W2MMD Satellite Blog

The Fox1Cliff satellite was launched last night (12/3) and is currently in "safe mode" for testing. Telemetry is critical for the AMSAT tech team during the early stages of a satellite's life, and we had a 66 degree elevation pass this morning so I logged into the clubhouse VPN, opened a VNC window to the Fox in a Box (FIAB) Pi and also an SDR Console window so I could view and hear the signal. (For info about FIAB see this article.) In Safe mode there are only short transmissions every few minutes, so it was hard to get a good telemetry reading. But the signal was very strong when it was being transmitted, so I was hopeful of getting a few telemetry frames from a short transmission. I opened a TCP connection to the clubhouse from my local copy of PST Rotator and set to aim the antennas at the next Fox1Cliff pass. The pass started, but I heard nothing.  This was expected - there are only short transmissions spaced with silence. But quickly I saw this signal appear indic...

Updated 3/21/19 We've now installed the EZ-Lindenblad antenna (the QST version with modifications - the AMSAT alternative wasn't available at build time) and found that it works quite well. Thanks to G0KLA's recommendation we've set the Auto-Start function on, which will use the Doppler correction to follow the currently-visible satellite rather than searching the entire passband for the strongest signal. This has significantly increased our packet capture rate.  We're now planning to install the 1.07 version of FIAB. Updated 12/8/18 AMSAT has launched and maintained three " Fox "-type satellites that are easily available for ham use. They're in low-earth orbit and use standard 2 meter FM transmissions, and can occasionally be worked with an HT. A fourth satellite is scheduled to be launched on December 2 2018. In addition to audio QSOs these satellites transmit telemetry information about various parameters related to the health of the satellite...