Pinneberg (DDK3) HF Weather Facsimile Transmissions

I have posted before about receiving weather and shipping facsimile transmissions on HF, for a couple of days I have been using the FCDP+ and WXSat to do some decoding, also been investigating some of the mysterious RTTY transmissions you also find.

Interestingly my previous experiment was using an Alinco Scanner with SSB capability, produced better results than using the FCDP+ and SDR#. not really sure why. It appears the some processing of the audio upsets WXSat, I have tried many settings and adjustments but the decodes haven't been brilliant clear despite the signal being very strong and clear, many of the faxs have come in with odd 'stepping' where portions of the image go out of sync which I have corrected in PaintShop Pro.

Any way, here is a small selection of the images I've decoded from the Deutscher Wetterdienst, broadcast on 7880 kHz (DDK3) from Pinneberg in Germany,

 

RTL1090 Series 2 Beta Released

Checking my Yahoo Groups this morning and spotted this announcement in the RTL1090 Group

All -
RTL1090 series 2 is about to launch with a new GUI and improved decoders. It
will take some time until all functionality is there, but here is the first BETA
release for those who want to try.
Please read the release notes below for what's done and what's not, and run the
BETA parallel to your existing and working installation for now.
The GUI should be easier to use with the various OS versions, because it has no
window and no borders.
If you encounter a fatal error (Access violation) please note down the text of
the AV window and post it here, as any other comments, too.
The beta download is AVAILABLE from
>>> http://rtl1090.jetvision.de <<<
ONLY
Place the exe (rtl1090.beta2.exe) file to your RTL1090 folder and start from
there. All previous RTL1090 settings will be kept.
-- Andy
-- jetvision.de
============================================================================
This is a beta version of RTL1090.
Functionality is experimental and partially incomplete yet.
Please use at your own risk.
Retain the release that is working for you as a copy.
============================================================================
Build 101 - 20/05/2013
- GUI completely refurbished. Program window height can be altered and switches
are hidden by default. This makes the GUI more space efficient (and it looks
better). The window is borderless but can be dragged when placing the cursor to
the top bar or the frequency indicator.
- In status line: USB packet indicator (packets/s) changed to queue cycle time
(ms). The queue cycle time must stay below 300 ms for
lossless processing. This is important for MLAT operations. If you see a red
number here, be prepared for packet losses and inability to run MLAT from this
computer.
- Packet rate LEDs show all red when it appears that a USB data frame
was lost. This is in preparation for work on better MLAT accuracy. If all red
is shown no MLAT functionality is available. You should shutdown other programs
and demanding computer acitivity. Your computer may be even too slow at all to
cope with the USB data rate (32 MBit/s).
- Avg. Signal Strength (SG) and Message count (MSGS) added to flight table.
Avg. Signal Strength is normalized to 100% (max 99%).
Color codes are yellow (you can hear it), orange (you can see it),
red (you can touch it).
- Default display order in flight table changed. Newest flights are at top for
compatibility with DUMP1090 (not completely working yet)
- CONFIG dialog: some commmand line options can be selected from the dialog,
however command line entries are still valid and do override any selections.
If overriding occurs checkbox entries are printed in bold, but boxes will not be
checked, so the override conditions will not be saved to the configuration file.
- Update alert: when a new version is available an update sign appears in the
caption bar - no further functions yet - if you see the sign go back to http://rtl1090.jetvision.de and download the next release.
============================================================================
Outstanding commits:
- Start with Windows and Resume from hibernate/standby
- Stop without exit
- DO260 A/B and signal strength processing for HTTP server
- Improve Mode-S and Mode A/C decoder
- Complete autoupdate
- Log file selection from config dialog
- MLAT counter accuracy
- Renovate SISEX design

Well I downloaded it and fired it up and can report a much improved performance, with the promise of even more to come from the sound of it, just not sure my ageing PC is going to keep up!

My video detailing the construction of my collinear has also been featured on rtl-sdr.com and has now received quite a few views and I can report it is still performing magnificently.

Video - making the ADS-B collinear antenna

I posted earlier in the month about using the inexpensive RTL-SDR dongles with some free software to create a virtual radar system.

