[amsat-bb] Techsat-1A News

[Richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Richard W L Limebear)]

Greetings

Following from Shlomo 4X1AS 1700 utc 12 July

Techsat is working ok. The spacecraft is being stabilised at present and
results of this are evident. The s/c got very cold whilst attached to the 
Resurs (it was in shadow); its warming up nicely now. Command/control and 
telemetry functions are normal; in fact everything so far looks ok. 

The command station estimate it will be several weeks before they get the
initial in-orbit testing completed. In the meantime Techsat will continue
its present (burst-mode) transmission format with three-second bursts of
9600bps data every thirty seconds. Stations sharing a window with the 
command station will probably see different transmission styles. 

The transmission is *not* packet; packet-style transmissions are not 
expected to appear on the downlink until they complete software uploading 
after the test regime is complete. 

(I didn't ask Shlomo what the transmission *is* but my guess is that folks 
who were able to receive TM-Sat's early data will probably also be able to 
read the TechSat data. Its probably asynchronous FSK which you feed straight
into a COM port. If anyone succeeds, tell the rest of us please - its not
"classified"... G3RWL)

Techsat will have a facility whereby groundstations will be able to call
for telemetry (rather than transmitting it all the time); software for
groundstations will be released soon (some changes in equations have become
necessary and the software is presently being modified). There has *not*
been a call for amateurs world-wide to collect telemetry and send it back
to them. If they need that then they'll ask.

Please do not attempt to communicate with TechSat; especially if you share
a window with the command station. It wouldn't work anyway.

Will pass on any more info as/when it arrives.

Congratulations to the TechSat guys from Amsat-UK.

73
Richard W L Limebear G3RWL
g3rwl@amsat.org
FOC # 1188
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