Some Tweaking for HuskySat-1

Posted on February 4, 2020 by Bob Beatty

Despite having the specified 435799.7 KHz frequency at the satellite for the Beacon Downlink in my Doppler.SQF file, I still wasn’t able to automatically decode the satellite telemetry using FoxTelem.

I did a bit of thinking, and am guessing that the BPSK carrier is 1500 Hz at the bird, which would mean I would have to tune 1500 Hz lower.  So I actually need to set my Doppler.SQF file entry as 435798.20 KHz.

Experimenting with that on a pass around noon local time, I found that the optimal frequency is more like 435797.98, some 220Hz lower still.  As I have not calibrated my IC-9700 yet, that sounds reasonable.  Time to break out the frequency standard.

Incidentally, I’ve heard that the latest IC-9700 firmware requires the 10 MHz reference to be available all the time — that’s a big ask, so I might not  upgrade the firmware and just do the TCXO calibration against it instead.  (The reason for this is mostly the L-Band folks running FT4, and discovering that the transmitter heating causes the TCXO to drift too much.  Additional cooling avoids the issue too.)

Over the course of the path I saw a shift from carrier of 435.797.983 down to 435.797.783, or a gradual lower drift.  This has to be due to errors in the TLE set.  But the good news I picked up 19 packets in automatic mode.  So I’m going to set my Beacon Downlink to 435.797.883 and see how that works through the day.  (Keep in mind the intentional downshift of 1500 Hz due to the audio tones at the satellite, so the carrier is actually 1500 Hz greater — 435.799.383)

Posted in FoxTelem, HuskySat-1, IC-9700, SatPC32 | Leave a comment

Configuring SatPC32 for an Icom IC-9700

Posted on February 3, 2020 by Bob Beatty

After ensuring that the latest Icom USB drivers have been installed (before plugging the radio into the computer), the following are the basic steps for configuring the radio and a new installation of SatPC32:

On the 9700 – Menu/Set/Connectors/CI-V.  As the 9700 has some new features, both standard CI-V as well as USB and LAN CI-V, we have to make some adjustments.  I set the

  • CI-V Baud Rate to 19200 (we aren’t using that port, but just for good measure)
  • CI-V address set to the default (A2h).
  • Set the CI-V USB Baud Rate to 115200 (highest)
  • Set CI-V USB Echo Back ON (that’s a critical setting, without that you will see the 9700 update frequencies a single time, then not again).  The default setting is OFF.

Within SatPC32 – Setup/Radio Setup

  • Pick Icom, Model IC-9700.  Ensure proper COM port for the USB cable between the radio and computer.  I saw two COM ports installed, and I chose the lower port, COM3 in my case).
  • Pull down the Baudrate setting and ensure it is 115200
  • Pull down the Addresses Setting and set both to $A2 using the up/down arrows.
  • “Store” the settings

Within SatPC32 – Use the ?/Auxiliary Files function to edit files

  • For DOPPLER.SQF, add “HUSKYSAT-1,435799.7,0,USB,,0,BPSK Beacon” and File/Save
  • For AmsatNames.txt, add “45117 19071G   HUSKYSAT-1” about the 99992 entry for AO-85
  • I happen to like the map being fixed on the Observer, so remember to set “Z1” as the zoomed in maps will always follow the satellite.

In my distribution of SatPC32, Satellites/tle-new.txt had the HUSKYSAT-1

 

The above appeared to work, but given some frequency differences,  I was back to manually adjusting for Doppler and only captured 11 frames, but at least I am sending data.

(From https://www.amsat.org/tlm/leaderboard.php?id=0&db=FOXDB):

(From https://www.amsat.org/tlm/ground_station.php?id=6&db=FOXDB&station=WB4SON ):

Posted in AMSAT, HuskySat-1, IC-9700, SatPC32 | 2 Comments

First Decodes of HuskySat-1

Posted on February 3, 2020 by Bob Beatty

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.

