2015-07-20

PSAT signals and ISS carrier with no modulation

Yesterday couple of students helped wire up our new Yaesu G-5500 rotator and verified everything moved as it should.  We have yet to fabricate a fiberglass cross boom for mounting our 2m and 70cm antennas and figure out where to put the mast and assembly.

We took advantage of a pass by PSAT / NO-84 which was launched recently on May 20.  It includes a unique mode with a PSK31 transponder with uplink on 10m and downlink on 70cm FM.  The AMSAT-BB mailing list is abuzz with people actively working the best transmission parameters and a system and software to make using this transponder easy.  We hand-pointed our assembled M2 436CP30 at the CubeSat and were able to get a few seconds of signal with what sounded like a single PSK31 signal at the time.


Today there are a few nice passes of the ISS which is scheduled to broadcast SSTV images again this weekend.  So far, all of the passes reported to AMSAT-BB and ours just now had no signal modulation.  Amateur radio operators worldwide have had good signal reception, but the images are not being modulated onto the carrier, so no pics for now.