Showing posts with label Satellite. Show all posts

Monday, August 23, 2021

YouTube Video of Africube Satellite at AMSATSA

AfriCUBE Cubsat.

YouTube Video of Africube Satellite at AMSATSA

Some feedback on the AfriCube Satellite

Monday, May 21, 2018

How to Create a Linear Transponder using a RTL Dongle and HackRF with Gnu Radio.

I wanted to test the concept of a linear Transponder and how difficult would it be to build it with conventional components.

Hardware Configuration

Hardware required to build the Transponder.

SDR IQ demodulator with rtl dongle (RF In)
SDR IQ DSP processing system. Gnu Radio (DSP processing)
SDR IQ Modulator. HackRF (RF Out)
Background management system. (OBC) for additional telemetry.

Software required for Transponder.

SDR IQ demodulator. rtl dongle (RF In)
SDR IQ DSP processing system. Gnu Radio (DSP processing)
SDR IQ Modulator. HackRF (RF Out)
Background management system. (OBC)

Video of working Transponder.

Gnu Radio.

Transponder Block Diagram

RTL SDR Block.

RTL-SDR Source

Low Pass Filter Block.


Low Pass Filter Block

AGC Block.

AGC Block

Power Squelch.

Power Squelch

Osmocom Sink. (HackRF)

Osmocom Sink (HackRF)

FFT. (Spectrum View of input)

FFT Spectrum View

REF: Power point Slides at AMSAT SA

Ref:Source code is available on Github Version 4

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Receiving NOAA weather satellite images with a RTL dongle and a Turnstile crossed dipole automatically.

NOAA19-HVCT 2017-03-18 15:40 Taken with this system

What do you need to setup a automatic NOAA APT Weather station configuration.
The necessary licences for your region. FCC ...
Here is a Link to Automated NOAA weather satellite System In Bassonia South Africa.

Hardware requirement diagram.

How dose this system work?

The system consists of 3 shell scripts that tai 5 applications together.
The shell scrip will fetch the satellite TLE keps data from celestrack. http://www.celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/weather.txt
The NOAA satellite TLE data is then passed to the predict satellite positioning software.
The predict software calculate when the next satellite will be above your radio station.
The result of the calculations for the next 24 hours is then send to a scheduler program call "at".
The "at" scheduler will then start and stop the rtl_fm receiver at the required time, frequency and record the audio in the recording directory from the NOAA satellite.
The Audio files is not in the correct format for wxtoimg utility to convert it to images and need to be converted to the correct format using the SOX until.
The converted recordings is then passed to wxtoimg utility to generate the Satellite images.
The images is then exposed via a Apache web server with a php plugin to the internet.

Hardware

Raspberry PI and power supply
RTL dongle with USB cable and MCX connector adaptor.
RG58 Coaxial cable with connectors or better cable. Max 4m
Turnstile crossed dipole Antenna.
All Hardware and software is available from Giga Technology

Software

Predict - Utility to calculate satellite azimuth and elevation using TLE Kep elements
rtl_fm - SDR fm Demodulation Utility to decode your ATP Satellite signal to audio file.
Sox - To convert row Audio file into format for wxtoimg to convert to Satellite Image.
Shell script to calculate the schedule for enabling the rtl receiver.
wxtoimg - Utility that converts ATP Audio files into Satellite Images.
Apache server to expose the images to the internet.

Software Functional Block diagram

The following software need to be installed on Raspberry Pi or Linux server.

sudo apt-get install predict
sudo apt-get install rtl-sdr
sudo apt-get install sox
sudo apt-get install wxtoimg
sudo apt-get install git
sudo apt-get install apache2
sudo apt-get install php
sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-php
sudo apt-get install php-mcrypt
sudo apt-get install php-mysql

