[aprssig] PSAT digipeater is ON

[Robert Bruninga]

APRS activists:



I forgot to post here on APRSSIG the exciting success of the new APRS
satellite, PSAT including its PSK31 Transponder allowing both APRS
digipeating and PSK-31 multi-user communications.  Launched on 20 May.  See
http://aprs.org/psat.html



What we need is more IGates bringing the downlink into the APRS-IS.  So, if
you have a spare radio and can run another IGate instance, we invite you to
tune it to 145.825.  The satellite signal is weak with only 350 mW, but
when it is over your station, it is 10 dB stronger than on the horizon.  A
good OSCAR class station has no problems…



I don’t expect anyone to wear out their rotators tracking PSAT, no, just a
simple vertical over a ground plane will do.  Either a 19” vertical whip
over a large 6 foot square ground plane or even better, a 58” vertical
monopole over the ground plane.  This ¾ wavelength vertical has almost 7
dBi gain and will pick up signals during the few minutes overhead.  If we
have enough of these simple omni monitoring stations/igates then the fact
that they only receive near overhead is made up for by the larger number of
such simple stations.



The larger ground plane (as large as possible) gets closer to the
theoretical 3 dB gain of a reflector.



Bob, WB4aPR



*From:* Robert Bruninga [mailto:bruninga at usna.edu]
*Sent:* Monday, June 01, 2015 9:19 AM
*To:* amsat-bb at amsat.org
*Cc:* bruninga at usna.edu
*Subject:* PSAT digipeater is ON



I just turned on the PSAT digipeater.  You will notice that its callsign in
this mode is just “PSAT” and not PSAT-1 when it is in SAFE mode.

The ALIASes supported are ARISS and APRSAT.



The PSK-31 transponder also remains in AUTO mode meaning it will come up
whenever there are PSK31 signals on the 28.120 + frequency.



Bob, WB4APR
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