FUNcube-1 Telemetry 21-12-2013 20:01 UTC
After a longtime I gave FUNcube-1 a try using my FUNcube Dongle Pro+. The satellite is running in Eclipse mode, so the Beacon is running in low power and transponder is active. A total of 68 frames decoded and experiencing strong fading on the signal. I guess the satellites is spinning a lot.
In the above spectrum you can clearly see the beacon signal on the left and the transponder signals on the right.
CubeBUG-2 Telemetry 21-12-2013 11:23 UTC
from CUBEB2-6 to CQ: 1 > 3A 45 4D 41 49 4C 20 20 20 20 3A 6D 61 6E 6F 6C 69 74 6F 40 21 > 73 61 74 65 6C 6C 6F 67 69 63 2E 63 6F 6D 20 55 70 74 3A 20 41 > 30 37 3A 30 38 3A 31 36 20 42 61 74 3A 38 2E 33 32 76 20 54 61 > 65 6D 70 3A 32 37 2E 36 43 20 47 79 72 3A 30 2E 32 37 64 2F 81 > 73 20 :EMAIL :manolito@satellogic.com Upt: 07:08:16 Bat:8.32v Temp:27.6C Gyr:0.27d/s
More visual bandwidth thanks to an UHF to HF down converter in combination with the AFEDRI SDR. This combination will give me a 2Mhz wide spectrum on 70cm.
The idea was, to use the bandwidth of the AFEDRI SDR in combination with a 70cm down converter. After searching the Internet I found the website from High Sierra Microwave and ordered the 432M7 SDR friendly down converters.
Specifications:
The Model 432M7 is designed using a two stage pHEMT MMIC LNA, each stage followed by a SAW filter, which provides over 75 dB of image rejection. It has a crystal controlled PLL local oscillator at 425 MHz, a double balanced mixer and IF filter. The low frequency IF of 7 to 13 MHz is a great fit for the many HF SDR receivers, such as the Softrock and SDR-
Lets see how this down converter will perform in comparison to the FUNcube Dongle Pro+. As you may already now, I use SpectraVue together with my AFEDRI SDR and when one connects a down converter you can use the External Radio Setup. For this combination I use the following settings.
Custom Inverted IF = no Custom Ext Center Freq = 435000000 Hz Custom IF Center Freq = 10000000 Hz Ext IF BW = 10000000 Hz
Lets see what this combination brings in the next couple of weeks. I hope this will make it easier to receive all the new satellites that have there downlink frequency above 436.000 Mhz. With this combination I should be able to receive the whole spectrum from 436.000 – 438.000 Mhz.
DANDE Telemetry 16-12-2013 20:30 UTC
Tonight after a long period I received DANDE and decoded more then 60 frames transmitted by this satellite.
[136 Bytes KISS Frame (without CRC)] 1 > C0 00 88 82 9C 88 8A 40 62 88 82 9C 88 8A 40 65 03 3A 64 61 21 > 6E 64 65 63 6F 73 67 63 00 67 13 39 00 11 00 66 F1 E6 00 66 41 > D9 DE 05 F7 00 00 00 06 D0 02 01 01 02 00 00 FF 02 01 6F 01 61 > 08 00 00 00 ED 00 B8 00 F7 01 10 01 09 01 02 01 03 28 00 00 81 > 01 0F EC 00 25 0C 8A 0B EA 0E DA 05 D7 05 95 05 9C 05 F1 00 101 > 01 05 C8 09 2E 3B EE 3C 0A 0D 40 0E 43 00 00 64 61 6E 64 65 121 > 2E 63 6F 6C 6F 72 61 64 6F 2E 65 64 75 44 CB C0 À.ˆ‚œˆŠ@bˆ‚œˆŠ@e.:dandecosgc.g.9...fñæ.fÙÞ.÷....Ð......ÿ..o.....í. ¸.÷........(....ì.%.Š.ê.Ú.×.•.œ.ñ...È..;î<..@.C..dande.colorado.eduDËÀ
Today I received an email from the ZAcube-1 ground station operators that they had received the first image made by ZAcube-1 (TshepisoSat).
Earlier this week a quick checkout of the payload board was done. The sub-system board was powered on and a few telemetry values were requested with all response values indicating good health. The board was successfully switched off again.
On the morning of 14 December the satellite was again commanded to switch on the payload board and a sequence of commands were sent to capture an image and store it in the on-board storage. During the following two passes the image was successfully downloaded using the CPUT/F’SATI built VHF/UHF radio transceiver in its 9k6 bps G3RUH/GMSK mode.
In the image the sun can be seen along with lens flare caused by the camera being pointed towards the sun. The black dot in the bottom right is most likely caused by overload of camera’s CMOS sensor by the sun. The spacecraft is not stabilised in three axis, so capturing images is a best effort affair (imaging is not the main focus of the mission). We can hopefully capture an image showing the earth in the upcoming days.
Original source: F’SATI news page
The ZAcube ground station have made a Decoder application available to decode the satellite telemetry.
The application receives KISS encoded messages from a TNC and decodes the messages to understandable values. Configure the application by using the drop down boxes to select the serial port that your TNC is connected to and set the baud rate for your TNC and click connect. MixW and a virtual serial port emulator can also be used with the decoder application.
Download location: ZAcube decoder