Create a directory sh in hour home directory.
cd
mkdir sh
cd sh
Create a wxsat directory in your home directory
cd
mkdir wxsat
cd wxsat
Create a images directory in wxsat directory
mkdir images
Create a recordings directory.
mkdir recordings
Create a thumb directory inside the images directory.
cd images
mkdir thumb

cd to sh directory and download the following scripts from github using the git command below
cd ~/sh
git clone https://github.com/antonjan/noaa_weather.git
it will create a directory noaa_weather in the sh directory
Inside the directory there will be three scripts. (the index.php will need to be moved later)
noaa_sat_scheduler.sh
noaa_scheduler.sh
create_thumbnail.sh
index.php
Readme.me

You will need to change your stations GPS coordinates in the following files

Edit the file noaa_sat_schedule.sh and change the following details to your coordinates.
The last one is altitude in meters.

/usr/local/bin/wxmap -a -T "NOAA ${bird}" -H ~/wxsat/weather.txt -L "-26.17/-28.03/1700" -p0 -o "\$mapdate" ~/wxsat/noaa${bird}map.png
/usr/local/bin/wxmap -a -T "NOAA ${bird}" -H ~/wxsat/weather.txt -L "-26.17/-28.03/1700" -p0 -o "\$mapdate" ~/wxtoimg/maps/noaa${bird}map.png

and save the file.

Then you need update the predict program with your station coordinates.

Run the command sudo predict

Select the G to change your ground station position details.
and enter to get to next position. ESC to exit. ant then Q to exit.

Setup crontab to run the scrip at midnight
using the command sudo crontab -e
add the following at the bottom of the crontab file

1 0 * * * ~/sh/noaa_weather/noaa_scheduler.sh

You can run the script manually now to see if it works.
sudo ~/sh/noaa_weather/noaa_scheduler.sh
it should create schedules to run for the next 24 hours.
type the command sudo at -l witch should list the scheduled tasks
You should see something like this.
94 Thu Mar 23 02:13:00 2017 a root
95 Thu Mar 23 14:43:00 2017 a root
88 Thu Mar 23 05:30:00 2017 a root
92 Thu Mar 23 05:49:00 2017 a root
89 Thu Mar 23 17:53:00 2017 a root

There also should be at least 4 files in the ~/wxsat directory

noaa15.at

noaa18.at

noaa19.at

weather.txt

If you got here all went ok.
Connect the rtl dongle to your raspberry pi or Linux (ubuntu) computer.

Connect the coaxial cable to the Turnstile crossed dipole at wate for the first scheduled task as in the list above. sudo at -l

If you want to remove a previous task you can run the following command.

Make sure you always only have one task for the same time.

sudo atrm [task number] EG sudo atrm 94

Go and look in the ~/wxsat/images directory and your satellite images should be there for the day.
cd ~/wxsat/images

Ok now we need to get your image exposed on the Apache2 web server.

You now will need the full path to your wxsat directory.
cd ~/wxsat
pwd
/home/anton/wxsat
So in my case the full path is /home/anton/wxsat
Create a link between the apache server and you images.
go to directory /var/www
cd /var/www

sudo ln -s /home/anton/wxsat ./wxsat

if you goto you webserver on raspberry or linux you should see your images.

Take your browser on the Raspberry or linux server and goto http://localhost/wxsat/images

You will see a directory with file names of all the satellite images.

If you cant see the images you might have to make a small change to your apache2.conf file.

make sure you have the following in you /etc/apache2/apache2.conf file

change or add this

Options Indexes FollowSymLinks

AllowOverride None

Require all granted

</Directory>

Then restart Apache2

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Image file list

Ok So you want to see thumbnail images and the click on image to view full image the copy the file index.php from the git repository into your images directory.

cp ~/sh/noaa_weather/index.php ~/wxsat/images/

Ok check your image directory in your web browser again and it should now have index page with thumbnails. You can change the index.php content of this page to add your details.

http://localhost/wxsat/images

Thumbnail Image index page

Here is a Link to Automated NOAA weather satellite System In Bassonia South Africa.

My Satellite Antennas

Notes:
The following config files is used by default
(The wxtoimg and wxmap command line will look in both places for a config file)

/usr/local/etc/wxtoimg.cfg
~.wxtoimgrc

Example of the config file.

