FUNcube-1 flight model – Image credit Wouter Weggelaar PA3WEG

The AMSAT News Service (ANS) reports Patrick Stoddard WD9EWK has been working the new AO-73 satellite from his back yard.  Most of the time, he has been using his normal portable all-mode satellite station – two Yaesu FT-817NDs, Elk handheld 2m/70cm log periodic antenna. On November 30 he replaced one of the FT-817NDs with a Kenwood TH-F6A – using its all-mode receiver to copy the downlink. December 1 he used an Icom IC-R20 receiver for the downlink. He’s used these radios in the past on other satellites, and for some hamfest demonstrations on VO-52 Patrick had used the FT-817ND/TH-F6A combination. He has made a series of videos (satellite audio combined with slideshows) from several AO-73 passes he has worked. They are available at:

http://www.youtube.com/va7ewk

One of the AO-73 videos contains audio from two passes, and is about twice as long as the others which have audio from a single pass.

Watch WD9EWK working AO-73/FUNcube-1 from Scottsdale AZ (DM43bn) – Dec 1, 2013 0542 UT

After working these passes, he is convinced that this new satellite performs as well as VO-52, for both its uplink and downlink.  This is a very good thing!  AO-73 hears very well, as long as you’re careful to match the polarization of the satellite’s antennas.  The downlink is strong enough to allow the use any of these radios as the receiver on higher passes.  For lower passes, he will probably use his second FT-817ND for the downlink receiver.  It is good to know that, at least on the higher passes, there are lots of options for a downlink receiver. On the same higher passes, he learned that he can cut the power down from 5W to 1W and even 500mW.  High power is not necessary to be heard through the transponder.

Final gluing of FUNcube-1 bolt by Wouter Weggelaar PA3WEG – Image credit Gerard Aalbers

Patrick’s next project with AO-73 will be using a FUNcube Dongle Pro+ as the downlink receiver, for both the transponder and telemetry, while working the transponder with an FT-817ND as his transmit radio.  He reinstalled HDSDR and its ExtIO DLL for the Pro+ Dongle on his 64-bit Windows 7 laptop, and it is working well. He will be installing the FUNcube-1 Dashboard software. Patrick has an old netbook running Linux, and is curious to see how the dongle works with that operating system.  His hope is to be able to use the dongle and a laptop as the downlink receiver, without being wiped out by the 5W signals from an FT-817ND.

If all is successful, he believes he will have a new combination for his all-mode satellite station that he can use for upcoming demonstrations. Using the dongle and dashboard software during daytime AO-73 passes at hamfests would be something different, and a great thing to show off to the hamfest crowds.

Patrick thanks all who worked on getting this satellite built and launched.  “Even with the transponder on only for the nighttime passes, it has been fun to be on a new satellite so soon after its launch.”

ANS thanks Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK for the above information

AMSAT News Service (ANS) http://ww2.amsat.org/?page_id=443

FUNcube-1 Launch Day Mug

To start with a few stats:

From the acquisition of the first signal by ZS1LS on Thursday, November 21 we have had a steady stream of data flowing in.
A few Data Warehouse statistics as at 12:00 UT, Nov. 28, 2013:
– over 12MB of unique data uploaded and stored
– 424 user registrations since 2013-11-17
– 319 users have have uploading data
– 41388 Real-time entries
– 11754 Whole Orbit Data entries
– 77940 High Resolution entries
We are very grateful for all this data which is invaluable to the command team – please continue to send it to the Warehouse if you can and encourage other to do so.

Fitter Message 9:

What are the funny characters in the FM9 slot?

Well the command stations can re-purpose FM9 to either be a “normal” fitter message or to carry the debug data that is displayed at the bottom of the Dashboard. This carries info about various status flags and other parameters.
The format is described here

“in short Fitter message 9, when we are running in debug mode starts of with 0xFF that’s how we know its debug, then what follows is just a byte for byte copy of some of the in memory structures from the running MCU, filling up the rest of the fitter message is an MCU program trace (read from right to left) the letter indicates the source file, the number is the line number in that source file. The spaces are where the MCU has finished processing and has gone back to wait for more events.”

Schedule for next few days:

We plan to command FUNcube-1 into continuous amateur/transponder mode for a few orbits on either the 09:22 UT or 10:58 UT passes over the UK tomorrow. We will be doing this to see how this change affects the on-board temperatures. We will switch it back to the normal autonomous schedule either 12:35 UT or 20:31 UT passes depending upon the results of these tests.

No other changes to the operating schedule are currently planned.

UPDATE December 1:

Apologies to everyone who was expecting the transponder to be active during daylight today.

A late change of plan by the team means that we did not send that command but concentrated on testing some other functionality. As a result, the sharp eyed will notice that one of the ANTS Data sensor channels has been commanded “OFF” (this shows as failed” on the Dashboard). It does NOT indicate any problem with the on board systems though.

The spacecraft will continue with its autonomous schedule for the time being.

Nico, PA0DLO, has recently emailed his observations which align with our own understanding of the current situation:

“AMSAT-OSCAR-73, ZACube 1 and HiNCube were launched from the same ISIPOD.

As they initially were close together, the JSpOC decided to release only one TLE  set for this cluster under object number 39417 (2013-066B). Now the distances between these satellites are slowly increasing. So the question is  – which satellite is object 39417?

Detailed Doppler measurements show that ZACube 1 is now about 25 s early compared to the TLE for object 39417, while OSCAR 73 is about 11 s early. This seems to indicate that object 39417 is actually  HiNCube.

Hopefully TLEs for OSCAR 73 and ZACube 1 will be published soon.”

Download the Dashboard App to receive the FUNcube-1 telemetry and upload it to the Data Warehouse.

FUNcube-1 Monitoring Station at the NRC Bletchley Park

GB2RS have released a video of the moment the first command to FUNcube-1 was sent by Wouter Weggelaar PA3WEG.

Watch AMSAT FUNcube-1 command success at RSGB National Radio Centre

BBC TV visit FUNcube station at RSGB National Radio Centre
https://amsat-uk.org/2013/11/22/bbc-visit-funcube-station-at-rsgb-national-radio-centre/

FUNcube-1 Deployed !!! https://amsat-uk.org/2013/11/21/funcube-1-deployed/

First Transponder Test https://amsat-uk.org/2013/11/22/funcube-1-ao-73-transponder-tested/

First Fitter Message Uploaded https://amsat-uk.org/2013/11/21/ao-73-first-fitter-message-uploaded/