 

Posted in AMSAT, FoxTelem, HuskySat-1, IC-9700, SatPC32 | 2 Comments

Successful WFD Satellite Contact

Posted on January 26, 2020 by robert

A bit of planning goes a long way…

There was a 8:30L XW-2A satellite pass this morning.  I pointed my Arrow x-beam to the NW at about 25 degrees elevation.  By 8:33, I was in contact with NK1N in SNJ — a beautiful S9 SSB signal on a mostly empty bird. (Setup took about 20 minutes to setup the gear and deploy the antenna).

The weather was fantastic — sunny, about 44 degrees and a tad windy.  Hard to call it “winter”.  The SSB & CW operators weren’t so luck yesterday as a large rainstorm blew through from about 8 PM until midnight.  But at least it stayed above freezing.

Toughbook running SatPC32, Icom 910H, powered from solar charged Bioenno LiFePO4 Battery (Antenna visible thru window)

Arrow Crossed 70cm/2m Antenna on photo tripod pointed at the initial 1/3 spot for the pass.

Posted in Satellite, WFD, XW-2A | Leave a comment

Getting Ready for WFD/Satellite

Posted on January 23, 2020 by Bob Beatty

I don’t have the stamina of my youth, and especially don’t push things in New England Winters.  That said, this coming weekend is Winter Field Day.  I’ve participated the past five years with my club, W1SYE Newport County Radio Club.  My role is to make a single satellite contact for the 1500 point bonus.

It is with much sadness that I note the demise of FO-29, AO-73, AO-85, XW-2C, and XW-2D.  That leaves AO-91, AO92, SO-50, AO7, CAS4A, CAS4B, XW2A, XW2B and XW2F in operation — still, nine birds is pretty rich.  I did the orbital predictions for Saturday and Sunday, daylight passes only, and found three on Saturday, and six on Sunday.  So I am going to focus my operation on Sunday.

Part of the “secret sauce” to having a successful contact in the field is to plan ahead.  Temperature and the sun’s elevation impact the oscillators on the satellite as well as the ground station gear.  Last time I used my portable setup was SFD when the sun was well above the equator, and temperatures were quite high.  Now, for WFD, the sun is below the equator, and its in the 30s/40s outside.  That means it is critical to check every possible bird and adjust the Uplink Calibration so you will find yourself quickly on the downlink.

And, of course, the other part is to be sure that our “wireless” gear, with all those wired connections (key, headphones, mic, PTT, keyer, computer, battery, antenna cables, etc.) are working.  For example, when I opened my kit, I found I had the wrong power cable for my IC-910H.

So far, I’ve made a couple of CW contacts (NA1ME on AO7, and VE3XC on XW2B), plus SSB contacts (KP3A and WB8DDV on XW2F) and adjusted my uplink calibration on 3 of the 9 birds.  The other’s will be done over the next few days.  Incidentally, the only one off by more than 100 Hz happened to be AO-7, which required a -3000 Hz Uplink Calibration offset.

Posted in AO-7, AO-91, AO-92, CAS-4B, Satellite, SO-50, WFD, XW-2A, XW-2B, XW-2F | Tagged | Leave a comment

Just so nice to have FT4 logging working

Posted on January 22, 2020 by Bob Beatty

Today I had a chance to pop onto 20m FT4 for a bit and worked a couple of stations just to see that FT4 logging was working end-to-end.  Sure enough the correct modes was entered into LotW, and it confirmed correctly within DXKeeper.  So nice to have a logging program that properly decodes sub-modes now.

Posted in DXLabs | Leave a comment

Using a TYT MD-430 with a pi-star Gateway

Posted on January 21, 2020 by Bob Beatty

*** Updated 19:15 UTC Jan 21 ***

My thanks to KB1YSK, Stan, who was the first station that I heard on NA TalkGroup 93.  We had a nice contact, confirming that my first guess at a CodePlug for the MD-430 was working.  Only downside I see is the DMR # is shown on the radio screen, not the actual callsign, but I think that’s pretty much true on all DMR radios.  The RX audio was fine.  Now to add some more TalkGroups to the CodePlug.