#
# WXtoImg configuration file written by WXtoImg.
# "man wxtoimg" or wxtoimg.html for details.
# WXtoImg version 2.11.2 beta
#
#
Registration Name: WXtoImg Professional
Registration Email: Anton.janovsky@gmail.com
Registration Key: TRLQ-KGKH-7M7!-U96U-CBQ1
Signal Type: APT
Expert Mode: false
Status Info Size: 0
Large Pixmap Support: false
Prompt on Exit: true
Decode in Record: true
Scroll in Record: true
Direction: northbound
Sample Rate: 11025.00
#Resurs Sample Rate: 11025.0
#Meteor3 Sample Rate: 11025.0
#Meteor2 Sample Rate: 11025.0
#SICH1M Sample Rate: 11025.0
#SICH Sample Rate: 11025.0
#Okean Sample Rate: 11025.0
#NOAA Sample Rate: 11025.0
#Meteosat Sample Rate: 11025.0
#GOES Sample Rate: 11025.0
#GMS Sample Rate: 11025.0
#MTSAT Sample Rate: 11025.0
Set Sample Rate: false
Sharpen: 0.6
JPEG Quality: 90
AVI Codec: RGB
AVI Transparent: false
AVI Quality: 85
AVI Scale: 0.5000

Max Frames: 16

Frame Rate: 1.000

Image Format: JPEG

Anaglyph Image Format: png

Composite Image Format: png

Messages: normal

Resync: enabled

Noise Filter: 0

Noise Threshold: 44

Crop: disabled

Contrast: var

Illumination Compensation: none

Gamma: 1.40

Despeckle: 2.00

No Signal Fill: true

Audio Directory: /home/anton/wxtoimg/audio

Image Directory: /home/anton/wxtoimg/raw

Save Directory: /home/anton/wxtoimg/images

Map Directory: /home/anton/wxtoimg/maps

Thumbnail Directory: /home/anton/wxtoimg/thumbnails

Template for Audio: false

Filename Info: UTC YYYYMMDDHHMM

Temperature Units: C

Distance Units: km

Enhancement: HVCT

Auto Image Template: %s-%f-%e

Auto Image Enhancements: "-" "contrast -a" "contrast -b" "NO" "HVCT" "MSA" "MCIR"

