PSAT2 has been enabled for Digipeating on 145.825 up/down.

Also the APRS-to-Voice feature is enabled if you send a packet in APRS message format TO PSAT2-SAY and begin the message with CCCCCC sez speak this…

Where CCCCCC is your callsign padded to 6 bytes with spaces and you must spell “sez” which is the key word. What will be spoken is “CCCCCC sez speak this …”

But DON’T EVEN THINK about it if you are not tracking Doppler on the uplink. You wont get in and will only jam others. If you radio can only do 5 KHz steps, then the only time for you to transmit is a few seconds at max elevation when the Doppler passes through 0 offset (And you are strongest then anyway).

DO NOT ATTEMPT any DTMF modes. They are disabled. They take longer uplink times and will be quite jamming to others.

ALSO, because of all the APRS calls in space, FINDU.com and I are cleaning up the links. PCSAT.APRS.ORG will now only capture USER packets and will not be cluttered with satellite telemetry. Find telemetry from each satellite on this top-down page:

http://aprs.org/sats.html

Object number we now think is 44355 or 44354 that are too close to tell.

Bob, WB4aPR

*From:* Robert Bruninga bruninga@usna.edu *Sent:* Monday, July 1, 2019 9:02 PM *To:* amsat bb amsat-bb@amsat.org *Cc:* Robert Bruninga bruninga@usna.edu *Subject:* PSAT2 status (GREAT NEWS!)

PSAT2 is doing great!

PSK31 and SSTV transponder have been on since launch.

SSTV downlinks are looking good.

See Gallery: http://www.urel.feec.vutbr.cz/esl/psat2/sstv/

Still waiting for first report of user PSK31 contacts.

But I have not said much about the VHF modes… because we have had difficulty commanding. This is because the PSAT2 VHF uplink uses an inexpensive narrowband XCVR module which is intolerant of overdeviated signals, exactly what you get with +/- 3 kHz of Doppler.

ANYWAY, we can now consistently command if we set the Kenwood to narrowband NFM and do it right in the middle of the pass. Plus, we can extend that a bit (1.25 KHz after center) by then changing the radio step size to 6.25 Khz where the channel raster ups the channel by 1.25 KHz).

So, we now have command again! You may have seen that we have turned on Sun vector S#... telemetry and can easily see by plotting the 1 minute xyz xyz xyz vector triplets that it is smoothly tumbling at about 1.3 RPM for nice battery charging and good thermal management.

The downlink is live on FINDU:

http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/raw.cgi?call=psat2-1&time=1

Background:

This last 6 days of crisis was complicated by the fact that I am operating in a temporary dungeon while the building is being renovated and all my 27 years of lab stuff is in 200 boxes surrounding me. I installed a temporary ground station on the top floor and modest antennas and a TV rotator and the contractor let me drill a hole through the wall that they can seal up later. But the big problem is the 8 flights of stairs from my PC and internet connectivity in the dungeon up to the radio 6 times a day for passes with only a few hours sleep and all kinds of what-if-dead-ends. And with passes from 10 PM to 2 AM.

But we are back in the saddle again!

And this good news reprieve is only an hour old, so it will take a while to decide what we want to do next. In any case, the Brno University PSK31 and SSTV transponder has all the power for now, so enjoy.

Uplink USB on 29.4815 and downlink on 435.350 +/- Doppler. The transponder only comes up if there is a user in the uplink with PSK31.

Bob, WB4APR