PCSat32 Frequency Calibration.
Group, I spent most of my weekend working on my little SSB satellite station. I am now up and running using a FT-817 for uplink, SRDPlay with SDR Console software for downlink, Arrow antenna, and PCSat32. It was a little bit of a struggle getting all communicating but I now have it working, and even made some contacts on AO-7, and one of the XW-2 sats. (thanks WU2M for working me on three different sats this weekend) I am having an issue with calibration on using PCSat32. One of the passes this weekend I noticed I was coming down about 800 - 1200 hz above the station I was receiving, another time I was about that same amount below. I read through the help file for PCSat and the next pass I raised my uplink freq. so it would lower my freq. in the downlink bandpass. I also then had to put in a correction for my downlink frequency. After doing this, I was really close to the zero beating the station I worked. The next satellite I tried, I was off again by 1000-1500 k! Hz.
Is this something I will have to do every pass, for every satellite, or will this offset be saved in PCSat32 in the future passes. Right now I am running PCSat in Demo mode, and have paid for registration and waiting for my key to be emailed. Will things work better once I get it running as registered copy?
Thank for your time and advice.
73 Jason Rearick N3YUG
Jason,
I used the same setup until last month. I also noticed that sometimes I needed to calibrate the frequency at the beginning of the pass.
Make sure your clock is synchronized and your keps are up to date.
Hope to hear you soon!
NP4JV DM41, Arizona
On Dec 18, 2017 4:12 PM, "Jason Rearick" jbr13@md.metrocast.net wrote:
Group, I spent most of my weekend working on my little SSB satellite station. I am now up and running using a FT-817 for uplink, SRDPlay with SDR Console software for downlink, Arrow antenna, and PCSat32. It was a little bit of a struggle getting all communicating but I now have it working, and even made some contacts on AO-7, and one of the XW-2 sats. (thanks WU2M for working me on three different sats this weekend) I am having an issue with calibration on using PCSat32. One of the passes this weekend I noticed I was coming down about 800 - 1200 hz above the station I was receiving, another time I was about that same amount below. I read through the help file for PCSat and the next pass I raised my uplink freq. so it would lower my freq. in the downlink bandpass. I also then had to put in a correction for my downlink frequency. After doing this, I was really close to the zero beating the station I worked. The next satellite I tried, I was off again by 1000-1500 k! Hz.
Is this something I will have to do every pass, for every satellite, or will this offset be saved in PCSat32 in the future passes. Right now I am running PCSat in Demo mode, and have paid for registration and waiting for my key to be emailed. Will things work better once I get it running as registered copy?
Thank for your time and advice.
73 Jason Rearick N3YUG _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. AMSAT-NA makes this open forum available to all interested persons worldwide without requiring membership. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author, and do not reflect the official views of AMSAT-NA. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
You need to do it for each satellite. And AO-73 drifts, so you'll do best on that one by manual tuning each pass.
George, KA3HSW
-----Original Message----- From: AMSAT-BB [mailto:amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org] On Behalf Of Jason Rearick Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 4:02 PM To: AMSAT BB SAT Subject: [amsat-bb] PCSat32 Frequency Calibration.
Group, I spent most of my weekend working on my little SSB satellite station. I am now up and running using a FT-817 for uplink, SRDPlay with SDR Console software for downlink, Arrow antenna, and PCSat32. It was a little bit of a struggle getting all communicating but I now have it working, and even made some contacts on AO-7, and one of the XW-2 sats. (thanks WU2M for working me on three different sats this weekend) I am having an issue with calibration on using PCSat32. One of the passes this weekend I noticed I was coming down about 800 - 1200 hz above the station I was receiving, another time I was about that same amount below. I read through the help file for PCSat and the next pass I raised my uplink freq. so it would lower my freq. in the downlink bandpass. I also then had to put in a correction for my downlink frequency. After doing this, I was really close to the zero beating the station I worked. The next satellite I tried, I was off again by 1000-1500 k! Hz.
Is this something I will have to do every pass, for every satellite, or will this offset be saved in PCSat32 in the future passes. Right now I am running PCSat in Demo mode, and have paid for registration and waiting for my key to be emailed. Will things work better once I get it running as registered copy?
Thank for your time and advice.
73 Jason Rearick N3YUG
participants (3)
-
Fernando Ramirez -
George Henry -
Jason Rearick