Record Type: A

Record Name Format: %Y%m%d%H%M

BMPs for DA: false

Record Bits: 16

Record Level: 25

Record Delay: 60

Record Rate: 11025

Record Only Active: enabled

Record Elevation: 20

Record Above: 8

Record Disable Info: false

Record Add: -N

Record Device: 0

Record Modes: ARD

Recording Forces Location: false

Receiver Type: none

Receiver Port: /dev/ttyS0

Receiver Baud: 0

Rotor Type: none

Rotor Port: /dev/ttyS0

Rotor Baud: 0

Park Elevation: 90.0

Park Azimuth: 180.0

GPS Port: /dev/ttyS1

GPS Baud: 4800

GPS Use: false

GPS Set Clock: false

Pass List Hours: 168

Process Time: 300

Use Alternate Memory Model: false

Delete Audio After: 999

Delete Maps After: 999

Delete Raw Images After: 999

Delete Images After: 999

Flip Meteor 3: disabled

Map Build: enabled

Map Overlay: enabled

Map Population: 0

Map Antialias: true

Map Thick Lines: false

Map Land-Sea: enabled

Map Lakes: disabled

Map Rivers: disabled

Map Country Borders: enabled

Map State Borders: enabled

Map Ground Station: enabled

Map Grid: 10

Map Offset Northbound: 0

Map Offset Southbound: 0

Map Land Color: light-green

Map Lake Color: light-green

Map River Color: light-green

Map Country Border Color: yellow

Map State Border Color: yellow

Map Ground Station Color: yellow

Map City Color: orange

Map Grid Color: red

Ground Station: Johannesburg, South Africa

Latitude: -26.170

Longitude: 28.030

Altitude: 1700.0

NOAA\ 12 Is Active: false

NOAA\ 14 Is Active: false

NOAA\ 15 Is Active: true

NOAA\ 16 Is Active: false

NOAA\ 17 Is Active: false

NOAA\ 18 Is Active: true

NOAA\ 19 Is Active: true

Meteor\ 3-5 Is Active: false

Meteor\ 2-21 Is Active: false

Resurs\ O1-N4 Is Active: false

Okean-O Is Active: false

SICH-1 Is Active: false

SICH1M Is Active: false

GOES Is Active: false

GMS Is Active: false

MTSAT Is Active: false

Meteosat Is Active: false

NOAA\ 12 Frequency: 137.5000

NOAA\ 14 Frequency: 137.6200

NOAA\ 15 Frequency: 137.6200

NOAA\ 16 Frequency: 137.6200

NOAA\ 17 Frequency: 137.5000

NOAA\ 18 Frequency: 137.9125

NOAA\ 19 Frequency: 137.1000

Meteor\ 3-5 Frequency: 137.3000

Meteor\ 2-21 Frequency: 137.4000

Resurs\ O1-N4 Frequency: 137.8500

Okean-O Frequency: 137.4000

SICH-1 Frequency: 137.3800

SICH1M Frequency: 137.4000

GOES Frequency: 137.5000

GMS Frequency: 137.5000

MTSAT Frequency: 137.5000

Meteosat Frequency: 137.5000

NOAA\ 12 Priority: 1

NOAA\ 14 Priority: 1

NOAA\ 15 Priority: 1

NOAA\ 16 Priority: 1

NOAA\ 17 Priority: 1

NOAA\ 18 Priority: 1

NOAA\ 19 Priority: 1

Meteor\ 3-5 Priority: 2

Meteor\ 2-21 Priority: 1

Resurs\ O1-N4 Priority: 1

Okean-O Priority: 1

SICH-1 Priority: 1

SICH1M Priority: 1

GOES Priority: 5

GMS Priority: 5

MTSAT Priority: 5

Meteosat Priority: 5

NOAA 19 Catalogue Number: 33591

Auto-Decode: true

Alt Sensor: 0

MSA 1: 50

MSA 2: 50

MSA 3: 0

Atmospheric Compensation: false

Auto Save Options: true

Save Temperature Data: false

Check for New Version: true

Update Sat Info: true

Auto Record: false

Auto Update Keplers: false

Last Kepler Update: 0

Geometry: 1301x715+65+24

Pass List Geometry: 843x618+483+131

Help Geometry: 783x512+510+117

Own Colormap: true

Use UTC: true

Tearoff Menus: false

Image Set Background: false

Maximum Thumbnails: 25

Log Messages: false

Help Language: EN

Help Font Size: +0

Date Format: %Y-%m-%d %H:%M

Date Format with Seconds: %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S

Show All: false

Text Mode 1: 0

Text Mode 2: 0

Text String 1:

Text String 2:

Text Size 1: 26

Text Size 2: 18

Text on Movies: true

Text on Composites: false

Temp Scale: false

Temp Black: false

Projection: -

Projection Reference Latitude:

Projection Reference Longitude:

Projection Bound North:

Projection Bound South:

Projection Bound West:

Projection Bound East:

Projection Resampling: bicubic

Projection Scale: 1.000

Projection Min Fill: 0.1

Movie Projection Reference Latitude:

Movie Projection Reference Longitude:

Movie Projection Bound North:

Movie Projection Bound South:

Movie Projection Bound West:

Movie Projection Bound East:

Movie Projection Scale: 1.000

Auto Movie Template: %g-%e

Auto Movie Enhancements: "contrast -b" "MCIR"

Composite Projection Reference Latitude:

Composite Projection Reference Longitude:

Composite Projection Bound North:

Composite Projection Bound South:

Composite Projection Bound West:

Composite Projection Bound East:

Composite Projection Scale: 0.750

Auto Composite Template: %g-%@%Y%m%d-%p-%e

Auto Composite Enhancements: "MSA" "MCIR" "HVCT"

