDE, RAFT, and 
|DRAGONS for purely personal aims of learning about radio and promoting 
|the Amateur Satellite Service.
|
|
|RULES:
|   D. Plain Language. The amateur-satellite service, by its nature, 
|   involves stations of more than one country. International communi- 
|   cation between amateur stations in different countries must be in 
|   plain language. [See RR S25.2.] The plain language requirement 
|   includes telemetry and data exchanged between users.
|
|   To meet the plain language requirement, technical descriptions of all
|   emissions, codes, and formats must be made publicly available.  No 
|   system intended to conceal the meaning of a transmission may be used.
|
|   NOTE: Space telecommand transmissions for critical spacecraft 
|   functions are generally accepted as exempt from the requirement to 
|   use plain language.
|
|QIKcom COMMENT:  This project is fully in compliance.  The design, 
|telemetry, data and all aspects of this payload are in plain language 
|(AX.25 protocol) and all details are published and in the public domain.  
|They will be maintained for easy access on a web page such as those 
|maintained for our earlier payloads: maintained current on the 
|following WEB page: http://aprs.org/pcsat.html and aprs.org/pcsat2.html
|
|RULES:
|   E. Open Access. All telecommunication facilities, except telecommand,
|   operating in amateur-satellite service allocations should be open for 
|   use by amateur radio operators world-wide. All experiments utilizing
|   frequencies allocated to the amateur-satellite service should be 
|   freely available for use by radio amateurs world-wide and for 
|   reception by students and educators.
|
|QIKcom COMMENT:  This project is fully in compliance.  All 
|communications modes (except command codes) and all telemetry
|will be available to all amateur radio operators worldwide in accordance 
|with the published user operating recommendations.    There is no other
|usage of these communications transponders, nor circuits beyond what has
|been described here for use in the Amateur Satellite Service.  There may
|be periods when the transponder is commanded off for the purpose of
|saving power, or keeping temperatures under control, or to avoid 
|interference with other Amateur Radio experiments, but such OFF times 
|will apply to all users equally.  When communications modes are 
|activated, they are open to all radio amateurs worldwide who adhere to 
|the recommended user station requirements and uplink parameters.
|
|Bob Bruninga, WB4APR
|Trustee,
|US Naval Academy Amateur Radio Club
|410-293-6417
|
|Todd Bruner, WB1HAI
|Licensee, QIKcom
|Cell: 202-689-5471
|Home: 410-280-2460