I mentioned about how I had built an inexpensive collinear antenna out of coax to improve my reception, both in range and message rate.

I made a video detailing the construction, the original plans can be found at http://www.balarad.net/ 

Anyway here is the video, I hope it encourages people to have a go.

Old/Obsolete Computers - a great way to waste an afternoon

This weekend I decided to begin the task of clearing out some of the junk that has collected in the loft space over the last 20 years, since I need to renew the insulation and tidy up the antenna farm. It isn't the first clean out, the last major clear out was back in 2008.

There were still a few old PCs, the first was a Windows 98 machine with a 5.25" floppy, 3.5" floppy and an ancient tape drive. Amazingly despite not being powered up for nearly six years the clock was still reasonably accurate and it booted with no problem and even connected to the internet. Not that anything was browsable using IE4.

Another one had Windows ME *shudder* which did boot and again had a clock that was more or less right despite it not being powered up and booted since 2004! I wasn't sure why I still had this PC and once it had booted I realised why.. this turned out to be the PC I used for my shorted lived PMR446 eQSO Internet Gateway UK-139L See this earlier blog post for more details.

What is of major concern is why I have subsequently spent most of the afternoon trying to troubleshoot why the ISA Creative Sound Blaster card appears to no longer work.. returning a Code 10 error.. memories! Perhaps I should follow the on screen advice!

EVA planned on ISS

Not radio related, but there is bit of a problem about the International Space Station at the moment. They have identified an ammonia coolant leak requiring a EVA (spacewalk) to investigate and hopefully repair.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition35/e35_051013.html



The leak is in the U.S section of the Space Station so they will be using U.S Spacesuits for the EVA, which is a shame as I was hoping to capture some communications from the spacewalk like the Russian one I received last month.



I have some other frequencies that I gathered from various sources, but while I might get a signal it won't be decipherable.
 

Welcome to Radio Antics

February this year was the 10th Anniversary of this blog being created on blogger.

The blog was called 'Please Ignore' and it was originally just a place holder, just something to call it and I used to post all sorts of random rubbish. The original blog got deleted back in 2007 and was resurrected a year later and again it was all just random rubbish.

Then in 2010 I rediscovered my old hobby of radio, scanners and short wave listening and since then the blog has become almost exclusively a record of my increasing antics involving radio so I decided it needed to be renamed as I didn't want people to ignore it any longer.

So welcome to Radio Antics

High Altitude Balloon Telemetry Updates

Several weeks ago I discovered the excitement of decoding high altitude balloon (HAB) telemetry.

As I blogged I spent a enjoyable couple of hours receiving the STRATODEAN project telemetry and submitting the received data to HABHubs habitat which is a system created to allow uploading, processing, storing and displaying telemetry and related information transmitted from the various high altitude balloons.

Mark and Cassie (the Stratodean team) have since uploaded a video on their blog showing the preparations, launch, flight and recovery of the payload.

Over the bank holiday weekend there were two other balloons launches planned, Chris Stubb's (M6EDF) CHEAPO (webpage) and Steve Randall's (G8KHW) XABEN-49 flights due.

CHEAPO did indeed fly, but sadly I didn't receive anything as the signal was apparently very weak. I was also suffering some strong interference around the chosen frequency. I did have more success with XABEN-49 receiving a strong signal and a lot of telemetry packets. Though I did have to tweak the RTTY decode parameters in Dl-Fldigi, principally widening the shift and the filter widths, since the auto-configure option was setting it too narrow.

This morning the Essex Ham website has posted a nice video on their website explaining a bit more how to go about HAB decoding.

While investigating the habitat system I found the stats page and flight pie charts, showing the top receivers for each flight, I was pleased to see I featured quite high in the chart for the XABEN-49 flight, and indeed for the STRATODEAN flight last month.

XABEN-49 Telemetry Stats

STRATODEAN Telemetry Stats

RTL-SDR ADS-B and homebrew collinear antenna

I currently own three RTL2832 based DAB/DVB-T USB dongles. Whilst they are exceptional value and using them as SDR dongles is a brilliant piece of hacking I just haven't had really utilised them since I have my FUNCube Dongles, both the HF capable PRO+ and the older PRO version.

