AMSAT-UK has announced a new FUNcube Forum to cater for the two FUNcube payloads that will be launched in the coming months.

FUNcube-1 is a complete educational single CubeSat project with the goal of enthusing and educating young people about radio, space, physics and electronics. It is planned to launch on a Dnepr from Dombarovsky near Yasny on November 21, 2013.

FUNcube-2 on UKube-1 comprises of a set of FUNcube boards that will fly as part of the UK Space Agency’s 3 Unit CubeSat UKube-1. It has identical goals and is expected to be launched on a Soyuz rocket from Baikonur in February 2014.

The FUNcube Forum is at http://forum.funcube.org.uk/

FUNcube-1 flight model – Image credit Wouter Weggelaar PA3WEG

The latest news about the launch date and time has just been confirmed by Kosmotras.

The launch date of RS-20B rocket (Dnepr) with a group of satellites (DubaiSat-2 cluster mission) from Dombarovsky missile area (Yasny Launch Base) has been established for November 21, 2013 at 07:10:11 UT. The back-up launch date is November 22, 2013 at 07:10:11 UT.

We will shortly be providing prelaunch TLEs and, in about 7/10 days, the Dashboard software that is needed to demodulate and display the telemetry information. More information about the Dashboard can found here http://funcube.org.uk/working-documents/

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

FUNcube communication subsystem:
• Inverting SSB/CW transponder 300 mW PEP
– 435.150 – 435.130 MHz Uplink
– 145.950 – 145.970 MHz Downlink
• 145.935 MHz BPSK Telemetry 300 mW

FUNcube information sheets:
•  FUNcube_Project Information_aug2013
•  FUNcube_Educational_Outreach aug2013

FUNcube-1 flight model – Image credit Wouter Weggelaar PA3WEG

The PowerPoint slides used in the FUNcube-1 presentation given by Dave Johnson G4DPZ at the RSGB Convention in October 2013 have now been made available.

It is hoped they will be used by others to support presentations they may give on FUNcube-1 to local clubs.

Download the PowerPoint slides from http://funcubetest2.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/funcube_oct2013fin.ppt

Dave G4DPZ recently announced he was willing to give talks to clubs in his area and a number of clubs immediately took him up on the offer. It is believed there are many other clubs across the country that would welcome a talk on the new FUNcube-1 satellite and AMSAT-UK would like to hear from anyone willing to give such talks.

FUNcube-1 Talk for Local Clubs https://amsat-uk.org/2013/10/25/funcube-1-talk-for-local-clubs/

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

FUNcube-1 flight model – Image credit Wouter Weggelaar PA3WEG

Dave Johnson G4DPZ is willing to give talks to local amateur radio clubs in the West Midlands and Warwickshire area about the new satellite FUNcube-1.

In late November 2013 FUNcube-1 will be launched into Low Earth Orbit. On board will be a UHF/VHF Linear transponder for SSB/CW communications along with a high power beacon for transmitting telemetry for educational (STEM) purposes, for reception by schools. Details of the satellite can be found at: http://www.funcube.org.uk

Any West Midlands/Warwickshire area club interested in having a talk on the design, development, launch and operation of the satellite should contact Dave on:
email: dave at g4dpz dot me dot uk

Dave can clearly only cover a small part of the country and AMSAT-UK would like to hear from anyone in other parts of the country who would be prepared to give a talk on FUNcube-1 to a local club.

PowerPoint slides to support a talk are available at http://funcubetest2.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/funcube_oct2013fin.ppt

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

FUNcube-1 flight model – Image credit Wouter Weggelaar PA3WEG

AMSAT-UK and AMSAT-NL are pleased to announce a new version of the FUNcube Data Warehouse which will collect, collate, deduplicate and display data from FUNcube Dashboards running on user PCs (see section at end).

The URL is: https://warehouse.funcube.org.uk/

The intention of the warehouse is to allow access to all the data received for the duration of the mission rather than from just one or a series of passes. This will enable educators and others to download mission telemetry for off-line analysis as part of our STEM outreach goal.

FUNcube Data Warehouse

The warehouse will store information for the following satellites/devices:

• FUNcube Flight Model
• UKube-1 – FUNcube module
• FUNcube Engineering Model (which will be used for some demonstrations)
• FUNcube Software Test Stack (which is still be used for development but may become another demonstration model later)

Please note, that we are still adding functionality and that some features may not be enabled but it will give a flavour of what will be there.

The warehouse does allow registration for upload of data from the FUNcube Dashboard (see below) and we would like feedback on the process. You can register now as a user of the Warehouse and then, later, apply the settings, that you will be emailed to you, to the Dashboard software when it is available.

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

There is a new forum at http://forum.funcube.org.uk/ whose purpose is to provide support for FUNcube satellite users. Registration on this forum is separate from the warehouse registration.

The Data Warehouse source code will be released under a ‘Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License’ and available on GitHub shortly.

FUNcube Dashboard

A Windows PC application has been developed which will allow FUNcube Dongle (either model) users and those with other, SSB compatible, 2 metre radios to receive and display satellite telemetry in real time and upload the data to the  FUNcube Data Warehouse.

FUNcube Dongle Pro+ Software Defined Radio

If using the FUNcube Dongle, the software will perform  doppler tracking on the received signal.

As well as real-time processing, the software can replay binary, IQ and sound files captured on earlier passes.

The Dashboard software is undergoing final testing and will be made available in about two weeks time.

We are looking forward to a late November launch. News updates can be found at http://funcube.org.uk/

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