LitSat-1

The Southampton University Wireless Society (SUWS) Web-based software defined radio (SDR) has been used to receive signals from the new amateur radio LitSat-1 satellite.

The Lithuanian satellite LitSat-1 was deployed from the ISS on February 28 and the builders of the satellite have been able to use the SUWS WebSDR to receive the satellite when it is out of the range of Lithuania.

Noel G8GTZ, Martin G8JNJ and Phil M0DNY from the Southampton University Wireless Society, set up the WebSDR near Basingstoke in the UK. It currently supports parts of the 10 GHz, 1296 MHz, 432 MHz and 144 MHz bands and can be listened to from anywhere in the world.

The link is: http://websdr.suws.org.uk/

The 434 MHz receive capability is very popular for listening to High Altitude Balloon (HAB) signals.

A couple of notes when using the WebSDR:

– If tracking balloons please set your location in dl-fldigi to somewhere around 51.294, -1.131 so we don’t have any fake receiver lines on the map!

– Connection to the site is over a several km wifi link, so once you’ve found the signal, please switch off your waterfall view (Set to ‘blind’) to save bandwidth for others.

– The waterfall speed will also be automatically limited as the number of users increases.

Darius Kybartas LY3DA says that when listening for LitSat-1 on the WebSDR receiver enter your call sign or name in the “Your name or callsign” box and select a frequency of 145850 kHz with FM modulation.

LitSat-1 is very close to the International Space Station (ISS) so you can get a rough idea of when it will be in range of the UK based SUWS WebSDR by looking at the predictions for the ISS on the N2YO tracking website http://www.n2yo.com/ (use 51.294 North, 1.131 West for the coordinates).

LitSat-1 https://amsat-uk.org/2014/02/26/litsat-1-with-linear-transponder/