Satellite Recordings

*NEW* Video Introduction to Satellite Tracking!

Just my plain old I-Com IC-R20 DC to Daylight "wideband" reciever. Apparently it's great for being wideband, but it's receieve sensitivity is stated as 0.56uV in N-FM and 0.25uV in ssb - I'm fairly confident it's better than that. It does sound better than other recievers with 0.17uV and 0.4uV respectively. The great thing about it is the onboard record feature - which is how I bring these recordings to you (with the added help of a piece of software written by a fellow IC-R20 owner that allows me to decode these recordings). Nothing fancy I would say - this is probably not the best reciever to be using for the job, but it seems to work.

The I-Com stock Stick Antenna.

A Mobile-One scanner antenna (Bandspanner) attached to a Mobile-One 5/16" base with 3.6m of RG-58U and BNC termination. I do know that the Bandspanner is tuned high for 468Mhz but it gives me gain unlike some of the amateur fibreglass rods that I have. Maybe I'll end up with a proper amateur band antenna with gain - that would be the best.

A Fibreglass 70cm antenna.

And now, a homebuilt yagi!

I use Orbitron to simulate and figure out when I'll be in coverage. I'll Amsat the satellite, enter the uplink, downlink frequencies and modes into my Palm. Around that time, I would go out with the IC-R20 in hand, and an antenna, and pre-tune the reciever to the highest uplink freqency plus 10khz doppler. Drop the squelch open fully, start recording, have the headphones on and wave it around toward the right direction and hope that something emerges. I'm surprised my neighbours haven't said anything about my activities yet!

I download the recording onto my laptop, decode to WAV, use my trusty Goldwave to clip off all the white noise bits. Then I apply the bandpass - 120Hz to 2800Hz to chop off some recording noise and to make it more listenable. Resample to 8000Hz sample rate, encode to MP3, edit my webpage and upload to my dumping ground. Mhmm. Sweet sweet goodness.

Note: All times listed are only approximate Sydney local time. Hope you all enjoy my page.

ao-51 (echo) 8:08pm Pass

Was a good near-overhead pass. Overcast day today as you can tell by the recording. My Log-Periodic with Preamp was overloaded with intermod, so I went to the stock stick antenna. Should have seen it for a lot longer - struggled to find the sweet spots for the signal to get good copy but was suprised when it did come through very clear. Only 1W from the bird apparently. FM mode is easier than anything. We have a VK6'er (VK6MJ) on this recording, and Judy Williams (VK2TJU) (more here). There's a VK2JY John, and VK2TJ. Unfortunately due to the arrangement of the townhouse block I'm in - the row of townhouses blocked out a quarter of the pass so I couldn't catch any more than this. But this was very surprising.

I knew this would have been a big challenge. A challenge too great it seems - as with all Linear Transponder birds, they are used in ssb. Tuning in ssb is an art that I haven't yet mastered as there is no real "capture" - you're left guessing when you've actually got the right tuning. If you're off tune - well there you go ... you get daffy duck basically. Due to constantly changing doppler, you have to retune too - and since I had the reciever in one hand and a 1.5m fiberglass pole (5dB gain) in the other - I couldn't tune it "well". You'll also hear a cw signal that I just totally ignored while I was out there - I thought it was just carrier but on review - it's pretty clear that it's someone doing cw. Just one callsign can be copied - VK2AJC.

co-57 (xi-iv) 7:03am Pass

ao-51 (echo) 7:18am Pass

Well, I really did get up early for this one after the initial excitement of yesterday. And what a shame it was - co-57's cw beacon WAS PICKED UP despite me thinking that wouldn't happen. And the normally easy-to-use ao-51 was very elusive. Static most of the way - barely a few seconds of audio from ao-51. Maintaining lock on co-57 was a little difficult, hence its pitch is sliding all over the place, fading away. Imagine just having to constantly re-orient your antenna and tune the dial ... and one on a handheld - not the nice one like one on the base station models. But I am surprised - co-57's beacon only being 80mW. Amazing what you can do from space. I did try to switch over to telemetry, no signal. I also did try to read the QRP downlink on ao-51 - no good either. We had a few small clouds in the way - I went to a new location outside my complex and had a few strange stares from traffic. Only out there did I have a good view of the western sky. Unfortunately, I lose out a bit there too because there's a big tin roof-ed shipping depot which blocks a bit of the Northern horizon, and water pipes to block my Southern horizon. Looks like it might take a bit of planning - might take out the "properly tuned" 70cm fiberglass that I got from hamfest - but no gain ... hmm. Back to bed I go ... more recordings when they happen.

