Hello Ken & everyone.
Hoping to confirm Ken's possible Pratham CW beacon reception, I was tracking Pratham on a max 56° pass down the USA East Coast at 14:46 UTC today.
No signal was seen where it "should" have been, but a strong and clear CW beacon appeared below the expected frequency.
Replay of the recording with appropriate demod revealed that the CW in question translated to "M O V E 1".
A Google search lead me to object 39439, cubesat "First Move" which transmits the MOVE1 CW beacon on 145.970.
Adding that satellite to Orbitron and walking back to the time of my pass, the First Move satellite was indeed in the area (trailing the expected track of Pratham).
Running the simulation back to Ken's reception report at 09:45 UTC, First Move was also in his area. And, according to the footprint in Orbitron, First Move would have just been in range of the UK - in fact very close if the time was closer to 09:50 UTC.
I don't know if this is the CW that Ken might have heard, but in any event I unfortunately did not see any transmissions around 145.980 on this morning's pass here that might correlate to Pratham.
-Scott, K4KDR Montpelier, VA USA
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On Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 9:31 AM, GW1FKY--- via AMSAT-BB amsat-bb@amsat.org wrote:
Hi again, I listened for Alsat-1N ( Pratham ) on the subsequent pass -same frequency and equipment but also with an update to the keps. Those issued on the BBS posting. I regret to inform you that I heard nothing ? The pass was lower and in a sector were I have difficulty due to screening and reflection problems - Weather had also changed with very low cloud,mist and rain. Even AO-73 would not decode the dashboard data in the same sector during the same period.
I am certain about hearing a CW beacon in the previous pass. I had been setting up my gear for an AO-73 in that earlier pass and had USB selected for the downlink data.
Noticed that Alsat-1N was also approaching in the same ball part of time so decided to have a listen on the 145.980 Mhz frequency. That was when I started to hear the CW beacon but still had USB selected I selected CW and got a better copy as it approached. I wish that I been set up to record but of course was not planning for that particular satellite and pass. Had I done so it would have been useful to clarify any doubt about things and I am unsure why the subsequent pass showed no activity. Hopefully the satellite is alive and active and someone else also monitored and maybe even recorded the pass. Ken Eaton GW1FKY