One big plus point of the RTL-SDR devices is the the ability to sample wideband signals, theoretically over 2MHz this offers tantalising opportunities for software based decoding of signals. One such wideband signal is the ADS-B messages broadcast by most commercial aircraft.

The periodic ADS-B Out broadcasts from aircraft contain information about each aircraft, such as identification, current position, altitude, and velocity, through an on board transmitter. ADS-B Out provides air traffic controllers with real-time position information that is, in most cases, more accurate than the information available with current radar-based systems. There are also ADS-B In messages received by aircraft of FIS-B (Flight Information Service) and TIS-B (Traffic Information Service) data and other ADS-B data such as direct communication from nearby aircraft. (Full details here)

As I posted once before one of the most interesting and therefore popular things to monitor on traditional radio scanners are air-band transmissions. Listening to aircraft communicating with air-traffic control can be quite addictive, especially if you are able to hear transmissions from the tower of a busy airport.

Several years ago the dreams for would be air-traffic controllers were fulfilled with the introduction of virtual radar systems. These units monitored these ADS-B messages using a dedicated receiver connected to a computer which could then display aircraft position and information on a screen just like the real thing, as well as your own 'spots' you could join networks of others receivers to have complete coverage of any area you wanted in real time.

My younger brother who lives near Birmingham International brought a system several years ago and has great fun watching the approach of aircraft on 'radar' as they rattle the roof tiles on approach to BHX. These systems are not cheap and not being a wealthy as my brother I have been looking for a cheaper alternative...

At the end of last year I found just such an alternative on the Ham Radio Science blog using the humble RTL-SDR dongles.

The RTL1090 ADS-B Decoder for Windows from Jetvision is simplicity itself, it is free and assuming you have the Zadig drivers for the dongle then it is a small step to run the program and verify if you are receiving the ADS-B broadcasts, the decoder can be made to emulate a 'BEAST' ADS-B receiver so can be networked to Plane Plotter (non-free) or Virtual Radar Server (free) to display air traffic information.

Since then other ADS-B decoders have become available including ADSB# from the people who brought you SDR# and this can be linked to other programs like ADSBScope. There is lots of information out there for those interested just use Google.

Like I said I briefly toyed with this at the end of last year as a nice diversion at a difficult time but I was frustrated by the range of reception I was achieving, some of this is due to the RTL-SDR dongles being a little deaf but mainly not having the right antenna, sparked by a thread I read on the Transmission1 forum and the cost of some of the antennas I investigated the idea of making my own and got the decoding bug again.

I found some plans for making a coax-based collinear out of some inexpensive components, so a quick trip to the local ScrewFix and I had the basic materials to have a go

White 21mm plastic overflow pipe (3m) £1.25
RG6 Black Coax 25m        £7.92
Roll of insulating tape        £0.69
Self Amalgamating Tape        £2.95

I originally tried to construct one out of some spare RG-58, by cutting and soldering it, but it proved frustrating and fiddly. I opted for the technique described in the original plans using the RG6 coax with a solid central core, by cutting it with a Stanley knife and pushing the sections together (checking as I went along for shorts with a meter) and then taping them in little over an hour I had a 16-section antenna which I put inside a white plastic tube which I bunged up and taped for weather proofing. Connected up a F-plug to the small section of coax I had coming out and I was ready to go!

I currently have the 'white stick' plugged into one of the dongles containing the Rafael Micro R820T tuner. It is just propped up against the window in the 'computer room' just a few feet away from two computers one of which is an old Linux server clocked around 1GHz, along with a wireless router, printer, cable modem, phone charger etc. So not an ideal position for interference but having downloaded the latest version of RTL1090 and ADSB# I have been impressed by the performance of the antenna compared to the wideband discone in the loft.

In RTL1090 there is a display showing the received packet rate, i.e the number of messages decoded. With the discone I was getting just two bars out of 6, with the 'white stick' I am getting almost a continuous 4 and occasionally 5. On Virtual Radar Server I am getting at lot further range, all I need to do now is get the stick up high to see what it capable of, I really must get on with my planned antenna mast!

In ADSB# I have also got a decent data rate, interestingly I get a better data rate if I switch off the AGC controls, which the opposite of the RTL1090 program..

Phonesats are no more.

Sadly the Phonesats Alexandra, Graham and Bell are no more, they were always going to be shorted lived, but having launched on April 21st aboard the Orbital Sciences Antares test flight, they have sadly now deorbited.

As the Phonesat website now states

Our orbital analysis indicates that the PhoneSats have deorbited on April 27 and have burned up in Earth's atmosphere as predicted. No one has been able to hear from the satellites since, which confirms the predictions.

The PhoneSat team is continuing to develop the PhoneSats using consumer technology to greatly increase the capability of the satellite whilst developing with a low cost - our next versions are launching late this year so stay tuned.

Thank you again for your support in making this technology demonstration successful!

Must say I really enjoyed chasing these, getting some decent results with very modest equipment.

In the inhibitable words of Dr. Eldon Tyrell

Phonesat - Pictures

The Nasa Phonesat team have now put up the partially completed jigsaw puzzle formed from the submitted picture packets received from Graham and Bell over the past week. They can be viewed here

Over the last few days I have been getting quite a decent number of packets, including pictures from all three phonesats however a number of the picture packets despite being verified and accepted when submitted to the website have returned seemingly invalid webp files.

It appears the images are being broadcast in three forms, a low resolution background, then a medium resolution followed by a high resolution, slowly building up the final images.

The picture from Graham

 

The picture from Bell

Video showing the decoding of the SSTV images from the ISS

I have made a small video showing the decoding of the SSTV images from the ISS that I posted earlier, the decoding was done using the MMSSTV program

Two SSTV Images from the ISS

I love Twitter!

Several messages appeared on my news feed indicating that the Russian Cosmonauts were testing the SSTV system on board the International Space Station, activity was continuing to around 16:00UTC, as luck would have it this coincided with as pass over the UK, at around 15:30UTC.

Getting setup and monitoring the pass with the FUNCube Dongle got two absolutely clear images (and one partial) with a very very strong signal being received via the 2m yagi.

 

More PhoneSat pictures and other packets

Had chance to process the 14:05BST PhoneSat pass IQ file and have got some more image pieces (again I have scaled them up from the original 20 x 15 pixel size)

Also decode a few more data packets,  from Graham and Bell the PhoneSat 1.0 Satellites

Also got a sensor packet from Alexandra (the PhoneSat 2.0 Beta Satellite)

These packets not be encoded; and are plain ASCII characters. There are 5 types of packet:

Sensors from the phone

• Time: unix time time in milli seconds.
• Reboot: number of reboots of the phone.
• Counter: number of packets sent since the beginning of the mission.
• Packet type: for this packet will be sensors from the phone (1).
• Phase: phase in which the satellite is (we have 3 phases).
• Compass: magnetic field value for X, Y, Z axes from the phone sensor in nanoTesla.
• Gyro: spin rate for X, Y, Z axes from the phone sensor in deg/sec.
• Accel: accelerometer value of X, Y, Z axes from the phone sensor in m/sec2

• Format: [Time, Reboot, Counter, Packet Type, Phase, CompassX, CompassY, CompassZ, GyroX, GyroY, GyroZ, AccelX, AccelY, AccelZ]

My packet was
[1262348062776;11;489;1;3;30.4;38.8;13.2;80.2;-5.7;-68.5;-0.5;0.1;-0.6]

So 1262348062776 milliseconds (this doesn't look right, gives 01 January 2010 12:14:23!)
Reboot number 11
489 packets
Packet type 1
Phase 3
Compass X = 30.4, Y = 38.8, Z = 13.2
Gyro X = 80.2, Y = -5.7, Z = -68.5
Accel X =  -0.5, Y=  0.1, X= -0.6

First Phonesat Image Piece

Before leaving for work this morning I set up the 70cm yagi on the tripod pointing due south at around 45 degrees inclination and my ancient laptop with the original FUNCube dongle, hoping to catch some more PhoneSat packets during this afternoons passes, the first at 12:30BST, the other around 14:05BST.

I was hoping to be home for the later one, but unfortunately I was held up and wasn't, luckily I was able to set both of them to record by logging in remotely. But due to the fixed antenna meant I only was able to get the optimum signal for part of the pass.

Still I grabbed the file for the first pass and was able to analyse the resulting IQ file during a coffee break and successful decoded a handful of packets.

I was especially eager to see the result as in my mailbox this morning was a message from the PhoneSat team

Let the puzzle begin

As scheduled, Graham and Bell have just started transmitting picture packets, so please stay tuned to your radio. Since the picture packets need to be stitched to restore the complete Earth picture, we will need as many packets as possible. Ultimately a new page will be created to display the current construction of the pictures. Let the puzzle begin!

Best regards,
The PhoneSat team

Indeed one of the packets was an image piece, however my excitement was quickly tempered when I discovered it was infact just 20 x 15 pixels in size!

fm KJ6KRW-2 to CQ-0 via TELEM-0 UI  PID=F0
.5qjuM1K$e67WJJ/!*;TU:f^CP+D(TR!0REaSH12S!"T&n/J<h*!s!j:!*GO@$.A#;"qkt2UoORH!%\-Lqr;^40b;k;a]Q,IYQ(B:[r\-<:($p+rslDDQi<`UrfGn1-d^+^e8XV&5%nr[AFM,_?q18$!:`kk&-)\.

Produced this image, which I have scaled up to 200 x 150 pixels! A hint of blue, cloud and land?

The picture packets are decoded as.webp pictures. These pictures can be converted into png pictures using Google’s webp converter.

All three Phonesats received and decoded

Yesterday the delayed Antares rocket launched and successfully deployed the three Phonesats

After downloading the TLE http://www.phonesat.org/phonesat.txt this morning and checking the orbital prediction I found as luck would have it that a decent pass would occur when I am home during my lunch break.

So it was out with the 70cm yagi on the tripod fixed pointing south at around 45 degrees elevation and my older FUNCube Dongle on the laptop running SDRSharp (SDR#). It was pleasant sitting on the bench at the top of the garden in the sunshine with the dogs eating my lunch waiting for the pass, and yes at around 14:17BST (13:17UTC) I started to get signals, which came in very strongly.

I recorded the IQ file for later analysis and decoding

I originally tried decoding using Multipsk which I have used extensively to decode APRS from the International Space Station but wasn't having any luck so I downloaded the free and simple to use Qtmm AFSK1200 Decoder, I simply feed it the audio (using virtual audio cable) and it was soon decoding. However I did have to widen the bandwidth quite a lot to accommodate the full signal. 

The resulting decodes were saved into a text file, here is a selection

15:35:11$ fm KJ6KRW-2 to CQ-0 via TELEM-0 UI  PID=F0
          .5l^lb!<<*"#ljr1N;rq`/H>bN!#!j*83h7os$Ma_0ggo;0tp"AjZcJL_`j`(W^1Y*!(!(S!(&Gkzzzzzzzz!,,q[Ci:G.Ec5e;FD,5.@<Q.%.
15:35:45$ fm KJ6KRW-0 to CQ-0 via TELEM-0 UI  PID=F0
          charging809,0,0,0
15:36:59$ fm KJ6KRW-1 to CQ-0 via TCPIP-0 UI  PID=F0
          .63$uc!<<*"$NL/4)ZTjAR/d3e!#!lB1I-%V'17sg=$r.DW4f*7ks$0O$GWe[Gec]I!5W.F!5a59zzzzzzzz!,,q[Ci:G.Ec5e;FD,5.@<Q.%.

Note due to quite large doppler shift I had to keep replaying the IQ file to adjust for it and the time shown is the time I decoded it, not the time it was received.

Going to the Phonesat website, you can register and submit the packet data which checks and displays the decoded information, which I did.

I had to discard the first and last decimal point in the data to successfully submit it the website

I also managed some good signals using the discone in the loft.