Composite Min Solar Elevation: 0.0

Web Page Template: /usr/local/lib/wx/template1.html

Web Page Enhancement: MSA,MCIR,veg,Pristine

Web Composite Enhancement:

Web Page Thumbnail Size: 20.0

Web Page Filename: index.html

Web Page FTP Publish: false

Web Page FTP Passive: true

Web Page FTP Host: myisp.someplace.net

Web Page FTP User:

Web Page FTP Passphrase:

Web Page FTP Directory: wxtoimg

Web Page Folder Publish: true

Web Page Folder: /home/anton/wxtoimg/web

Web Page Add All: false

Minimum Solar Elevation: 0.0

Exclude from Composites:

Exclude from Web:

Minimum Scan Lines: 0

Use MCIR if MSA fails: false

Kepler Host: www.celestrak.com

Kepler Login:

Kepler Passphrase:

Use Proxy: false

Proxy Host:

Proxy Port: 8080

ref:

My Github repository https://github.com/antonjan/noaa_weather
Original Scheduler script https://github.com/the2belo/wxsat-scheduler

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Satellite recording of the SWAYAM Satellite on 25 Jun 2016 at 19:47GMT

This is a CW Beacon recording of the SWAYAM Satellite on 25 Jun 2016 at 19:47GMT

This recording was done on the Satellite websdr at http://zr6aic.giga.co.za:8902

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7WEvKMiv2g

Monday, February 22, 2016

Geostationary AMSAT Satellite (Phase 4) Spacecraft Covering the whole of Africa and Europe. (P4B) Es'hail-2

I think this Satellite will open up one of the most exiting telecommunication capabilities for Africa and Europe.(P4A/B) Es'hail-2 OS-100

Coverage map

Phase 4 AMSAT-DL planed

Qatar Satellite Company’s second satellite, Es’hailSat-2 (OS-100), will be placed in a geostationary orbit by a Space-X Falcon-9 rocket in November 2018. It will carry an AMSAT linear transponder as a secondary payload, giving Radio Amateurs access to a geostationary satellite for the first time.

Es’hailSat-2 will be “parked” 35 786 km above the equator at 25.5°East, nearly due North from Pretoria and Johannesburg (which are at 28°E).

Planned Frequency.

This satellite will have two linear transponders. (250 Khz and 8Mhz wide)
Narrow band transponder:
Up-links: 2400.050 - 2400.300 MHz modes SSB and CW. 5 Watt up link power,
Down links: 10489.550 - 10489.800 center 10 489.675 MHz. Vertical polarization.

Wide band transponder:
Up-links: 2401.500 - 2409.500 MHz
Down-links: 10491.000 -10499.000 MHz

It will be so nice to have fixed antennas mounted on mast pointing to the satellite having continuous communication to any where in Africa and Europe. HI ;-) ;-)

Will have to start looking for some equipment and antennas for this one.

Link to Live websdr http://zr6aic.giga.co.za:8902

Live SDR of Es'hail 2 OS-100

Here is a list of Equipment that should work for the P4A satellite.

X-Band 10 GHz Down link:

HailSat-2 Down link configuration.

Please note Some LNB's is using a 22khz tone to switch Polarization.

Only the Generic LNB work with voltage switching.

Click to enlarge Satellite Systems

Here is how I inject my power. The black typed lead has an short peas of coaxle cable with an Inductor on Center peas going to a 13V Power supply.

Power DC blocker and Power injection

Top coax go to LNB
Left Bottom go to SDR and has build in Cap to isolate dc from SDR
Right Bottom has inductor on center going to 13V Power supply

Power Injection and DC isolation to SDR

I have change the LNB to new one here is the LO details

LO 9.75 for 13V

I had to do some calculations

Satellite frequency For now is 10.706 - 9.75 = 0.956Mhz

For Narrow 250Khz Band Polarization is 0 deg V

Add caption 0 Deg V Polarization

Here is my 2.4Ghz Transmitting Antenna

2.4Ghz Tx Grid

Dish 60deg Elevation about 0 Deg Azimuth

2.4Ghz Transmitting Grid

View from back of two Antennas

Grid Mobile configuration


15db Grid antenna. just made it into satellite with ssb. CW was fine	.