*** Original Post ***

I had noticed that several of the DMR radios have increased in price recently.  I recall paying just a tad over $100 for my original Alinco DJ-MD5TGP (GPS).  I think as DMR has caught on with hams, vendors have taken the opportunity to increase prices.  That same radio sells for about 170 today.

Since my use case is for a ZumSpot Hotspot, I was looking for the least expensive DMR radio that I could find.  A monoband 70cm version would be fine.  Nothing fancy was required for a display either (nor GPS).  I eventually stumbled over a TYT MD-430 that was selling for $65 on Amazon.  The package included two batteries (one meant to charge on the supplied base charger, and the other, higher capacity, charging from a microUSB cable).  The user interface is simple (up/down arrows to select zones/channels, and a couple of programmable function butttons.

The radio came with both a tiny CD as well as a thumb drive marked “430”.  That had the USB drivers and CPS Software (Code Plug Software).  I tend to install my programming on a network isolated (no internet connection) machine just in case there may be an issue.  Following the “Read Me First” instructions, which instructed the user to plug the radio into the computer FIRST (which results in a “no driver found” message), THEN install the drivers, which immediately installed everything correctly.  I also immediately downloaded the current code plug onto my laptop and saved it, then started working on a new one applicable to me. (Use the Program/Read Data or the icon with the yellow arrow pointing to the left.)

While I don’t have the code plug worked out, at least my ZumSpot is hearing the radio.  Now most of the setup is left on pi-star.  Just as a FYI, the BER is nice and low, and despite the internal stubby 70cm antenna, the signal level is just fine for local HotSpot work.

Posted in DMR, Gear | Tagged | 5 Comments

DX Labs working with WSJT-X

Posted on January 20, 2020 by Bob Beatty

Between acting as the Pilot Station for W1SYE’s Florida Islands Activation, I managed to install DXLabs and now have it controlling my K3s, and have pulled in all the log entries from my old HRD log.  LotW/tQSL have been configured and DXKeeper is now uploading entries to LotW.

I’ve completed the setup for WSJT-X (changing over to DXKeeper), and it is working flawlessly.  It is even automatically uploading to LotW.  I’ve seen it work as 9G2HO is automatically uploading to LotW as well.  So I’ve seen a confirmation come in already, which proves things are working.

Lots to learn, but perhaps 1.5 hours spent so far today to get a logbook that actually works and doesn’t crash all the time.

No turning back.  Tomorrow I will look into QRZ and eQSL integration and get those setup as well.

Posted in DXLabs, HRD, LotW | Leave a comment

Moving on to DX Suite

Posted on January 20, 2020 by Bob Beatty

I’ve been a loyal paid supporter of HRD for a decade (back when contributions were voluntary, and continuing through all the paid subscriptions.  Like many others, I suffered through the exploits of one of the owners, who was quite toxic, and was overjoyed when he was asked to move on.  Immediately following that, life seemed to be wonderful with frequent updates.

One or two years ago, HRD released a update which broke the log program.  The symptom was either a crash of the log, or very slow (40 second or more QRZ lookup).  The owner group was rather quick to fix that.

Sometime late last year, another update broke the same way.  There hasn’t been an update to fix things in months, and the processing of sub-modes for FT4 still hasn’t been fixed months later.

Bottom line is I am done.  I’m so frustrated with Ham Radio Deluxe, that it is worth the effort to change over to another system.

Within an hour I have brought everything over from HRD into DXKeeper, part of the DX Suite of software.  Lots of stuff to configure, of course, but I have things mostly working.

While I will miss the HRD Digital program that supported almost every digital mode, these days the world is mostly RTTY/PSK/FT8/FT4.

Posted in HRD | Leave a comment

8000 Confirmations in LotW

Posted on January 16, 2020 by robert

Last time I reported this metric, was in May of 2018, when 6,001 confirmations had been recorded in LotW.

Today confirmation 8,000 was received in LotW.  What an amazing system.  Thanks ARRL!!

Posted in LotW | Leave a comment