2014-10-17
Listening to other amateur satellites
This evening I tried working amateur satellites again. There was a nice ISS pass at 18:19 UTC and this time it was very easy to aim the antenna since the ISS was still illuminated by the sun so it was a bright spot in the sky. But no astronaut responded to my CQ call, not even when I remarked "I can see you!". I also looked up some more satellites that are one-way and this included the HO-68 amateur satellite. It transmits a CW (morse code) beacon and I tried to receive and decode it. Receiving works, but I can't decode morse by ear and fldigi tries but it doesn't look like valid HO-68 telemetry format as documented in the HO-68 page above. Update 2014-10-22: I asked PA5ABW, a very experienced CW operator to listen to the recorded audio and he helped decode the transmission above into:BJ1SA XW XW AAA TTT AUE ETT TTT TTT TTT TTT TTT TTT TTT TTT XW XWAnd noted the groups of three letters can also be 'shortened digits' and decode to:BJ1SA XW XW 111 000 121 100 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 XW XWwhich as a telemetry report decodes to:CH1 PA Output RF Switch status: 111 PA2 works (beacon only) CH2 Transponder working status: 000 Beacon only CH3 Transponder temperature: 121 = +21 degrees CH4 Beacon RF Output Power: 100 = 100 mW CH5 and further: 000
Listen to audio attachment: