A new satellite, HuskySat-1, was launched this past Friday, from a departing Cygnus Supply Vehicle. After leaving the ISS, the Cygnus was boosted into a higher orbit, then the 3U HuskySat-1 was launched. Basic details are:
HuskySat-1
———-
Uplink: 145.910 – 145.940 MHz LSB/CW
Downlink: 435.840 – 435.810 MHz USB/CW (inverting)
Telemetry: 435.800 MHz 1K2 bps BPSK
24049.00 MHz (U of Washington experimental downlink)
The latest version of FoxTelem software to decode the 1200 bps BPSK
beacon is available at: https://www.amsat.org/tlm
On Sunday, Doppler measurements made by Nico PA0DLO indicated that HuskySat-1 is NORAD Object 45117 (2019-071G). The actual beacon frequency is 435.79971 MHz.
I had purchased an IC-9700 months ago, but was so busy that I hadn’t unboxed it until this weekend. In addition, my trusty ToughBook CF-30 laptops were having issues updating Win10 beyond the 2018 Feature Update (due to old graphic cards and no support from Panasonic). I had purchased a used CF-31, which was MUCH faster and so far has kept up with all the feature updates. So I figured I would configure it for the IC-9700. Thus my Saturday, and non-SuperBowl time on Sunday was spent gathering and installing all the various software tools.
When I ventured downstairs today, I noticed that there was a pass around 18:02 UTC for HuskySat-1, so I quickly downloaded FoxTelem and scrambled through the settings to get things ready to go for the pass.
Even though I was tuning the BPSK signal by ear, and manually adjusting for Doppler (I don’t have HuskySat-1 setup in SatPC32 yet), I was able to decode 30+ packets.
The Audio Tab of FoxTelem showing eye pattern
A Sample of the decoded Health Telemetry
Congratulations to the University of Washington team for a successful bird, and to AMSAT as well. The satellite is currently being commissioned and will be running a Pulsed Plasma Thruster experiments along with 24 GHz high speed data & imaging for the next month or so. At the completion of the experiments, the satellite will be turned over to Amateur use with a 30 KHz wide linear Mode VU transponder.
Greetings! Can you provide a setup in the 9700 for downloading telemetry? I am just getting back started with this aspect of satellite work. I have downloaded both Fox Telem and SATPC32 but that’s about it so far. Thanks!
Hi Peter,
Hope you have made some progress getting your 9700 to decode data under voice. This appears to always be an issue for ICOM radios as they tend to filter out the low-frequency tones necessary to decode telemetry. I had that issue with my older IC-9100, but was able to get unfiltered audio from one of the rear panel aux connectors.
I saw this post regarding the 9700. Give that a try! https://www.amsat.org/pipermail/amsat-bb/2019-April/072674.html
73, Bob