BY70-1 CubeSat

A CZ-2D rocket carrying the amateur radio FM transponder satellite BY70-1 was launched on Wednesday, December 28 at 03:23 UT.

Update: Paul Stoetzer N8HM reports working Wyatt Dirks AC0RA through the FM transponder during the 1709 UT pass on December 28. Paul says “Uplink requires precise frequency adjustment and there’s a delay on the downlink, but the signal is strong”. A recording of the transponder can be heard at https://soundcloud.com/paul-stoetzer/by70-1-1706z-28-dec-2016

The launch from the Taiyuan Space Launch Center was planned for December 26 but postponed due to adverse weather. It had been planned it would go into a 530 km circular Sun-Synchronous Orbit (SSO) but instead the orbit appears to be 524 x 212 km which will give an orbital lifetime of just one or two months.

BY70-1 is a 2U CubeSat project for school education and amateur radio. It features 3-axis stabilization and deployable solar panels. In addition to the FM transponder BY70-1 has a camera and it is planned to download images and telemetry via a 9600 bps BPSK downlink.

The IARU amateur satellite frequency coordination pages list these frequencies:
• 145.920 MHz uplink
• 436.200 MHz downlink
A 67 Hz CTCSS (PL Tone) is required.

On the AMSAT Bulletin Board Mac AE5PH has provided a list of the channel settings he uses:

 Chan        RX          TX     TX PL Tone
BY70-1    436.2100    145.9175    67 Hz
BY70-2    436.2075    145.9175    67 Hz
BY70-3    436.2050    145.9175    67 Hz
BY70-4    436.2025    145.9200    67 Hz
BY70-5    436.2000    145.9200    67 Hz
BY70-6    436.1975    145.9200    67 Hz
BY70-7    436.1950    145.9225    67 Hz
BY70-8    436.1925    145.9225    67 Hz
BY70-9    436.1900    145.9225    67 Hz

His rig supports 2.5 kHz channel spacing, for 5 kHz step rigs just omit the intermediate channels.
Note: If your rig has selectable FM filters the wider filter should give better results.

For the SatPC32 Doppler.sqf file Henk PA3GUO suggests: BY70-1,436200,145920,FM,FM,NOR,0,0,FM

BY70-1 has been added to the satellite pass predictor at http://amsat.org.ar/pass.htm

See the article by Daniel Estévez EA4GPZ / M0HXM – GNU Radio decoder for camera images from BY70-1 satellite http://destevez.net/2016/12/looking-at-by70-1-image-downlink/

BY70-1 links
http://www.amsatuk.me.uk/iaru/finished_detail.php?serialnum=531
https://twitter.com/cnspaceflight/status/802863365013942272

Follow Mingchuan Wei BG2BHC https://twitter.com/bg2bhc

Keplerian Two Line Elements (TLEs) ‘Keps’ for new satellites launched in past 30 days. It is believed BY70-1 may be object 41909, 2016-083C http://celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/tle-new.txt

Adding new satellites to SatPC32, Gpredict and Nova
https://amsat-uk.org/2013/11/23/adding-new-satellites-to-satpc32/