Subject: Mirnews from Chris
From: "Hans G. Janssen" <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 08 Oct 1996 13:47:34 +0100

MIRNEWS.330                            7 OCTOBER 1996
  
  Progress-M33: The launch of this freighter was planned
  for 15.10.1996.  Due to problems with the carrier-rocket
  the launch has been put back possibly to 2.11.1996.
  
  MIR-routine:   MIR's passes for our position are
  gradually shifting from the night to the late
  eveninghours.  So still not much traffic via VHF.  Now
  and then the Russians use the geostationary Altair-1
  (Cosmos-2054) for MIR-communications.  On 5.10.1996 the
  crew spoke with TsUP about  a lot of condenstation in a
  cablecompartment.  Possibly this problem has been
  resolved as they did not mention it the next day.  During
  conversations with TsUP on 6.10.1996 the cosmonauts
  mentioned the dismissal of Gen. Ivanov from his command
  of the VKS (spaceforces).  They  supposed that this also
  means that Gen. Ivanov also has been relieved of his
  chairmanship of the State Committee for Spaceflight. 
  This committee always selects which crew will fly and the
  chairman   takes the oath of departing crews.  General
  Ivanov has a long and excellent carreer in spaceflight
  and the relinquishment of his command must be a heavy
  blow for Russian spaceflight.  At least this is my
  opinion, but I am sure that the cosmonauts will share
  this opinion with me.  
    
  John Blaha: He is like his predecessor very active and
  from conversations in Russian as well as in English with 
  specialists on earth can be derived that he is very
  enthousiastic.  He still has to accustom himself to the
  differences between his trainings in replicas on earth
  and the practice in space.  On earth things in training-
  modules have been put straight in contradiction to the
  situation on board.  Often it takes him a long time and
  consultations with the earth to find things he needs for
  his experiments.  During passes of the MIR-station during
  workinghours it might be possible that Blaha uses the
  130.165 mc while his Russian colleagues  use 143.625 mc.
  The arrangement for the use of 130.165 mc will be made on
  143.625 mc. If they speak about UKW-dva (VHF-2), they
  mean 130.165 mc. 
  
  Radio-amateurtraffic:  The 145.550 mc is fully in use for
  Packetradio and often Korzun can be heard in  phone with
  amateurs on earth.  Korzun is a skilled and enthousiastic
  radio-amateur.  It is also worth while to monitor the
  437.925 and 437.950 mc for traffic via the Safex
  installation in the Priroda module.  
  The 437 mc band is primary for ISM-purposes (Industrial,
  Scientific and Medical). In my neighbourhood this band is
  fully blocked by a hospital  using that band for
  hearthmonitoring equipment.  I would be very pleased to
  hear  experiences in this field from friends in other
  parts of our globe.  
  
  Chris v.d. Berg, NL-9165/A-UK3202