Addition: Sounds like VK2ANZ can be heard just a bit in the echo recording. Likewise, you can clearly hear one of the amateurs asking to "identify" - QRZ. Lots of noise though. Unfortunate.

Anyway, I've tried to decode the cw - this is what it looks like.

-.-
R

.-.---- / --- / -?????? / .- / .--- / .--.
? O ? A J P

- / .--- / ...-- / .-. / ??? / ??? / ...--
T J 3 R ? ? 3

..- / ..--- / --- / .....
U 2 O 5

..- / ???? / .---- / ...-- / .--- / --... / --... / --... / --... / ---. / --.. / ? / ..--- / --..
U ? 1 3 J 7 7 7 7 ? Z ? 2 Z

Yes, just jibberish - not clean enough copy to get even its callsign out. Hmm. Oh well. Wait - maybe not - cw is not a beacon - it's actually modified to do cw telemetry - as here! Still not enough to make good sense of it though. I can sort of see the URL in line two ... but ... that's a bit far-fetched actually. Oh and, after reading up their schedule - now I know why there's no FM on co-57!

"FM operation will be conducted only when the satellite passes above Japan. We must be sorry that non-East Asian people may not receive the packet of our satellite." [sic]

Right from the horse's mouth!

SO-50 (Saudisat-1C) 3:20pm Pass

Very very weak. No recording as I got barely 2 seconds of intelligible speech. Turns out it might not be easily possible to pick it up. I have a pass coming at 3:20pm which I intend to do more investigation on. I was using the car bonnet as a sort of signal concentrator AND IT WORKS very well. But since the satellite moves so quickly - you can only get a "burst" of audio then you're left hunting again. I'll try using the log periodic dipole with pre-amp, but I'll have very little luck (more than not) due to its inherant ability to "overload" and produce intermod and images. The 3:20pm pass has just happened. Just a small burst. I can't even confirm it's from the sat. Had the log periodic array with preamp - massive overload from a nearby taxi data terminal and some government radio network Motorola trunking system site controllers. Added the attenuator, but had even some broadcast breakthrough even then. Lowered RF Gain a bit, a bit better, but I couldn't tell if it was there. I got carrier - but it might have been a product of signals and not the sat ... I'd like to think it was the sat, a bit too weak for FM decoding. Nontheless there's no audio worth posting. It's just all trash. I did switch over to the stock stick antenna - still couldn't hear it. They're only putting 250mW out in FM ... and FM usually needs MORE power than ssb which needs MORE power still than cw. Reason? Think bandwidth. N-FM is 16khz normally, down to about 6khz minimum. ssb is about 3khz, and cw is just a few tens of hertz usually. Power is spread over this bandwidth - makes it harder to recieve - or so that's what I've been told. Not a good day. Not a good day at all. My patience is actually wearing thin at this point - it takes quite a bit of planning to figure out when and where the pass will happen, tune your radios, enter the data into your palm, pocket everything, power everything on, start recording and wave the damn thing around and try to capture something. Then walk back, plug in, download, review ... and upload if anything. Not to mention, risking being hassled by people, authorities. It really is "wierd" to see a guy next to the road, flinging antennas around - pointing them in each and every direction, dialling the dial all the time (due to doppler), taking out a palm and verifying the frequencies. Could do with more hands ... or a nice antenna system high up on my roof with a computerised rotator. HEH! I'm dreaming.

Had a pass earlier by the ISS, problem was that it was too low of elevation. Satellite receive on 2m is rubbish here. All thanks to a few TV stations and Link Communication Paging base stations which really flood my reciever to death even on a TINY stick. No chance of hearing the downlinks on ISS unless they're running V-U crossband FM. Lets hope that they are ... if only they made these things easier to find out.

