Amateur radio, space, technology and other geeky stuff by Alexandru Csete
Articles and blogs about the Funcube Dongle Pro/Pro+ SDR receiver, written by Alexandru Csete OZ9AEC.
This is the sixth satellite reception of a series recorded on Monday, February 28, 2011 using the Funcube Dongle software defined radio receiver and the Arrow II hand-held satellite antenna. The satellite is the Japanese PRISM cubesat an the recording was made in JO45KG during orbit 11343.
Continue reading “PRISM cubesat reception with Funcube Dongle and Arrow antenna”
This is the fifth satellite reception of a series recorded on Monday, February 28, 2011 using the Funcube Dongle software defined radio receiver and the Arrow II hand-held satellite antenna. The satellite is the CUTE-1.7 + APD II cubesat – also known as CO-65 – and the recording was made in JO45KG during orbit 15341.
Continue reading “CUTE-1.7 + APD II reception with Funcube Dongle and Arrow antenna”
This is the fourth satellite reception of a series recorded on Monday, February 28, 2011 using the Funcube Dongle software defined radio receiver and the Arrow II hand-held satellite antenna. The satellite is the KKS-1 cubesat an the recording was made in JO45KG during orbit 11263.
Continue reading “KKS-1 cubesat reception with Funcube Dongle and Arrow antenna”
A few days ago I tagged and packaged qthid-2.2. This release contains no new functionality compared to the 2.1 release, but it brings various user interface enhancements. In particular Mac users will find that there is now a proper application icon in the bundle.
This is the third satellite reception of a series recorded on Monday, February 28, 2011 using the Funcube Dongle software defined radio receiver and the Arrow II hand-held satellite antenna. The satellite is the ITUpSAT-1 cubesat transmitting with 100 mW FM CW and the recording was done in JO45KG during orbit 7593.
Continue reading “ITUpSAT1 cubesat reception with Funcube Dongle and Arrow antenna”
This is the second satellite reception in a series recorded on Monday, February 28, 2011 using the Funcube Dongle software defined radio receiver and the Arrow II hand-held satellite antenna. The spacecraft is the SwissCube satellite with 100 mW CW beacon and 1 W FSK tranmitter (second half of the video). The recording was done on JO45KG during orbit 7594.
Continue reading “SwissCube reception with Funcube Dongle and Arrow antenna”
This is the first satellite reception of a series recorded on Monday, February 28, 2011 using the Funcube Dongle software defined radio receiver and the Arrow II hand-held satellite antenna. The satellite is SEEDS-II / CO-66 cubesat with a 90 mW CW beacon. The recording was done in JO45KG during orbit 15338.
Continue reading “SEEDS-II cubesat reception with Funcube Dongle and Arrow antenna”
Inspired and impressed by the performance of the Funcube Dongle during my initial tests, I have decided to perform some more thorough tests using a minimalistic setup consisting of a laptop running Gpredict and Quisk SDR software, the Funcube Dongle and an Arrow II hand held satellite antenna.
Continue reading “Chasing cubesats with the Funcube Dongle and Arrow antenna”
This page collects various amateur radio satellite and cubesat receptions carried out using the Funcube Dongle. The Funcube Dongle is a small USB-flashdisk sized software defined radio receiver for 67 MHz – 1.7 GHz intended to be the ground receiver for the FUNcube satellite by AMSAT UK. It is well suited as a ground receiver for low cost space communications.
The purpose with this page is to demonstrate on the air performance of the Funcube Dongle under similar conditions that are expected for the reception of the FUNcube satellite. This page will be update regularly until complete.
The receptions below were carried out using an Arrow II hand-held satellite antenna in RF quiet areas (outside big cities).
| Satellite | Transmitter | Recordings |
|---|---|---|
| CUTE-1.7 + APD II | 437.275 MHz, 100 mW CW | Video |
| SEEDS-II | 437.485 MHz, 90 mW CW | Video |
| SWISSCUBE | 437.505 MHz, 100 mW CW / 1W FSK | Video |
| ITUPSAT-1 | 437.325 MHz, 100 mW FM CW | Video |
| BEESAT | 436.000 MHz, 100 mW CW / 500 mW GMSK | Nothing heard so far. |
| KKS-1 | 437.385 MHz, ??? mW CW | Video |
| PRISM | 437.250 MHz, 80 mW CW | Video |
| FO-29 | 435.795 MHz, 100 mW CW | Video |
| VO-52 | 145.860 MHz, 1W SSB/CW | |
| HO-68 | 435.790 MHz, 200mW CW | Video |
| AO-51 | 435.150 and 435.300 MHz, FM |
Other receptions carried out using standard VHF/UHF stationary beam antennas.
To be added…
On Tuesday I took my Funcube Dongle to our weekly meeting at OZ7SAT for testing it on the air using some bigger antennas than my Arrow antenna. We were listening for amateur radio satellites and cubesat on the 70 cm band and we were using a standard Wimo X-yagi (8 elements I think). For SDR receiver application we used modified Quisk SDR running on Ubuntu Linux.
Continue reading “Funcube Dongle on the air tests at OZ7SAT”