LNB (14 - 18V Polarization switching) 10.7Ghz

Generic one Port LNB Available from Giga Technology

Video of my first test on Eshail-2 using Hackrf and preamp with and 2W PA and 2.4Ghz 15db Grid Antenna

Link to Live websdr http://zr6aic.giga.co.za:8902/

Websdr http://zr6aic.giga.co.za:8902

I think the signal must look lie this

Linear transponder 2400.050 - 2400.300 MHz Up-link 10489.550 - 10489.800 MHz Down link
Wide band digital transponder 2401.500 - 2409.500 MHz Up-link 10491.000 - 10499.000 MHz Down link

My RTL dongle needs to listen on the following frequency

LO with 12V injection = lo - 10.489500Ghz + 1M to get center of bottom of the Spectrum on websdr
=9.75Ghz - 10.489500Ghz + 1Mhz = 7395Mhz (this is still debatable )

89 cm dishes in rainy areas at EOC like Brazil or Thailand.
60 cm around coverage peak,
75 cm dishes at peak -2dB.

Narrow Band : linear vertical polarization.
Wide Band: linear horizontal polarization.

S-Band 2.4 GHz Narrow Band-Uplink:

Narrow band modes like SSB, CW
5W nominal Uplink power (22.5 dBi antenna gain, 75cm dish)
RHCP polarization

S-Band 2.4 GHz Wide Band-Uplink (DATV):

Wide band modes, DVB-S2
Peak EIRP of 53 dBW (2.4m dish and 100W) required
RHCP polarization

Azimuth and Elevation details for Johannesburg South Africa.
(For now the Elevation is 59.17 and Azimuth 350.43)

Azimuth and Elevation from Johannesburg

Setting up elevation the simple way.

Paper with a piece of string at back of Dish

Here is the Paper details

Gpredict tracking details.

Catalog number of Satellite is 43700

It seems that the satellite is still rotating around the equator

With the new TLE the Satellite has stabilized. at 59.17 Elevation and 350.43 Azimuth

Elevation is now 59.17 and Azimuth 350.43

2.4GHZ Transmitter.

The plan is to use my LimeSDR or hackrf for transmitter with low pass filter and a Power AMP. Details to follow

2.4Ghz Transmitter Diagram

Gnuradio Block diagram for Hackrf SSB

SSB Transmitter for Eshail2

Antenna setup

15db 2.4Ghz wifi Grid Antenna

I would recommend the 24db Grid or rather use 8 watt amp in 15db Grid.
Here is my presentation at the SARL on QO-100

My new transceiver setup.

1) Raspberry Pi 3B +
Hackrf.
MSI SDR dongle 10Mhz Bandwith 12bit. RX.
8W RF Amp.
40db Pre-Amp

My Eshail-2 QO-100 transceiver setup.

Software on Raspberry Pi
Connect remotely via Wifi

Now start testing my Horizontal DBV-S2 Reception.

Video of DBV-S2 reception.

DBV-S2 decoding using leansdr (leandbv)

I will add more details soon.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/195l60I4IvKEl59Dl87AVFxjkrKzAcY5ZyUXNKXBXBcs/edit?usp=sharing

You can generate your own elevation and azimuth here http://www.satlex.us/en/azel_calc-params.html?satlo=&user_satlo=25.5&user_satlo_dir=E&location=-26.16%2C28.03&la=-26.16&lo=28.03&country_code=za&diam_w=75&diam_h=80

REF:
Information http://amsat-uk.org/2015/07/03/phase-4-spacecraft-frequencies/
and here http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-R/space/workshops/2015-prague-small-sat/Presentations/Eshail-2.pdf
Spectrum Analizer for RTL https://github.com/pavels/spektrum/releases

Frequency list http://frequencyplansatellites.altervista.org/Beacon-Telemetry_Europe-Africa-MiddleEast.html

Azimuth direction finding http://www.satsig.net/ssazelm.htm

Friday, March 7, 2014

What a satellite frenzy

What a satellite frenzy.