Addition: Nope, they won't be running V-U crossband FM ... or so that's what this says.

lo-19 (Lusat) 4:50pm Pass with dsp

GENESAT-1 5:05pm Pass

Two back to back passes. Thank GOD I GOT coPY on Lusat. Lusat is pretty much dead except for its telemetry beacons - 750mW in cw led to a fairly good copy. I was twiddling the knobs constantly, so the tone is a little more behaved compared to the other recordings. Morse code decoding to come soon. The telemetry information is decoded as thus. I don't think that the quality of the copy is good enough for me to decode it ... I haven't learnt morse yet! Oh and there's a dsp'd version as well which is a little easier to decode from. dsp is so wonderous when used correctly!

Addition: Here's the Morse Data. There were some undecodable characters that really spoiled the data - but to get a confirmation that it is LUSAT is GREAT! Whoopeeeeeee ... Decoding from 1 minute and 27 seconds onward in the dsp recording

Morse: .-../..-/.../.-/-/..../../..../../.-/---/.-/...-/.-/.-/-.-.-/-....
Characters: L U S A T H I H I 1 O 1 3 1 1 1 ? 1 7
Data:
LUSAT HI HI
ROM 1 OK
5V Regulator at 4.85V
Lost Sync with Data.

M: .-/-/-..../---.---/-./-/-./-./-../.--..-/.-/./..-/.-.-/....
C: 1 0 7 ? 1 0 1 9 8 ? 1 5 2 1 1 H
D: Lost Sync with Data.

M: -.--/..../../..../../..-/---/.-/...-
C: Y H I H I 2 O 1 3
D: ? HI HI ROM 2 OK

M: ---.---/-.--/-/.-
C: ? Y T 1
D: Not Meaningful ...

Genesat-1 proved to be an utter dissapointment though. Not a peep from it. It seems my FM recieve ability has gone out the window! No copy on any FM passes today. I wonder why ... I used my hamfest 70cm fibreglass pole antenna this time. Nicer because it's shorter and more maneuverable but ... it might not be as good. I'm struggling to make any meaningful quantitative measurements as the Signal Meter never gets off S0. I'll probably take the long pole out tonight for echo's evening pass. I really do hope I hear something substantial ... Change of plans - Mum wants dinner out, I'll miss echo :'(.

fo-29 9:02pm Pass USB

A pass that was quite far to the South - I didn't expect to bother but since it came just before rs-22, I decided to give it a go. Oh my. Tragic results. Copied cw weakly - some of that's included, and only just a single callsign after lots of searching with the dial across the linear transponder. ssb is not my friend ...and neither is voice it seems. Very distorted, someone saying Foxtrot. and out of the blue comes a pair of callsigns - VK2AJB and VK2DAZ. Unfortunately dsp doesn't work well when the signal is < 3dB above the noise - so I won't do dsp in that case.

rs-22 9:15pm Pass

rs-22 9:15pm Pass with dsp

This is a research satellite having a telemetry beacon. The passes in cw came through extremely clearly, especially towards the end. There's a dsp version up that's very clean - I've decoded some of it and it looks reasonably valid for rs-22 - like the example posted here. Ah well. I guess now you know why QRP communications usually work with cw :)

This is just part of the Morse decoded (the easy to copy part that is). It appeared to copy OK, but I'm not sure about the accuracy overall.

../-.../...--/...--
I D 3 3
..-/.../..-/-./.----/....-/...--
U S U N 1 4 3
../-/-..-/.-/-----
I T X A 0
../-/-..-/-.../-----
I T X B 0
-/-/-..-/.-/.----/..---
T T X A 1 2

GENESAT-1 9:55pm Pass

Nothing heard again. I just don't think I've got good enough equipment to get the weak FM signals from it, or it might not be transmitting. The fact that it transmits a burst every 5 seconds makes it a little difficult to know if you've even tuned in but I had nothing to indicate that I got anything from it. Enough satellite chasing for a day. I call it quits for now.

fo-29 10:00am Pass

co-66 10:10am Pass

My resolve to get up extremely early in the morning to go listen to echo had been smashed by the lack of copy on FM, and my brother's need to prepare for his first day of uni. And so, I chose to wake up around ten, when there was two back to back passes - one South to North via East, and the other North to South via East. Both these sats would bring me some excitement I had thought ... but something went horribly wrong.

