Hi Iain, Both AO73/FUNcube-1 and EO88/Nayif-1 have the same nominal power levels for the beacons as you state of 30mW when in amateur mode and 300mW when in educational mode. The in-orbit power levels, which are actually above the nominal quoted figure, can be read from the PA forward power telemetry in the Dashboard and in the Warehouse and the calibration of these channels is pretty accurate. Of course, in amateur mode the output power level includes the transponder but if this not being used then this is probably only 5 mW or so. The EO88 downlink is probably 1.5dB stronger in both modes. You can also look at the downlink of UKube-1 which is always in amateur mode. With a turnstile omni antenna I would expect to get perhaps 15/20 frames of telemetry on a good, near overhead, pass from AO73 in amateur mode and at least 60-70 frames when in educational mode but as you mention the local noise level will affect these numbers greatly. Finally, if you are using the FUNcube dashboard on the Raspberry we would love to have some details of your implementation for publication the AMSAT-UK Oscar News magazine! 73GrahamG3VZV PS re your "grumble" - yes this was a lesson learnt for the design team!
From: "Iain Young, G7III" g7iii@g7iii.net To: amsat-bb@amsat.org Sent: Sunday, 1 April 2018, 13:05 Subject: [amsat-bb] Funcube 1 (AO-73) vs NAYIF-1 (EO-88) Beacon Power ?
Hi All,
I have been trying to find out what the Beacon Power Output of NAYIF-1 is, but have come up blank with my google searches. Is it just part of the 500mW transponder ? Or is there a separate dedicated amount as in AO-73 [Which is 300mW beacon mode, 30mW transponder mode] ?
Essentially, I can decode NAYIF-1 Telemetry. I can also decode AO-73 telemetry when the beacon is in high power (300mW), but not when AO-73 is in Transponder mode, where the beacon is only 30mw (-10dB).
Depending on the power output of NAYIF-1, I may be able to determine if I really need a 10dB improvement in order to receive AO-73 telemetry while in transponder mode, or if I am in fact, only need 3 or 6db improvement, which could change my strategy
(This is a very small station in an urban environment running off a Raspberry Pi 3, with non steerable antennas, and I'm seeing it as an engineering experiment)
73s
Iain
PS, *grumble* They are too close together frequency wise. Due to AO-73's frequency issues when coming out of eclipse, I need a wider (software) BPF. This means NAYIF-1 manages to not only hit it's own decoder, but AO-73s as well! Great Fun checking if both were visible at the same time here, and then going, "Has to be NAYIF-1!" _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. AMSAT-NA makes this open forum available to all interested persons worldwide without requiring membership. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author, and do not reflect the official views of AMSAT-NA. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb