We need AMSAT operator help with the RAFT satellite Test.
We need somone with a 2m beam and familiarity with packet that lives in the Southern USA from Arizona to Georgia (AZ, NM, TX, OK, MS, ALA, GA).
RAFT is at its mission life time half-way point, and we have not been able to find anyone in the above footprint to help us conduct the primary mission which was for the satellite to detect its own passing through the DOD's radar fence. When it flies through the North American Space-Object fan beam, we should hear about 1 second tone that anyone can hear on the downlink.
Due to its low orbit and small footprint, turning on the Radar Transponder can only be done in the shared footprint between the radar transmitter in North Texas and the command station. The ideal command station has these atributes:
1) Lives in AZ, NM, TX, OK, AK, LA, MS, AL, GA, W.FLA 2) A reasonable 2m beam for ops on 145.825 3) A packet TNC 4) A familiarity with dumb-terminal TNC operations such as A. Connections, Converse, UNPROTO, etc B. Remote sysop logon to a Kantronics TNC
The objective of these southern command stations is to logon, send the command to activate the RAFT Radar receiver for 1 minute in anticipation of passing through the fence. Then hopefully recording any audio heard on the downlink (145.825). Of course, once the radar receiver is on, everyone in the footprint should be able to hear it.
For info, see the ANDE-RAFT operations page: http://eng.usna.navy.mil/~bruninga/ande-raft-ops.html
Several AMSAT hams built this tiny Radar receiver as a possible common device for all future HAMsats, and we would like to get feedback on its performance. But they all live up North. If you have a beam and familiarity with TNC's please let us know.
Bob, WB4APR. US Naval Academy Satellite Lab
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