Tuning into fo-29's frequencies yeilded NOTHING. Not even its cw beacon would give me any faint indication that it was even there! ssb had weak noisy sections ... some sounded like there were people but too indistinct to even understand. I kept searching for ten minutes, and realised the pass would soon be over and gave up. Instead, I turned my attention to co-66 - a bird I've never heard before.

Well, despite my enthusiasm, I knew FM would be a challenge. Most of the pass was spent hearing NOTHING but white noise of course. Standing in my favourite location in the townhouse complex, I aimed my antenna in the directions that usually resulted in copy ... nothing. Twiddle the knobs through the entire range ... nothing. Then something ... a faint blipping noise. Is that telemetry? Is that cw? NO! It's my old friend sstv! I struggled to try and keep the signal - small moves, small moves ... nup. Signal rose and faded like a supernova. Just gone like that.

My determination wouldn't let me give up - so I kept running around the complex to try and find the signal - all I had left was just a scrap of unintelligible "digitalker" ... *sigh*. Oh how I wished it would all just work like that! *snaps fingers*

Anyway, trying to decode the sstv revealed the presence of "phase stepping" which means the frequency drift was fairly big toward the end of the picture and my reciever was trying to compensate through capturing the signal. May have got more image if I just tuned it down a bit as we're going - but the problem is - with sstv, you've gotta keep it such that the phase is the same even when retuning and not all radios can do this (and likewise, you can't if you're tuning down faster than the satellite is shifting).

This is the image itself. Many thanks for the JE3HHT for MMsstv software which is excellent for this sort of thing. The image is the part in the middle. The green and blue solid bit is it waiting for an input. The noisy section where the letters S and maybe an L can be made out is the image segment. Below that is undecodable due to phasing errors which cause image and colour shifting (would require immense work to repair that).

This is the phase diagram. Ignore the offset at the top - that's soundcard clock offset. But look at the sync pulse timings - they just staircase off the bottom as my reciever loses lock with their signal due to doppler. Yikes.

Overall, not a bad effort, but I wished I could maintain solid lock throughout. Always have been a fan of the sstv mode, but have never interacted with a real broadcasted transmission.

SO-50 2:10pm Pass

Had issues trying to get any ssb from fo-29. Thought it wasn't there till I flipped over to cw. When I did - here was the recording. No time to decode the morse yet - too busy with "making a video" - available later tonight. Was twiddling the knobs quite a bit to try and keep the pitch level, then I got distracted by the camera and whooeeee there it goes!

Unfortunately, SO-50 was totally not-audible, not even its beacon could be heard. Hmm.

Addition: What follows is some of the morse data. Yet again, jibberish, and must be riddled with errors as the telemetry page has a general format and this thing doesn't seem to decode at all. The encouraging thing is the "HI HI" which basically tells me that I'm dealing with the right stuff.

---../---../-../...../---../..-./-----/...../-----/...../..---/...../-----/-----/..---/...-
8 8 D 5 8 F 0 5 0 5 2 5 0 0 2 V
-----/.----/-----/.----/---../----./-..../.----/----./....-/----./....-/..-./-----
5 1 5 1 8 9 6 1 9 4 9 4 F 5
---../----./..-./..---/..-./...../..-./....-/----/.-/..-./..../../..../../...---/..---/..---/..---
8 9 F 5 F 4 5 A U H I H I ? 2 2 2
---../--./..../...../---../..../-----/...../-----/..../-----/...../-----/-----/..---/...-
8 G H 5 8 H 0 5 0 H 0 5 0 0 2 V
-----/.---/-----/.----/---../..-.../-..../..---/----./....-/---./...../..-./-----/.-../..---
0 J 0 1 8 ? 6 2 9 4 ? 5 F 0 L 2

fo-29 6:50pm Pass

Had very high hopes for this. I only heard two words, so it's not worth posting at all. Besides that, just white noise. I think it might even be damaging my hearing! My arm is getting sore from all of this ... but I just want to hear echo! How come it was so easy to hear the first time ... arrgh. Maybe I have to go back to basics and stop using my long pole ... and instead start using crockery to focus my signals? Might be worth a shot!

