AMSAT Ground Terminal Development Expands to Texas

Hardware consisting of Ettus Research USRP X300 SDR, USRP B210 SDR, UBX40 USRP Daughterboard, GPDSO Kits, and antennas have been ordered from National Instruments Corp. for delivery to Bill Reed NX5R in Dallas TX to equip a second community for development of the AMSAT Ground Terminals. These terminals will be used for the Phase 4B and other digital/microwave satellites being developed by AMSAT and in partnership with Virginia Tech.

Michelle Thompson, W5NYV, has been leading the effort in the San Diego CA area, which started up when the P4B project was announced earlier this year. Amateur radio operators in the Southern California area from AMSAT, Palomar Amateur Radio Club, and the San Diego Microwave Society have been implementing a terrestrial system to mimic the ground and space segments of a digital satellite communications link and developing code and hardware techniques for use in the P4B and future HEO opportunities that AMSAT is pursuing. Expanding the system to the Dallas area will allow more collaboration, development, and testing by AMSAT and North Texas Microwave Society amateurs with San Diego and other regions. The investment in equipment and community building will increase the number and quality of ideas in developing this next generation system of amateur radio satellite communications.

Another development system is being planned for the east coast. AMSAT is actively recruiting individuals and groups that want to work together to establish increased regional technical activity in support of satellite service goals. Rick Hambly, W2GPS, has campaigned for the creation of this very type of activity on the east coast for many years. Successful east-coast expansion will add even more variability and expertise to the project.

By involving amateurs who have expertise in both microwave and digital communications and in varying terrain and conditions, as well as including people with various backgrounds and experience, AMSAT plans to produce a ground terminal that will be useful with a variety of next generation satellites including Phase 4B, Phase 3E, the Heimdallr Lunar Cube Quest CubeSat, and an AMSAT developed HEO CubeSat. These are all projects currently being pursued by the AMSAT Engineering and ASCENT (Advanced Satellite Communications and Exploration of New Technology) Teams.

“The development of a ground terminal along with satellite projects is part of a plan to offer a way for amateurs to buy, build, or access ideas to develop their own ground terminals which will be useful for many future AMSAT satellite mission for years to come” said AMSAT-NA Vice President of Engineering Jerry Buxton, N0JY. “The concept of common uplink (5 GHz) and downlink (10 GHz) frequencies with software defined transponders allows many different experimentation and communications opportunities ranging from simple texting to voice, streaming video, data exchange, and reliable EMCOMM access in remote areas, with bandwidths to support many satellites and users.”

If you are interested in supporting the effort please click the link to complete the on-line Contact AMSAT Engineering form to submit a request. While those who live in the San Diego, Dallas, or Maryland areas may find it easier to participate, volunteers from other areas are welcome to join and contribute remotely.

FoxTelem 1.02 Released

FoxTelem Version 1.02 is now available for download. Like the last
release, you can patch your installation by downloading the patch file. In
this case it is a single file to replace.

You can download it from here: http://amsat.us/FoxTelem/

Everyone should upgrade to 1.02 because this readies FoxTelem for
transition to the new Telemetry Server which will be more reliable.

Additionally this release fixes a number of issues and adds the ability to
download data from the Server to view/analyze in FoxTelem. If you download
data, please make sure you save it into a separate directory to your local
data, otherwise you will over write it. Of course frequent backups of your
data minimize this risk.

The release notes are below:

* Fixed bug where opening the Fox-1A spacecraft menu would cause a crash
* Added horizontal and vertical lines to the graphs if button clicked
* Fixed Typo on measurements tab
* Fixed a bug where UTC was not displayed for the Diagnostic tables
* Capture the string version of the STP date in ENGLISH for all users, but
leave other dates in local language
* Fixed bug where TCA date could be null and a SERIOUS error was reported
* Fixed issue where the tabs were always refreshed when the spacecraft
menu closed
* Fixed bug where UTC date was sometimes wrong on the spacecraft T0 panel
* Ready FoxTelem for sending server data via TCP
* Support downloading data from the server


Chris E. Thompson
[email protected]
[email protected]

New Release of FoxTelem

From the AMSAT Bulletin Board Mailing List:

I wanted to announce the release of FoxTelem Version 1.01. If possible,
everyone should upgrade to this new version. In addition to some new functionality it fixes some bugs and issue that mean more data will be uploaded to the server.

This is a patch release. If you already have 1.00 installed then download
the file FoxTelem_1.01_patch.zip

You can download it from:
http://amsat.us/FoxTelem/windows
http://amsat.us/FoxTelem/mac
http://amsat.us/FoxTelem/linux

Only two files have changed (plus the manual). Copy these files into your
install directory
– FoxTelem.jar
– spacecraft/FOX1A_radtelemetry2.csv

You can also download the whole install file and install it in a new
directory. You can use the
settings menu to continue using your existing log files. Ask if you need
assistance.

Lots has changed in this release and many bugs have been fixed. Please
report any issues
that you see.

Release notes:
* Allow the user to view and set the “track” attribute for each spacecraft
(and other parameters)
* Better doppler tracking in IQ mode and more stable estimate of the
received frequency
* Better Find Signal algorithm with tuning paramaters for experts
* Read Time Zero from the server for each reset and use to plot graphs in
UTC
* Set the default fcd frequency to 145930 so that Fox-1A, Fox-1Cliff and
Fox-1D will be in the passband
* Allow the gain to be set on the FCD (rather than hard coded)
* Do not change the FCD LNA or Mixer Gain. Leave unchanged.
* Do not open the FCD unless the start button is pressed
* Fixed a bug where the last 2 bytes of the radiation telemetry were not
decoded correctly
* Allow Vanderbilt radiation experiment to be graphed
* Allow user to select UDP or TCP for upload to the server (but use UDP
for now please)
* Shorten the period between passes so that graphs look continuous
* Ignore duplicate high speed radiation frames – needed for processing
data from the server
* Allow graphs to be hidden so that average or derivative is easier to see
* Notify the user when a new release is available
* Cleaned up the FFT trace with some averaging
* If showRawValues is checked then save CSV files as raw values
* Several updates to the manual


Chris E. Thompson
chrisethompson at gmail.com
g0kla at arrl.net

LAPANSAT-A2 to launch 0430UTC 28SEP15 on Indian PSLV-XL C30

amsat-id

Launch Successful and satellite has been heard!

Please send reports to [email protected]

The 76kg LAPANSAT-A2 satellite is scheduled to launch as a secondary payload of the ISRO Astrosat space telescope mission on an Indian PSLV-XL rocket at 0430UTC on 28SEP15. The satellite is expected to be deployed in a low inclination orbit of 6 to 10 degrees, at ~650km altitude. This means stations North or South of approximately 32 degrees of latitude will not be able to access the satellite, but stations near the equator (such as Indonesia) will have up to 14 passes a day.

Along with Maritime AIS monitoring equipment, and optical capabilities, LAPANSAT-A2 carries a V/U voice repeater (435.88 with PL tone up, 145.88 down) and an APRS digipeater (145.825). The telemetry beacon is 437.425 MHz. The operational plan is not known at this time.

Pre-launch Keps courtesy of Dirgan, YE0EEE:

YBSAT
1 99999U 00000    15270.20393519  .00010000  00000-0  10000-3 0 00011
2 99999 006.0383 028.8188 0001450 317.4897 243.6033 14.00000000000018

lapanA2Live launch coverage is expected on DD News beginning at 0400Z:

Doordarshan National News on YouTube

AMSAT-Indonesia has an active group on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/831872960241607/

ISRO has a Twitter account at:

https://twitter.com/isro