Tag Archives: FUNcube Dongle

STRaND-1 Telemetry

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Finally successful in decoding STRaND-1 telemetry.

After experimenting with different 9600 baud packet decoders I am finally able to the decode the satellites telemetry. The combination of FCD Pro+ -> Audio mixer -> MiXW -> VSP Manager -> Online Kiss made it possible to produce the following image.

STRaND-1 Telemetry 10-03-2013 18:30 UTC 356 Frames

STRaND-1 TLM 10-03-2013 18:30 UTC

[PE0SAT Would like to thank: DK3WN, VK5HI, N8MH, Alan Cresswell and Chris Bridges]

Received STRaND-1 9k6 signals

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STRaND-1

After todays succesfull launch with a PSLV-C20 from Satish Dhawan Space Center (Sriharikota, India) the first signals are recieved from STRaND-1, this 3U nanosat that is build at the Surrey Space Centre (University of Surrey) using a Google Nexus-I as board computer. Here is a picture that I made from my reception this evening 25-feb-2012 19:00 UTC using a FUNcube Dongle Pro+, SDR# and a Maspro 435HS20.

STRaND-1 Reception 23-02-2013

The next couple of days I’ll try to decode the IQ data that was recorded during this pass. Lets see if we can find the 9600 baud data within this IQ stream. I have updated the STRaND-1 page with information to decode the telemetry using AGW Packet Engine and AGW KissOnline.

FUNcube Dongle Pro plus Arrived

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FUNcube Dongle Pro+ Arrived

FUNcube Dongle Pro+ ArrivedYesterday I received the new FUNCube in the mail, It all looks very neat and Howard has left nothing to chance to deliver the SDR receiver in the right way. It is shipped in a professional manner, better than many companies.

In the evening I finally had some time to test this FUNcube, it turned out that during the test there were tropo conditions and that explained why there were so many stations visible on the 192 khz bandwidth in the 2 metre band.

I did a quick scan of the AIR, 2m and 70cm band and it is immediately apparent that we are dealing with a better SDR receiver than the first version. In the next couple of days I will spend more time with the FUNCube and add some experiences to this blog.

One thing though was amazing, I could received FO-29 beacon and the whole transponder passband on a vertical antenna, this had not worked previously.

FUNcube Dongle Pro+

Specifications:

  • Guaranteed frequency range: 150kHz to 240MHz and 420MHz to 1.9GHz
  • Typical frequency coverage: 150kHz to 260MHz and 410MHz to 2.05GHz
  • TCXO specified at 0.5ppm (in practice about 1.5ppm)
  • 192kHz sampling rate
  • Extremely simple hardware setup, just two connections, an “in” and an “out”:
    • Standard SMA female antenna port
    • USB 1.x type A male connection
  • Eleven discrete hardware front end filters including:
    • 6MHz 3dB bandwidth (10MHz at -40dB) SAW filter for the 2m band.
    • 20MHz 3dB bandwidth (42MHz at -40dB) SAW filter for the 70cm band
    • Third- and fifth-order LC bandpass filters for other bands
  • Front end LNA OIP3 30dB
  • Typical noise figures:
    • 50MHz 2.5dB
    • 145MHz 3.5dB
    • 435MHz 3.5dB
    • 1296MHz 5.5dB
  • Typical NFM 12dB SINAD measurements:
    • 145MHz 0.15uV
    • 435MHz 0.15uV
  • No additional drivers required for Linux, OSX or Windows
  • Integrated 5V bias T switchable from software

My current SDR setup, FUNcube dongle pro+, Diamond X5000 vertical, SDRSharp development version, high quality 2.5m USB cable and Windows 7 64bit.

Homepage and other references:

FUNcube dongle Pro+ website.
SDRSharp software.