co-66 11:35pm Pass

Cancelled due to lightning and rain. Actually, as of 10:30pm, I had a different idea. Maybe I'll follow VO-52 ... but in the meantime, smart thinking me decided to hook up a "Chinese" no-brand wide-band 30-3000mhz TV amplifier (75 ohm, 30dB) linked into my BNC based antennas. It's impressive - even though it was a cheap amp I bought while I was in Hong Kong a while ago - it didn't increase the receiver's noise floor reading even cranked all the way up. I heard, very faintly, two FSK bursts from GENESAT-1 - a satellite that I had almost written-off as being "silent" due to either death or just not enough power. And that was while holding my black fibreglass pole INDOOrs where I've got heaps of computers, and a building to contend with. Now, I might consider a bag - with the amplifier, an inverter, and a SLA gel-cell in there to give me amplification while handholding antenna. This might give me quite a bit of promise!

EDIT: The lack of noise floor gain was in fact caused by the loss in 5m of 3C-2V (Thin 75ohm coax). I swapped over to my 1m of 3C-5V thick coax and the noise floor is now at S6-7 and the hum from the inverter is noticeable. But lets see how it performs!

VO-52 heard strong on carrier cw meaning Indian transponder is active - just as AMSAT said so! But no one talking. I'm confident. I feel like I'm having a very good capture on the signals .... And I'm not getting intermod on 2m for the first time. Very strange. co-66 silent, with or without amp. Spoiled my excitement as I was looking forward to a new sstv image. Oh well. Might be the clouds, and maybe there will be an issue with the TV amp - the noise figure of it might not be good enough for the weak satellite signals. VO-52 coming through carrier instead of all noise seems to contradict this thought - but I don't know. Maybe there's even other non-linearities I should worry about. Enough for a day ...

ao-51 7:35am Pass

Err, mission control - sky is clear and we're T-5 minutes to ao-51 echo.

To my dismay, nothing heard, amp or not. But it did show me that this amp DOES get overloaded by taxi data terminal signals as well. Mhmm. I better stop using a 5db gain antenna centred on their band :). Reducing gain, bypassing amp, nup. Still no signal. Maybe I was super-lucky the first time to hear echo - maybe the car bonnet I was using as a reflector worked so well - I've tried it again to no avail. Or maybe the original stick antenna I was using wasn't fancy but was short enough to get a coherent signal, instead of being longer and maybe receiving waves that cancel each other out. I would love to know - but I don't yet. So I'll switch over to my dedicated 70cm fibreglass pole today and hope that gives me better protection against those taxi data terminals! My focus has shifted, by the way, to voice based and other modes. I'm largely going to ignore the telemetry cw, unless it just so happens to be a good back-to-back pass, because it seems that I'm doing rather well in that department already.

Between passes, I do have a bit of time - so I might try building a yagi - dare I say - out of cardboard and clothes hangers .... what a shame almost all of my hangers are plastic! ARRGH! I will try to use the AMSAT "easy" antenna schematic, slightly modified to suit my own materials on hand.

It's gonna be a bumper day for satellite hunting with 11 good passes across Australia. More to come, stay tuned!

Well, that says it all doesn't it? In the two hours between good passes, I've built myself a yagi based on the AMSAT design. Minor annoyance that all the measurements are in imperial and not metric, but I got past that. I had no foam board, so I substituted cardboard. I had no terminal blocks, so I soldered the wire. I had no doublesided tape - so I used superglue. I had no number 8 AWG wire - so I used wire clothes hangers. A lot of compromises - but I figured it MIGHT actually work! No harm trying :) Call me a liar, just yesterday I was saying I didn't have the money to buy one or time to build such a thing. I guess I'm well and truly bitten by the ham-bug. As usual, here's a picture for your entertainment:

List of materials:
A large cardbox box
6 metal clothes hangers
2m of RG-58C/U Coax
BNC Plug
Sticky tape
Tube of Super Glue
A bit of Solder
Patience, time, strength, love and dedication.