Satellite prediction software Gpredict

Not more that a year ago you would not have seen anything like this. Its satellite heaven.

I was looking at the Gpredict screen this morning and could not believe what was happening.

There was 5 Amateur Satellites (ZACUBE-1, FUNCUBE, EAGLE2,DELFI-N3XT,CUTE-1.7 ...) above me and I had a quick look at the webSDR and could see multiple beacons all over the screen. Well there is now no excuse not to work satellites. You can pick and chose, Packet store and foreword FM transponders and Linear transponders, some even have cameras on board. What fun!. Some of the Satellites like the FM transponders can be communicated with a simple HF handheld transceiver. ($50 max)

Enjoy the Satellites.

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Satellite Log of MOVE1 CW (2 March 2014 08:02 GMT)

MOVE1 Satellite

Launched on 21/11/2013

Here is a Satellite recording of the CW Beacon.

You can monitor this satellite on the webSDR http://zr6aic.giga.co.za:8902

CW beacon 145.970 MHz (“MOVE1″)
AX.25 beacon 1k2 Cosine-BPSK
TLE details click here to track the sat (Catalog number 39439U)

More details is available from http://move2space.de/?page_id=910&lang=en

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

New Amateur radio Cubesats will be launched from the International Space Station on Thursday, February 6, 2014.

New Amateur radio Cubesats will be launched from the International Space Station on Thursday, 6 February 2014. ( 18:07 UTC) new date (February 28 at 07:30 UTC)

1) LituanicaSat-1 (

Onboard VGA camera
GPS receiver.
UHF CW beacon 100mW, 9k6 AX25 FSK telemetry TX 2 watts.
FM Mode V/U transponder 150mW Voice Repeater.
145.950 Mhz Uplink FM transponder.
435.180 MHz Downlink FM.
145.850 MHz AX25 Uplink.
437.550 MHz AX25 Downlink.
437.275 MHz CW Beacon .
https://www.facebook.com/Lituanicasat1

2) LitSat-1

Beacon/TLM down link 145.850 MHz
Beacon RF packets are AX.25 UI frames https://www.tapr.org/pub_ax25.html Main parameters of the beacon frames are: TX baud rate 9600 bps (G3RUH), repetition period ~4.5s, beacon duration ~0.5 s, source call address – TNC, destination call address – LY1LS.

Linear Transponder details

Uplink 435.150 MHz LSB
Downlink 145.950 MHz USB
Bandwidth ±15 kHz from centre
CW beacon 435.1375 MHz (LY1LS/B)
Normal mode – transponder, beacon OFF
437.550 MHz AX25 Uplink.
145.850 MHz MHz AX25 Downlink.
LitSat-1 on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/palydovas

3) UAPSAT

145.980 MHz AX.25 Packet Radio uplink.
437.385 MHz downlink.
http://www.uap.edu.pe/

4) ArduSat-2

437.? MHz 9k6 MSK CCSDS downlink.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/575960623/ardusat-your-arduino-experiment-in-space

5) UKube-1
The Ukube-1 Satellite was lunched on 8 July at 18:32:42 UTC. kep details at http://www.dk3wn.info/p/?p=46812UKube-1 CW was confirmed over Europe ;-)

UKube-1 communications subsystem:

• Telemetry downlink 145.840 MHz

• FUNcube subsystem beacon 145.915 MHz

• 400 mW inverting linear transponder for SSB and CW

- 435.080 -435.060 MHz Uplink

- 145.930 -145.950 MHz Downlink

• 2401.0 MHz S Band Downlink

• 437.425-437.525 MHz UKSEDS myPocketQub Downlink

More details is available from http://amsat-uk.org/2014/02/04/ham-radio-cubesats-to-deploy-thursday/