FO-29 satellite reception with Funcube Dongle and Arrow antenna

This is the last 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 good old Fuji FO-29 and the recording was made in JO45KG during orbit 71777.

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HO-68 CW beacon with Funcube Dongle and Arrow antenna

This is the seventh 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 HO-68 / XW-1 and the recording was made in JO45KG during orbit 5791.

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PRISM cubesat reception with Funcube Dongle and Arrow antenna

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.

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CUTE-1.7 + APD II 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.

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KKS-1 cubesat 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.

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ITUpSAT1 cubesat reception with Funcube Dongle and Arrow antenna

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.

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SwissCube 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.

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SEEDS-II cubesat 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.

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OZ7IGY beacon with GNU Radio, USRP and WBX

I was playing with GNU Radio, the USRP and the WBX daughterboard tonight preparing for the tests of the 5.7/5.8 GHz receiver setup tomorrow. For some reason that I can not remember, I have decided to tune in to 432.471 MHz – the UHF frequency of the OZ7IGY beacon, which is located approximately 50 km (24 mi) from me.

I knew I could receive it even when I am inside using my FT-817 but I didn’t really expect to receive it with the USRP+WBX. Well, I was wrong. Already with the lousy multi-band whip I could hear it. It wasn’t strong but I could hear it. I decided to try with the Arrow antenna and voila, suddenly I could receive it with 40+ dB SNR!

Watch in high definition on YouTube or get the 80 MByte .mov file.

The software was a slightly modified version of the simple CW receiver I posted yesterday, implemented in GNU Radio Companion. The modification consisted of adding a waterfall display after the band pass filter. I have included the GNU Radio flow graph at the end of the video, the one below is without the waterfall display:

So, what do you think, how does the CW sound in a so simple software defined radio?