All,

The FASTRAC folks are having problems with communicating with their birds, and can use some help with telemetry submissions. They are looking for either packet decodes or received audio. There is a submission area on the basic web site mentioned below. I suspect that data sent to the project manager, sebastian_munoz@mail.utexas.edu would be acceptable as well.

Alan WA4SCA

========================== I don't know if you are aware but last Friday Nov. 19, we launched the FASTRAC satellites (Emma and Sara Lily) from Kodiak, Al. At this point we have been able to determine that both of them are beaconing and that they are talking to each other from our own station and with the help of HAMs all over the world. We have been able to decode Emma's communications but unfortunately we have not been able to decode Sara Lily's as her signal seems to be weaker and because of this we have also not been able to command them. I was wondering if you could distribute this information to the roadrunner's microwave group to see if anybody in the group would be willing to help us track them to see if we can decode Sara Lily's signal since it is weeaker and we have had no luck yet.

If you are willing to help, we would really appreciate it. To do so I would recommend that you first try to hear FASTRAC-2's (Emma's) beacon which is on 145.825 MHz and then switch to see if you can listen for FASTRAC-1's (Sara Lily's) beacon which is on 437.345. Both beacons will be at 1200 baud and they occur every three minutes. You might also be able to hear the girls talking to each other at 9600 baud. The type of beacon that you should get if you are able to decode it, should look something like this:

FAST2>BEACON/1: <UI>: F21001408113319.373080 +6378137.00 , +0.00 +0.00 +0.00000 +0.00000 +0.0000345283286 024 028 026 040 039

If you are not setup to receive packets, then if you could send us an audio file we can try to decode them on our end. This morning (Nov 23), we heard FAST2's (Emma's) beacons at ~5:56:55, ~5:59:55, and ~6:02:55 AM CST which might be useful to you as this might help you hunt her signal down since she beacons every 3 minutes.

The most up to date TLE's that we have of them so far are:

FASTRAC (Both Emma and Sara Lily, as they are currently stacked together) 1 90025U 0 10326.95261036 -.00000933 +00000-0 -12581-3 0 00099 2 90025 071.9695 133.8796 0018803 303.0010 056.9360 14.76366919000426

But please check our website where we post the most up to date TLEs (http://fastrac.ae.utexas.edu/for_radio_operators/users/phpBB3/predictedorbi t.php) to make sure you have the most updated version of them.

Paul and Ray,

I don't know if you are aware but last Friday Nov. 19, we launched the FASTRAC satellites (Emma and Sara Lily) from Kodiak, Al. At this point we have been able to determine that both of them are beaconing and that they are talking to each other from our own station and with the help of HAMs all over the world. We have been able to decode Emma's communications but unfortunately we have not been able to decode Sara Lily's as her signal seems to be weaker and because of this we have also not been able to command them. I was wondering if you could distribute this information to the roadrunner's microwave group to see if anybody in the group would be willing to help us track them to see if we can decode Sara Lily's signal since it is weeaker and we have had no luck yet.

If you are willing to help, we would really appreciate it. To do so I would recommend that you first try to hear FASTRAC-2's (Emma's) beacon which is on 145.825 MHz and then switch to see if you can listen for FASTRAC-1's (Sara Lily's) beacon which is on 437.345. Both beacons will be at 1200 baud and they occur every three minutes. You might also be able to hear the girls talking to each other at 9600 baud. The type of beacon that you should get if you are able to decode it, should look something like this:

FAST2>BEACON/1: <UI>: F21001408113319.373080 +6378137.00 , +0.00 +0.00 +0.00000 +0.00000 +0.0000345283286 024 028 026 040 039

If you are not setup to receive packets, then if you could send us an audio file we can try to decode them on our end. This morning (Nov 23), we heard FAST2's (Emma's) beacons at ~5:56:55, ~5:59:55, and ~6:02:55 AM CST which might be useful to you as this might help you hunt her signal down since she beacons every 3 minutes.

The most up to date TLE's that we have of them so far are:

FASTRAC (Both Emma and Sara Lily, as they are currently stacked together) 1 90025U 0 10326.95261036 -.00000933 +00000-0 -12581-3 0 00099 2 90025 071.9695 133.8796 0018803 303.0010 056.9360 14.76366919000426

But please check our website where we post the most up to date TLEs (http://fastrac.ae.utexas.edu/for_radio_operators/users/phpBB3/predictedorbi t.php) to make sure you have the most updated version of them.

If you would like more information on our satellites you can visit (http://fastrac.ae.utexas.edu/index.php) or you can just let me know and I will be more than happy to reply. We really appreciate your help and if you have any other questions please do not hesitate to let us know. Thanks a lot, 73,

Sebastian Muñoz (KE5FKV) FASTRAC Student Program Manager

p.s: I have cc'd Dr. Glenn Lightsey, the FASTRAC Principal Investigaor, and Tom Campbell and Shaun Stewart who have been leading the effort to help us contact our satellites from the JSC Amateur Radio Club Station (W5RRR).

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