On Sat, Oct 29, 2022 at 07:09:05PM -0400, Andrew Glasbrenner wrote:
> >It's difficult for me to believe that 9600 baud would work on a satellite without FEC. But, maybe so.
>
> UO-22, KO-23, KO-25, TO-31, AO-51, GO-32, MO-36, Falconsat-3, and literally dozens of cubesats have and do utilize 9k6 without FEC.
What kind of ground station is required?
As much as you can afford ;). You can copy a bit of data using a ground plane, but not a good solution for actually using digital birds.
Do you need circular polarized antennas, antennas with serious gain
Gain yes, circular helps but isn’t essential
, tracking?
tracking generally, yes, because of gain
Or can this be done
with more normal equipment, like a 3-element yagi like you can use for
FM voice on a satellite?
FS-3 has a 70cm downlink, so lots of gain is still pretty short. It’ll take several elements. Probably a low noise preamp, too.
I assume the satellites are stabilized somehow?
Yes, often using just a bar magnet in the bird.
Fading will kill 9600
baud.
Many of us have been doing it via satellites for 30 years, so it works ;-)
I ask because I don't have any direct experience with this sort of
stuff. Maybe I should try to work Falconsat-3, just for experience.
Or if someone in the Dallas area plans a contact I can tag along.
You might consider getting AMSAT’s Getting Started guide. It has lots of good stuff in it.
-corey
73, Mark N8MH