More choice in amateur satellites, Fox-1A available / 2015-10-15

Another long expected amateur satellite has been launched and is available to amateurs, the Amsat-NA Fox-1A satellite, which gained amsat identifier AO-85.

Since it was launched as part of a militairy mission it's a bit harder to find the right keplerian elements (the numbers describing the orbit). The official Norad catalog number is 40967, but the standard sources for keplerian elements won't have this listed. Other sources have keplerian elements, but use different temporary object numbers. Since gpredict links everything together using the object number, this can get a bit confusing. I found usable keplerian elements at http://mstl.atl.calpoly.edu/~ops/grace_tle/grace_jspoc.txt which has Fox-1A as object 90747 named GRACE_47. So I created a preliminary transponder file ~/.config/Gpredict/trsp/90747.trsp with:

[Fox-1A FM trsp 67 Hz PL]
UP_LOW=435170000
DOWN_LOW=145978000

Frequencies adjusted based on research by Jan PE0SAT and Tom Worthington NH6Y

Now to find time to actually hear this satellite and attempt to work it.