ARISSat-1 was deployed from the ISS on August 3. It has a composite VHF downlink that will easily fit into the FUNcube Dongle (FCD) receive spectrum. The 145.920 MHz telemetry is 1000 bps BPSK and can, of course, also be received with a normal SSB 2 metre receiver.
The signal levels from ARISSat-1 should be similar to those we expect from the AMSAT-UK FUNcube-1 satellite (and also eventually from UKube-1) and the AMSAT-UK team are keen to discover what will be the minimum and best type of antennas for schools to use with a FUNcube Dongle (FCD) Software Defined Radio (SDR). Therefore user experience with the ARISSat-1 signals will be very valuable in making this determination.
To encourage everyone to receive the 145.920 MHz BPSK ARISSat-1 telemetry signal AMSAT-UK are offering a FUN reward for listeners!
There are a number of categories for this challenge –they include:
1+ The first FCD user, from each continent, who can post a spectrum recording of the received signal together with evidence of decoding the data using the ARISSatTLM software and of sending it to the ARISSat data warehouse.
2+ The first non-FCD user, from each continent, who can provide evidence of having decoded the signals and of sending it to the ARISSat data warehouse.
3+ The listener, using a FCD or not, who can demonstrate satisfactory reception of the telemetry in the same ways as described above, using the “smallest” possible receive antenna. The actual closing date for this part of the challenge will be announced later.
4+ All other entrants who can demonstrate that they have been having FUN!
Please submit your “entries”, including your location, station details (including FCD serial number where applicable), postal address and reports to g0auk@amsat.org
Good luck,
Download the Windows and Mac versions of the ARISSatTLM free ground station soundcard demodulator and display software http://www.arissattlm.org/
How to receive ARISSat-1 http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/ARISSat/ARISSatHowTo.php
ARISSat-1 http://www.arissat1.org/
Read the ARISSat-1 article from QST at
http://web.me.com/clintbradford/Work-Sat/ARISSat-1_files/QST-ARISSat1.pdf
Join the FUNcube Yahoo Group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FUNcube/
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/FUNcubeUK
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ just lookup FUNcube
FUNcube SDR Dongle http://www.FUNcubeDongle.com/