Tools required:
Soldering Iron
Pliers
Box Cutter Knife (required three segments of blade)
Ruler.
Marker

OMFG! This thing works and works well. First time the signal has been full quieting - even topped S4-S5 on the signal bar without any preamp! Marvellous. Now I know why people normally use yagis! Now I regret even starting with the dipoles! What a waste of time ... Anyway, co-66 has digitalker on loop with a recording of the Japanese creators, and then an sstv image, and then it loops over and over. I cut out just one of the loops ... it's not worthwhile dumping the whole thing. I tried to decode the image and look at it now! Much better! You can listen to them say JQ1YGU callsign, aka SEEDS. I hope for world peace. I tried to claim a QSL card but the English QSL card page isn't working. I tried the Japanese one via Babelfish, but I don't think they send one to non-radio-amateurs (aka SWLers). I still provided my signal reports still - which is good.

Three individual loops were recorded, the three pictures are as shown. Notice the noise is in different sections of the image depending on when the interference occurs. sstv is very much analog in nature - this was recieved in Robot-36 mode. No post-processing applied. The stair stepping issue previously occurred has been found to be due to soundcard clock resync issues in the software.

Works well, and works well again! There we go - some voices, but very distorted because of tuning restrictions (have to keep chaning tuning steps to find and fine-tune) and also because those guys are compensating while I'm compensating so it's hard to know the net effect. At least some callsigns can be had - which means it's all working fine. Had someone ask me if I was fine - they thought I was crazy! But yes, as expected, it does look a little strange when someone's outside with a 30" long handheld boom with 13" elements ... pointing it around like mad. I've got a crackle from this antenna - either it's local arcing interference or I've got a loose wire. Can't be bothered to find out now ... Oh and a postie came around - he saw me ... I waved at him to proceed and give me my packages but instead he just reversed and went away. Either he was afraid, or he misinterpreted my signal ... in which case, now I'm without my packages. Damn.

Callsigns heard in this pass: VK5BCI (Virgil), VK2ACU (or VK2ATU?) (John in Sydney). Ahh, on listening, you can see just as the conversation disseapears, Virgil is talking about the satellite going into "shadow" - loS. No wonder there was no other conversations. Also, you can hear John commenting on the relatively unused satellite at the time.

SO-50 2:40pm Pass

Nothing heard. No beacon onboard so couldn't confirm its existence. Just white noise galore. Hopes people don't get paranoid about my satellite listening habits. Heard two phonetic letters on the 2nd pass - but not more than that. Oh well.

Silly me just realised this pass was going to happen. Extremely low elevation, satellite over NZ - I forgot that ao-51 had two frequencies and so I was tuned into QRP. Might have got more action if I didn't tune into the QRP repeater. Could tell the presence of the satellite by continuous carrier, couldn't get any voice for a while. Kept trying and got the word "I got a phone call" and that was all. Audible is a CTCSS tone which would be right for the satellite - but CTCSS is required for normal and not the QRP channel ... so I wonder what's going on there. ao-51 will make a good pass overhead in about one and a half hours - I expect something good.

co-57 (xi-iv) 6:45pm Pass Sample with dsp

cw Telemetry channel came down really strong but had to have antenna oriented in a way which was "counter-intuitive" to maximise signal. The SNR is just amazing - there's a raw sample and a dsp sample. I won't upload all of it, but I will spend some time decoding it and posting the decoded data here. There were a few fades as I really worked hard to try and find the signal again. Unfortunately the dsp sample doesn't really sound like what I've got here. I've got a pure tone - MP3 seems to have distorted it and added harmonics. Due to limited space and bandwidth, I'm not going to increase the bitrate, that will have to do for the time being.

Here is the morse from the beginning of the recording:
..-/-/...--/....-/....-/-.../---../-----/-----/..---/....-
U T 3 4 4 B 8 0 0 2 4
..-/-/....-/...--/....-/....-/..---/...../...--
U T 4 3 4 4 2 5 3
..-/-/...../...../-----/.----/--.../..---/-----
U T 5 5 0 1 7 2 0
..-/-/-.../---../---../---../--.../-..../--.../--.../--.../...--/...--
U T 6 8 8 8 7 6 7 7 7 3 3
..-/-/.----/.--/.--/.--/.-.-.-/.../.--./.-/-.-././.-.-.-/-/.-.-.-/..-/-....-/-/---/-.-/-.--/---/.-.-.-/.-/-.-./.-.-.-/.---/.--.
U T 1 W W W . S P A C E . T . U - T O K Y O . A C . J P
..-/-/..----/...--/-..../...../...--/....-/----.
U T 2 3 6 5 3 4 9
..-/-/...--/....-/....-/-.../---../-----/-----/..---/----.
U T 3 4 4 B 8 0 0 2 9
..-/-/....-/...--/.----/....-/..---/...../.....
U T 4 3 1 4 2 5 5
..-/-/.../-----/---../---../-----/....-/...-- (Bad Sentence)
U T ? 0 8 8 0 4 3
..-/-/-..../--.../--.../-.../--.../-..../--.../--/../--/...--/.- (Weak Signal, Corrupted Sentence)
U T 6 7 7 ? 7 6 7 ? ? ? ?
---/.--/.--/.--/.-.-.-/.../.--./.-/-.-././.-.-.-- etc. (Sample sentence, missing pre-amble. Will not continue decoding this sentence ... instead will find a UT5 and UT6 sentence to decode.)

