LAPAN-A2 (IO-86)
Indonesia’s national amateur radio society ORARI reports the ham radio satellite LAPAN-A2 (IO-86) is being used to send a Fight Coronavirus message using APRS.
A translation of the ORARI post says:
The satellite spreads the text message “Stay Healthy, Stay at Home #LawanCorona”.
This was conveyed by Researcher of the Center for Satellite Technology, Sonny Dwi Harsono when contacted, Friday, March 20, 2020.
Sonny explained, this action was a form of support for government policies on social distancing. The policy encourages all of us to reduce activities outside the home and interactions with others. “So this message was sent by the LAPAN A2 satellite via the APRS (Automatic Packet Reporting System) beacon which was transmitted throughout Indonesia. APRS is a text based communication system for short messages such as SMS on mobile phones. But this APRS message can only be received through HT (Handie Talkie) which has the recipient of the APRS message,” he said.
Sonny explained, messages that have been disseminated can be received by anyone by setting the HT radio frequency to 145.825 MHz. To date corona’s message has been received by dozens of members of the Indonesian Radio Amateur Organization (ORARI) spread throughout Indonesia.
The dissemination of the message “Stay Healthy, Stay at Home #LawanCorona” , continued Sonny, was carried out starting March 20, 2020. For the time being the message dissemination was carried out on the APRS mission only. But it will try to spread the message one time at a LAPAN-A2 / LAPAN-ORARI track every 100 minutes. “Later if possible, we try to distribute 24 hours nonstop every 100 minutes under certain conditions. Currently we are discussing the technicalities. The messages from the government can also be disseminated via the LAPAN-A2 satellite, “he concluded.
Source ORARI https://tinyurl.com/IndonesiaORARI
Follow LAPAN-A2 https://twitter.com/lapansat
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Source: Amsat UK