"Is there a reason why S band is not being considered. It was good on AO-40 (sobsob). Probably because of local QRM etc" Yes Bob, unfortunately high levels of WiFi etc interference make 2400 MHz unusable in Urban areas, it's why the ISS HamTV transmitter has to operate on 2395 MHz outside the Amateur-Satellite Service allocation. The power budget would be the determining factor as to which payload could be flown. For a standard 1U CubeSat without the complexity and risk of fold-out solar panels or fold-out antennas you are probably looking at about 400 mW RF output to an omni-directional antenna. This might suggest that in addition to a telemetry beacon you might support a 25 kHz bandwidth 435 to 145 MHz linear transponder.
A 1260/435 MHz transponder would be an alternative but would require significantly higher gain ground station antennas.
73 Trevor M5AKA
On Oct 24, 2016, at 17:06, Bob- W7LRD w7lrd@comcast.net wrote:
Is there a reason why S band is not being considered. It was good on AO-40 (sobsob). Probably because of local QRM etc. 73 Bob W7LRD