From later on:
..-/-/...../....-/.----/..---/-..../-..../-----
U T 5 4 1 2 6 6 0
..-/-/-..../---../--.../--.../--.../--.../--.../--.../--.../...--/...--
U T 6 8 7 7 7 7 7 7 3 3

Using the cw converter tool on their page - it tells me this:

ISSL URL: http://www.space.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp (Does this show ISSL's web site correctly?)
xi-iv internal time: 3560265 (0x365349)
Uplink count: 4/31
Camera count: 2/7
SEL count (communication subsystem): 0/7
Antenna deployment: Finished
cw duty ratio: More than 0.3
OBC reset: Normal (There is no reset, or unexpected reset by the radiation.)
Battery charging: Trickle Charge
OBC existence: Alive
FM Operation: Waiting
Battery voltage: 4.1V
Battery temperature: 16.0Z
Solar array voltage: 5.5V

Solar array current
+X panel: 140.6mA
-X panel: 11.1mA
+Y panel: 21.6mA
-Y panel: 196.9mA
+Z panel: 160.3mA
-Z panel: 0.0mA

Temperature
+X panel: 48.9deg
-X panel: 36.9deg
+Y panel: 35.1deg
-Y panel: 37.5deg
+Z panel: 36.0deg
-Z panel: 37.5deg
Battery: 37.4deg
Transmitter: -13.0deg

rsSI: 4.0dBu

Reasonable success at last. I almost don't have to edit this recording because it came out so well. The whole length of recieved audio is kept intact here so you can experience it from "end to end". Quite a few callsigns heard, will be updated soon with a recording and callsign list. You'll also hear tones when people "dogpile" - i.e. transmitting over the top of each other. Great recording!

Callsign List:
VK4ZO - Dave in Brisbane
VK2UD - Steve is Portable from 20km South of Bateman's Bay
VK2FVAI - Mark
ZL2BX - Alan from New Zealand
VK2TJU - Judy
VK2XJM - ?
VK2XAD - Mike

fo-29 (jas 2) 10:40pm Pass dsp

Well, this will be the last pass of my day. Can't handle much more for today because I've gotta head into uni - Bluesat calls. I probably will miss almost all the passes tomorrow during the day because I'm not going to bring my yagi with me - it's too difficult and dangerous to transport with those sharp metal bits. Anyway, I expected some voice - but I didn't get any. When the satellite came into view, throughout the LT band was just carrier. USB or LSB, no good. I should have tried FM and AM because they might come up like that - just wasn't thinking and taking for granted the idea that the convention is to use ssb such that output is USB on all LTs. I eventually gave up and settled on capturing some cw from the telemetry beacon hopefully yielding some more data. I am thankful that the storms aren't actually happening because that means I had a comfortable time outside - had very slight drizzle but that's fine by me. There's rather thick cloud too - the signal attentuation was noticeable - but not too bad. I can still copy on most clouds it would appear! This hobby had only just begun and now I'm nearing mastership of receiving satellites at home. When I get my license, transmitting would be more of a challenge. Recording sample will be up soon, and I will hopefully have the morse decoded and telemetry for show - we'll see how it goes.

