Tag Archives: Alexandru Csete

Jun 4 2012

HO-68 CW beacon with Funcube Dongle and Arrow antenna

Reception of the HO-68 (XW-1) satellite beacon using the Funcube Dongle receiver and an Arrow II hand-held yagi antenna. Quisk software defined radio receiver running on Ubuntu Linux 10.10 64bit.
I was located indoors pointing the Arrow out through the window (and Doppler tuning with left hand, hence the high pitch 😉
The peak was around 52 deg elevation, range 1400 km. The CW beacon transmitter is 200mW RF.

The Funcube Dongle is a USB stick SDR receiver for 64 MHz – 1.7 GHz by Howard Long G6LVB, see http://www.funcubedongle.com/

Video recorded by Alexandru Csete OZ9AEC

May 8 2012

FM Interference to Linear Transponder Satellites

Alexandru Csete OZ9AEC has previously written about interference from FM stations on the HO-68 linear transponder. He now reports that other satellites with linear transponders (designed for SSB/CW use only) also suffer from local FM traffic by people who haven’t got a clue that they are transmitting in the satellite uplink segment of the 2 meter band (145.8-146.0 MHz).

This recording was made on Saturday, May 5, 2012 using the AMSAT-UK FUNcube Dongle and Gqrx SDR. It shows very strong FM transmissions on the FO-29 linear transponder which could be from Spain or Portugal. The topic appears to be chocolate. Alexandru says – If you know who these people are, be sure to send them a QSL card!

The use of FM on a linear transponder satellite reduces the lifetime of both the batteries and the transponder itself.

Watch FM on FO-29 amateur radio satellite

How to work the SSB amateur radio satellites http://www.uk.amsat.org/2712

AMSAT-UK FUNcube Yahoo Group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FUNcube