FUNcube-1 (AO-73) – Image credit Wouter Weggelaar PA3WEG

When in sunlight FUNcube-1 is normally in “Educational Mode” (transponder off with high power beacon) but on Saturday, March 22, 2014 at approximately 0930 UT the FUNcube team are planning to switch to “Amateur Mode” (transponder on with low power beacon) for at least one whole orbit.

The aim of the switch on March 22 is to check the effect on the satellite of continuous “Amateur Mode”, especially battery temperature.

FUNcube website http://www.funcube.org.uk/

FUNcube Yahoo Group https://amsat-uk.org/funcube/yahoo-group/

FUNcube Forum http://forum.funcube.org.uk/

FUNcube-1 (AO-73) Spin Period

Last weekend FUNcube-1 (AO-73) reached the milestone of having been in space for 100 days – actually that should be clarified to mean “terrestrial” days as the spacecraft itself has been subjected to more than 1500 day/night cycles during this time.

FUNcube-1 (AO-73) – Image credit Wouter Weggelaar PA3WEG

We are very grateful to the 500+ stations who have been providing FUNcube-1 telemetry data to our Data Warehouse. We now have more than 1GB of data in the repository – this is an amazing effort and achievement from a spacecraft which is only transmitting at 1200bps. Thanks everyone and please keep it coming:)

From all the telemetry we can see that the spin rate decreased for a time but now is speeding up again. External temperatures span a range of 50C between the end of the sunlit phase and the end of the eclipse period. Even inside the spacecraft the temperatures range over 25C.

All the subsystems continue to work well and are “well in the green”.

The increased solar activity is certainly having an effect on the downlinked signal on many occasions. During such disturbances the signal appears to be being affected by ionospheric scintillation which distorts the BPSK stream and makes decoding much harder for some minutes at a time.  This effect is not just apparent near the magnetic poles as can be seen in this paper:  http://waas.stanford.edu/papers/IWG/sbas_iono_scintillations_white_paper.pdf

Users in the Northern hemisphere will have noticed that the evening passes in amateur mode are becoming shorter as the spacecraft enters sunlight again near the pole. This effect will increase as the season progresses and we will be testing a plan to change the operating schedule in a few weeks time. This test will involve placing the spacecraft into continuous amateur/transponder mode for a number of orbits – probably over a weekend.

Especially for educational users of FUNcube, we have placed all our schools outreach material on one page for easy reference. It can now all be found here: http://funcube.org.uk/education-outreach/

AMSAT-UK Logo

Founded in 1975 AMSAT-UK is a voluntary organisation that supports the design and building of equipment for amateur radio satellites.

AMSAT-UK initially produced a short bulletin called OSCAR News to give members advice on amateur satellite communications. Since those early days OSCAR News has grown in size and the print quality has improved beyond recognition. Today, OSCAR News is produced as a high-quality quarterly colour A4 magazine consisting of up to 40 pages of news, information and comment about amateur radio space communications.

The new lower-cost E-membership provides OSCAR News as a downloadable PDF file giving members the freedom to read it on their Tablets or Smartphones anytime, anyplace, anywhere.

An additional advantage is that the PDF should be available for download up to 2 weeks before the paper copy is posted.

AMSAT-UK FUNcube Mission Patch

The Membership year lasts for 12 months starting on January 1 each year.

If you join after July 31 of any particular year, then you will receive complimentary membership for the whole of the following year, i.e. join on November 12, 2013, and you have nothing more to pay until Dec 31, 2014.

Take out an Electronic membership here http://shop.amsat.org.uk/shop/category_9/Join-Amsat-UK.html

E-members can download their copies of OSCAR News from http://www.amsatuk.me.uk/on

A sample issue of OSCAR News can be downloaded here.

FUNcube-1 (AO-73) – Image credit Wouter Weggelaar PA3WEG

Since deployment on November 21, 2013 of FUNcube-1 (AO-73) the FUNcube team have been capturing the minimum and maximum Realtime values for each channel when they have been uploaded by a ground station. This has given a good overview for the early operation and initial commissioning.

The team have now moved into a steady state of operation and need to check for long-term trends. To achieve this, they have changed the min-max data collection such that it resets every 7 days and we capture the values each time it does so. At reset you will see the reference date change on the page and the min/max values converge. They will diverge again within an orbit.

The team have considered a rolling 7 day period but that is quite a heavyweight process on the server as it has to be run each time we get an upload!

As always, many thanks to all those who are uploading data to the warehouse.

Any feedback to the forum as usual please: http://forum.funcube.org.uk

73 Dave, G4DPZ
FUNcube Team Member

Data Warehouse – Telemetry Archive http://warehouse.funcube.org.uk/

Dashboard App – Telemetry Decoder http://funcube.org.uk/working-documents/funcube-telemetry-dashboard/