STRATODEAN - High Altitude Balloon

After yesterdays successful first attempt at receiving the telemetry from HABs (High Altitude Balloons) I spotted another was being launched this morning, the STRATODEAN Project.

The STRATODEAN team is made up of Mark Ireland and Cassie Phelps, two graduates from the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire who were launching their payload from their hometown.

The launch took place just after 10am, and I set the receiver going and was getting some faint signals but no successful decodes and took the dogs out for a morning walk, a few hours later I returned to find the signal had increased in strength and decodes were occuring.

I carried on receiving successful decodes after the balloon burst and it was making the decent, the final decode being received as it was around 700m from the ground, quite near the final landing spot.

I managed to get the spacenear.us tracker working (by turning off adblock plus) so was able to follow the track of the payload in real time as decodes were received.

Congratulations to the Stratodean project it was an enjoyable few hours.

High Altitude Balloon - AURA Telemetry Decode

99 Red Balloons, well actually 3 High Altitude Balloons on 434MHz

In my news feed this morning was an innocuous article from the Southgate Amateur Radio News website (which is a must have subscription for anyone interested in amateur radio)

It simply said "Several 434 MHz balloons launch today" but it was enough to pique my interest, the first launch this morning was the NSE/CHEAPO balloon set to launch at 9am from Bicknacre, Chelmsford, Essex, UK.

I was vaguely aware of these balloons and the High Altitude enthusiasts but I had never received or made any attempt at receiving them, but shortly after nine I started up the FUNCube Dongle and tuned to 434.650MHz with the discone in the loft and got a pretty decent signal, which I recognised as being RTTY.

A quick visit to the UKHAS UK High Altitude Society website and I had downloaded the dl-fldigi application which decodes the signal from and uploads the data to a central website.

I didn't have any luck getting a decode from NSE but I was prepared for another attempt, so when I returned home this afternoon I managed to received the AURA balloon which launched from Great Malvern. I received quite a few success data packets which got uploaded.

I also received the last balloon this afternoon launched by the Queen Mary University from the Elsworth Site near Cambridge, around 4pm, but the signal was a little too scratchy for a successful decode.

I have since discovered that the transmitters in these balloons are only 10mW, but because of the line of sight they can manage several hundred miles, but even so the setup I was using wasn't the most efficient for reception.

A similar balloon being launched

ISS - Russian EVA-32 Comms Received

The International Space Station is currently giving some nice evening passes at the moment, with clear skies and passing close to the crescent moon.

However today they were still undertaking an EVA to add some maintenance, so I programmed in a few frequencies I found on issfanclub.com and had the FUNCube Dongle Pro+ connected to the discone in the loft and really wasn't expecting much, until a doppler shifting signal appeared around 143.625MHz




Chuffed is an understatement!

CubeSats Galore!

No the Phonesats don't look like this!

It is an interesting time if you are into chasing satellites as there is a plethora of CubeSat launches imminent.

Last night I settled down and logged into NASA-TV to watch the Orbital Sciences Antares Test Flight (A-ONE Misson) Antares is a new medium-class space launch vehicle. Following this test launch and a further demonstration mission it will hopefully become a cargo deliverly system to the International Space Station (ISS)

As part of this initial test there were a number of CubeSats on board due for deployment unfortunately with just twelve minutes on the clock the launch was halted due to a premature separation of a launch pad umbilical connection to the Antares upper stage used for data communications. Orbital is currently analysing what happened. The next launch attempt is tentatively set for no earlier than Friday pending a successful resolution of the issue and acceptable weather conditions.

The CubeSats due for deployment were part of the NASA PhoneSat project. Three CubeSats called Alexandra, Graham and Bell are 1U sized and similar to the British STRaND-1 CubeSat utilise Commericial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) Electronics, namely a HTC Nexus One smartphone running the Android operating system for the Phonesat 1.0 satellites (Graham and Bell) and a Samsung Nexus S for the Phonesat 2.0 Beta satellite (Alexandra) The satellites also contain an external radio beacon, batteries and a circuit to reboot the phone if it stops transmitting, again all off the shelf commerical parts.

