USRP

OZ7IGY beacon with GNU Radio, USRP and WBX

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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 … Read more

Simple CW Receiver with GNU Radio

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I have been playing with GNU Radio and GRC (GNU Radio Companion) over the weekend and I ended up implementing a very simple CW receiver. This will be very handy on Tuesday when we will be testing the 5.8 GHz UNITEC-1 setup for the first time using the OZ7IGY beacon on 5.76093 GHz. Here is a quick video demo of the receiver where I use my Yaesu FT-817ND to transmit a test signal.

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UNITEC-1: The KU LNC 5659 C PRO has arrived

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Yesterday I have received the C-band down-converter that I have ordered last week for the UNITEC-1 receiver station. Watch video on YouTube. I have also uploaded a few high resolution photos to my Picasa Albums: If you can’t read the specs, you can see them on my work-in-progress wiki page about the C-band Receiver Station. … Read more

UNITEC-1: A New Deep Space Adventure

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If everything goes according to current plans, JAXA will launch their PLANET-C spacecraft towards Venus on May 18, 2010. To fill out the empty space and available payload mass on the H-IIA rocket, they will also bring four university built cubesats into orbit. One of these cubesats, UNITEC-1, is very special in that it will … Read more

The WBX as full duplex VHF/UHF amateur radio satellite transceiver

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One of the reasons I have been very excited to get the WBX transceiver daughterboard for the USRP is that with one single RF board I can have a full duplex transceiver covering both the 2 m and 70 cm amateur radio bands. This is where most of the amateur radio satellite traffic takes place, … Read more

No Mars Express experiment this time

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It was a difficult decision to accept, but the Mars Express experiment with the USRP and GNU Radio is not going to happen this time! It’s a shame because the link budget looked quite promising. An optimistic estimate gives almost 20 dB signal to noise ratio, which is more than we need, so the problem … Read more

Aiming for planetary science with GNU Radio and the USRP

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Thanks to the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Mars Express mission, we might have an opportunity just around the corner for doing big science with GNU Radio and the USRP!

On March 3, 2010, Mars Express will visit the Martian moon Phobos by performing a close flyby. According to ESA, the ESOC ops team is working with a number of possible scenarios, including one that would take the spacecraft to just 50 km above Phobos. At that distance the orbit of the spacecraft is expected to be influenced by the gravitational pull of Phobos. I knew this already for about a week when I first read it on the Mars Express Blog but it was first today that I realized the opportunities this event offers.

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