Digital Introduction

Introduction to Digital Satellite Communication

You can hear CW, FM beacon etc. from any satellite even if you have
not TNC. You must consider Doppler Shift to the reception frequency.

For example, you can hear the CW signal from FO-29, and you can decode
ISS beacon with only AGWPE + UISS software on the soundcard of PC.

See the following URL for the frequency and mode of all satellites.

    http://www.ne.jp/asahi/hamradio/je9pel/satslist.htm

At first confirm the following procedure one by one.

(1) Understand the concept of the Doppler shift. For example,

    FO-29 CW frequency is 435.795 MHz, then

      435.804 AOS
               :
      435.795 TCA
               :
      435.786 LOS

    ISS (International Space Station) beacon frequency is
    transmitting every 2 minutes at 145.825 MHz, then

      145.828 AOS
               :
      145.825 TCA
               :
      145.822 LOS

(2) Download the latest orbital element.

    http://www.celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/
    http://www.space-track.org/perl/login.pl

(3) Calculate the time when a satellite comes flying precisely over
    your QTH using your satellite tracking software.

(4) Confirm that a rotator and an antenna is tracking a satellite
    precisely.

(5) Turn on the power supply of the pre-amplifier.
    And open the squelch button of the rig, ie. you should finish
    turning the squelch knob to the left to scale zero.

(6) Then, confirm that you hear CW signal of FO-29 according to
    Doppler shift continually with CW mode on your rig.

(7) You can go ahead to the next step if you can confirm these.

(8) You should be able to hear FO-29 CW at CW_mode and ISS Beacon at
    FM_mode with your rig by considering Doppler shift.

(9) You can decode ISS Beacon on your PC using a decoding software
    like Hyper_Terminal.

(10)Generally, we use the software such as AGWPE + UISS software, or
    MixW software. You can download these software from the next URL.

    http://www.sv2agw.com/downloads/
    http://users.belgacom.net/hamradio/uiss.htm
    http://www.mixw.net/

(11)And you must connect Rig with a PC, ie from the output connecter
    of Rig to the line_in, microphone terminal connector of PC.

(12)See for UISS setup,
    http://www.ne.jp/asahi/hamradio/je9pel/uissagwp.htm

    

    


(13)See for Doppler shift.
    http://www.ne.jp/asahi/hamradio/je9pel/dopplers.htm

    Because it is the old satellite, neither KO-23 nor SO-35 works now.
    However, you will understand the method to match the compensation
    of the Doppler shift.