Hello Brian, sorry to mislead with my remarks. When receiving FS-3, keep the squelch open. I was giving some advice on how to use another local receiver to listen to your own uplink audio, with some rules of thumb when deviation of the uplink signal can't be measured. So i was speaking about listening to one's own uplink with a second radio (HT for example) with open squelch, to say that an audio level at 9600 bps on FM usually is about "half as loud" as an open channel when it's close enough to work.
When you are trying to copy the bird, keep the squelch open. Now, as for the CON light, i don't know what that is actually showing you on the D72, since I don't own one. Is it DCD? If so, then yes, you need to try to keep the LED lit.
Some of us that make it look easy on Falconsat-3 have pretty decent fixed stations, with full computer control of antennas (both transmit and receive) and radio Doppler correction of both uplink and downlink (SatPC32 to the rescue!); have mast mounted preamps, and have worked through the desense issues so we have pretty good throughput.
I download every single file from the PBBS on FS-3. It's easy to keep up with the current station. M2 Leo-Pack, G5500/LVB tracker, good low noise preamp, bandpass filter on 2M to reduce desense on uplink, using TS-2000X, Paccom TNC, PacSat Ground Station software. This station is at the university where I work; it's on the penthouse of a 4 story science building. So it can print packets down to 1 deg elevation. It's a strong signal--relatively speaking!
Keep at it ;)
Mark L. Hammond [N8MH]
AMSAT Director and Command Station
Mark
Tacking onto the conversation. Are you suggesting to add at least some squelch? I usually have it wide open with the D72A. Uplink I usually leave fixed and adjust for Doppler based on the rudimentary RX meter within the D72A.
Another question, I see CON flash on the D72A. Do we always need to be logged onto the PBBS or is log on/off normal? It’s hard to keep a CON especially for a non fixed portable station. Not sure how the PBBS treats this connection and the CON is only for uploading ?
Brian
Stephen,
You are right. A partial upload will be deleted after a few days. Probably something like 3 days, I can't recall.
Keep at it. Maybe drop the file size of your upload attempt and see what you can do on a single pass, and try more as you optimize?
It's all about signal to noise...the good news is that FS-3 has a great receiver, so it doesn't take a whole lot of uplink gain. Adjusting for Doppler on both uplink and downlink is important, as is deviation of the uplinked signal. Try lowering the audio level until it's just audible. On a receiver, it should sound like "half" of just an open squelch, rule of thumb/ear!
Mark L. Hammond [N8MH]
AMSAT Director and Command Station
It looks like if it doesn't complete the upload in a certain amount of time or passes, the file gets lost. This must be a housekeeping function on the satellite side. For example, today I get:
Open ABCD:
Ready to upload file: N8URE18.jpg.out
B: 715788744.
U>> From:PFS3-12 to N8URE Ctrl: 63 Type: UA Res PF: 0 NR: 0 NS: 0
I>> SUCCESSFUL LOGIN to PFS3-12 by N8URE
I>> UL ERROR 4: ER_NO_SUCH_FILE_NUMBER
Bad File Number, will ask Pacsat for a new number on next attempt: /home/scalar/Falconsat_data/FalconSat-3/N8URE18.jpg.out
Open ABCD:
Ready to upload file: N8URE18.jpg.out
B: 715788744.
It got to the "Ready to upload" point a number of times on the pass, but then wouldn't get past that stage. For example
Ready to upload file: N8URE18.jpg.out
B: 715789771.
PB: Empty..
and then it moves on to something else. There were a lot of stations on the pass, which I'm sure didn't help.
-Stephen
N8URE
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