All three satellites are emitting packet transmission over the amateur radio band at 437.425 MHz, utilising the call sign KJ6KRW and will be spaced apart to allow reception of all three during a single pass. More details are available at http://www.phonesat.org

Also onboard Antares was the commericial DOVE-1 satellite, a technology development experiment. Originally intended to have a telemetry downlink on 145.825MHz this apparently is no longer the case.

More information about the Antares payload is at http://amsat-uk.org/2013/04/16/antares-cubesat-launch/

If the Antares does launch on Friday, it will share the skys with Soyuz-2-1a which is due to be launched at 10:00UTC from Baikonur in Kazakhstan. Amongst its payload are four CubeSats with amateur radio payloads, OSSI-1, BEESAT-2, BEESAT-3 and SOMP. Again more details can be found at the AMSAT-UK website at http://amsat-uk.org/2013/04/17/soyuz-cubesat-launch/

Also next week the launch of CZ-2D from the Jiuquan Space Centre is planned on April 26, carrying the Mode J (145/435) linear transponder satellite TURKSAT-3USAT along with the Argentine CubeBug-1 and Ecuadorian NEE-01 Pegasus TV Cubesat

TURKSAT-3USAT - http://amsat-uk.org/satellites/turksat-3usat/
CubeBug-1 - http://amsat-uk.org/2013/03/22/cubebug-1/
NEE-01 Pegasus - http://amsat-uk.org/?p=14689

So it looks like being a busy time, once the orbits are known and the TLEs are published.

Sadly it seems STRaND-1, that got me so excited last month has fallen silent after its transmissions became intermittent over the Easter weekend. After failing to receive any radio transmissions the team are apparently asking the EME weak-signal community to listen for the STRaND-1 LO (Local Oscillator) at 312.5MHz to see if it is still alive.

The Conet Project / 1111

Back when I first started listening to short wave radio I often come across no end of strange sounding stations, usually consisting of some form of repeating 'musical' fanfare and then an automated voice reading out seemingly random numbers. These were of course the now infamous 'number stations'

There function was a mystery but it is logical to assume they were some form of coded covert messaging system for the security and intelligence community of various countries, or for organised crime.

Some number stations sound more like experimental electronica music or performance art with strange tones and unearthly sounds and have gained a number of enthusiastic monitoring stations and Hundreds of stations have been identified by these numbers-hunters like those in ENIGMA (European Numbers Information Gathering and Monitoring Association), who publish a 'zine tracking the transmissions.

Sadly despite making many recordings of stations on my trusty cassette recorder they have long since become misplaced and lost, however all was not lost!

Back in 1997 Akin Fernandez and the Irdial-Discs recording label released a four-CD set of recordings of number stations, called The Conet Project: Recordings of Shortwave Numbers Stations. The Conet Project has since become somewhat of a cult sensation and counts many musicians and filmmakers among its fans, often incorporating samples of it in their work.

The project's name comes from a mishearing of the Czech word konec, or "end," which marks the end of transmissions on the Czech numbers station.

The Irdial-Discs label has made the entire collection available for download in MP3 form on its web site completely free of charge.

Now Irdial-Dics have re-released The Conet Project in a special anniversary CD edition that includes the four original discs plus a fifth CD containing recordings of the very strange "noise stations." Called TCP/1111 (1111 being the binary representation of 15, or 16 years if you start counting from 0)

Also back in 2005 BBC Radio 4 broadcast a lovely documentary called "Tracking The Lincolnshire Poacher" all about number stations and The Conet Project, which can be downloaded from many sources (just do a google search) or is available on Youtube with a brilliant visualisation.

A few more Digital SSTV Pictures

Last weekend I was unfortunately working, but it didn't stop me setting up Easypal and leaving it running and got a few more amazing pictures courtesy of OE3AWA

AAUSAT3 Beacon

I captured a CW beacon transmission from the AAUSAT3 cubesat on 437.425 MHz as it passed over the UK

Saturday 23 March 2013
18:01:39     OZ3CUB B7.6 T28+

Following the callsign the B indicates the Battery voltage, T indicates the temperature

This is a snapshot of the SDR image

listen to ‘AAUSAT3 CW BEACON’ on Audioboo