OSCAR Numbers Assigned for BRICsat (NO-83) and PSAT (NO-84)

PSAT PSK31 Transponder received by Peter Goodhall 2E0SQL May 26, 2015

PSAT PSK31 Transponder received by Peter Goodhall 2E0SQL May 26, 2015

The following message has been sent by the OSCAR Number Administrator Bill Tynan W3XO to Bob Bruninga WB4APR and the team at the US Naval Academy.

You have requested OSCAR numbers for BRICsat and PSAT built by you and your associates at the U.S. Naval Academy.

From everything I can determine, these satellites meet all of the requirements for OSCAR designations.

Therefore, by the authority vested in me by the AMSAT-NA President, I hereby confer the designation, Naval Academy OSCAR 83 on BRICsat and Naval Academy OSCAR 84 on PSAT These designations can, of course, for convenience, be shortened to NO-83 and NO-84.

I, and the entire amateur satellite community, hope for successful missions for both NO-83 and NO-84 and congratulate you and the rest of the Naval Academy team who designed, built and tested these two OSCAR spacecraft.

73,
William A. (Bill) Tynan, W3XO
OSCAR Number Administrator

NO-84 PSAT, a student satellite project named in honor of USNA alum Bradford Parkinson, of GPS fame, contains an APRS transponder for relaying remote telemetry, sensor, and user data from remote users and Amateur Radio environmental experiments or other data sources back to Amateur Radio experimenters via a global network of Internet-linked ground stations.

PSAT is another APRS satelliite that can digipeat user packets just like the original PCSAT (NO44) and the packet system on the ISS. PSAT also supports the same digipeating alias of ARISS so that users do not have to change any parameters when using any of these three APRS transponders.

See http://www.aprs.org/psat.html

NO-83 BRICsat-P (Ballistic Reinforced Communication Satellite) is a low cost 1.5U CubeSat built by the US Naval Academy Satellite Lab in  collaboration with George Washington University, that will demonstrate on-orbit operation of a Micro-Cathode Arc Thruster (µCAT) electric propulsion system and carries an Amateur communication payload.

see http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/bricsat-p.htm

Frequencies
PSAT: 145.825 – 1200 baud AX.25 telemetry – digi off
PSAT PSK31-5: 435.350 FM down, 28.120 SSB PK31 uplink – Brno University
Transponder

BRICsat: 437.975 – 9600 baud telemetry evry 20s
BRICsat PSK31-6 – same as PSAT but PSK TLM on 375 Hz (PSAT on 315 Hz)

How to work the PSK31 satellites https://amsat-uk.org/beginners/how-to-work-psk31-satellites/

OSCAR Numbers Policy http://www.amsat.org/?page_id=2478
IARU Amateur Radio Satellite Frequency Coordination http://www.iaru.org/satellite.html

[thanks to ANS and Bill Tynan, W3XO for the above information]

UK radio amateurs use PSK31 satellite transponder

PSAT PSK31 Transponder received by Peter Goodhall 2E0SQL May 26, 2015

PSAT PSK31 Transponder received by Peter Goodhall 2E0SQL May 26, 2015

After building a 28 MHz 1/4 Wave Ground Plane antenna to replace his dipole Peter Goodhall 2E0SQL was able to receive his 10 watt signal through the PSAT CubeSat PSK31 transponder for the first time on Tuesday, May 26.

Peter Martinez G3PLX posted a report to the RSGB Tech Yahoo Group reproduced here with permission:

Finally got my own signal back via PSAT just now and proved  that the uplink frequency control works. The PSAT uplink receiver is about 300 Hz low of 28120 kHz which means that when the satellite is heading straight towards me at +600 Hz Doppler, my transmitter needs to be 900 Hz low.

If I chose to place my own signal on a downlink frequency of 1000 Hz, the transmit audio tone would have to be down at 100 Hz which is too low for my SSB transmitter. So I have chosen 1500 Hz in the downlink.

I will try again on the next few passes. I am just sending “Test de G3PLX via PSAT” continuously at the moment and not listening for replies.  Still not getting a strong downlink SNR so the power control loop isn’t kicking in.

Bob Bruninga WB4APR has made a request to developers of PSK31 software to open their PSK31 frequency tracking to accommodate more than 1 Hz per second Doppler shift. Current implementations can do 1 Hz/s but completely fail at 3 Hz/s.

PSK31 Transponder Frequencies:
PSAT: 145.825 MHz FM 1200 baud AX.25 telemetry – digipeater currently off
PSAT PSK31: 435.350 MHz FM downlink, 28.120 MHz SSB PSK31 uplink. W3ADO-5 PSK TLM beacon on 315 Hz

BRICsat: 437.975 MHz 9600 baud telemetry every 20s
BRICsat PSK31 435.350 MHz FM downlink, 28.120 MHz SSB PSK31 uplink. W3ADO-6 PSK TLM beacon on 375 Hz

Guide to using the PSK31 transponder https://amsat-uk.org/beginners/how-to-work-psk31-satellites/

ParkinsonSAT (PSAT) http://www.aprs.org/psat.html

Fldigi PSK31 software http://www.w1hkj.com/Fldigi.html

Keplerian Two Line Elements (TLEs) ‘Keps’ for satellites launched in last 30 days
http://celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/tle-new.txt

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

Listen to satellite signals in the 145 and 435-438 MHz bands from anywhere in the world using the online SUWS WebSDR located near London. Further details at https://amsat-uk.org/2014/08/15/suws-websdr-moves-to-new-site/

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