On January 18, Origamisat-1 was launched in to orbit. Developed by the Tokyo Institute of Technology, this satellite carries a 5.84 GHz downlink similar to the one on FITSAT-1 NIWAKA.

Back in 2012, I was able to detect NIWAKA using my portable 5.760 GHz rig. At the time, the satellite was primarily only active over the control ground station in Japan. I put in a request for activation over the East Coast of the US for several passes and was able to detect the 5.84 GHz downlink.

I've been in contact with the control operators of Origamisat-1 and they are interested in activating the 5.84 GHz downlink for me during some East Coast passes.

Tracking Origamisat-1 is a real challenge. It is a LEO, so is only visible for 10-15 minutes depending on the pass. The challenge is not only tracking the satellite both AZ and EL with a dish that has maybe 3-5 degree beamwidth, but the Doppler can run a little over ±100 kHz.

The 5.84 GHz downlink is 420KF1D 115kbps. It transmits for 10 secs and is then off for 5 secs and then repeats.

For my NIWAKA reception, I used a 2' dish with my DEMI 5760 transverter and for an IF, a Funcube Dongle SDR tuned to 224.000 MHz. I used a original Funcube for my first reception which only had 96 kHz BW, but will use a Funcube Pro+ this time which has 196 kHz BW which should eliminate having to tune at all during the pass.

Is there any interest from others in trying to detect the downlink?

I will be looking at possible passes in early February. The Origamisat-1 team is now still in the initial testing phases, so it will be a while before I can try.

If you are interested, please let me know so we can coordinate our efforts.