Update on the ground station
The ground station of the UPEC Space Campus is now equipped to establish VHF/UHF communication with our satellites:
- A PC with an ICOM transceiver so that we can emit and receive data
- A PC to do SDR (software-defined radio) reception, to predict and visualize the movements of our targets on a large 65-inch TV.
Once everything was up and running, we pointed our antennas VHF to the sky looking for the signal of the International Space Station (ISS). Finally, on the 5 December 2019, we heard it for the first time! UPEC was listening to the International Space Station for the first time.
On this picture you can see the translation of one of the messages:
: Fm RS0ISS To CQ <UI R Pid=F0 Len=36> [16:04:09R] [++-]
>ARISS – International Space Station
The first line corresponds to the decoding of the header of the left:
From RS0ISS (the Russian ISS area code) to CQ (abbreviation for general call).
Len=36 (Number of characters in the message).
The second line in the message is text: >ARISS – International Space Station
Next step will be a reception of the signal from a CubeSat in UHF and a new accommodation of the ground station so that a small group of students can work in it.
Article written by Daniel Kalinowski, head of the UPEC Space Campus ground station