Decoding from a Hi Hi where the signal looks reasonable (i.e. the sample):

..../../..../../..---/..---/..---/..---/---../---../-../...../---..
H I H I 2 2 2 2 8 8 D 5 8
..-./-----/...../-----/...../..---/...../-----/-----/..---/....-
F 0 5 0 5 2 5 0 0 2 4
-----/.----/-----/.----/--.../.----/....-/.-/---../-..../---..
0 1 0 1 7 1 4 A 8 6 8
..---/---../..-./-..../-.../..-./.----/..-./-----/.-/..-./.-/..-.
2 8 F 6 B 1 F 0 A F A F
.-/-...
A B

This decodes to:
1A = 22 (0010 0010)
1B = 22 (0010 0010)
1C = 88 (1000 1000)
2A = D5 (1101 0101)
2B = 8F (1000 1111)
2C = 05 (0000 0101)
2D = 05 (0000 0101)
3A = 25 (0010 0101)
3B = 00 (0000 0000)
3C = 24 (0010 0100)
3D = 01 (0000 0001)
4A = 01 (0000 0001)
4B = 71 (0111 0001)
4C = 4A (0100 1010)
4D = 86 (1000 0110)
5A = 82 (1000 0010)
5B = 8F (1000 1111)
5C = 6B (0110 1011)
5D = 1F (0001 1111)
6A = 0A (0000 1010)
6B = FA (1111 1010)
6C = FA (1111 1010)
And somehow I have an extra B.

This means:
1A

Main Relay On, DCM OFF, SRAM ON, Packet at 9600 or OFF, Packet at 1200 or OFF (meaning OFF), JTA OFF, JTD ON, GAS OFF.

1B

SAS OFF, UVC OFF, UVC Level 2, PCU Auto, PCU Level 1 or 3, PCU Level 1 or 2 (meaning PCU level 1), Battery Mode Trickle, Battery Logic Full.

1C

Digitalker ON, UVC Passive, CPU Reset.

2C, 2D, 3A, 3B

Spin Period 1285ms, Altitude status 25 hex, Sun angle 0 hex.

3C to 6C

GAS-Z = 17647.056nT
GAS-X = 490.196nT
Solar Current = 9.804mA
Battery Current = 214.8mA (does not make sense backwards at -38.8A)
Battery Voltage = 7.96314V (18.07848V when working backwards)
Battery Middle Voltage = 6.45478V (5.00968V working backwards)
Bus Voltage = 12.7452V (only 3.9216V when working backwards)
JTA Tx Power = 831.3708mW (or if working backwards, 1500.8399mW)
Structure Temperature 1 = 40.326875 degrees C (or if working backwards, 13.140625 degrees C)
Structure Temperature 2 = 51.271375 degrees C (or if working backwards, -11.327 degrees C)
Structure Temperature 3 = 77.99925 degrees C (or if working backwards, 13.917375 degrees C)
Structure Temperature 4 = -15.21075 degrees C (or if working backwards, 13.917375 degrees C)
Battery Temperature = -15.21075 degrees C (or if working backwards, 15.470875 degrees C)

The working backwards is due to an extra character that I still cannot resolve ... it looks like it woulda mucked up Battery Current data onwards ... damn.

Spent most of my day at Bluesat Groundstation where I checked the rotating antenna's orientation, surveyed its condition and attempted to listen to satellites with it not being steered. Also assessed a few motherboards for repair and investigated computerised tracking and tuning of our rotator and radio respectively. More investigation needs to be done before the system can be declared ready and workable. Got home late at night, wanted to track satellites but it decided to rain on me so I stayed indoors.

Replenished my energy by sleeping in today, and hence missing a lot of passes in the morning.

Received cw telemetry which I attempted to decode, but still had some garbage in there. I won't upload that recording, but will decode telemetry later.

Quite a low pass, had issues copying for the most part due to weak signal as it was going directly over the southern half of New Zealand. Did get a few minutes of good audio - callsigns heard were ZL2BX Alan, VK2AYE Graham, ZL2ADR Andy, ZL4JM James.

Heard the cw telemetry, will try to decode but really doubt it is possible. Polarization was changing wildly - about once every three seconds and so the signal was very unpredictable. I chased it around, still no real improvement - it's challenging to aim, rotate antenna and rotate your dial to keep the signal going. In the meantime, I've had several enquiries as to what I've been doing - even from young kids from around the area. I hope what I'm doing is inspiring to them - but somehow I doubt it.

Good pass, coming over Australia nearby. Very good quality audio for the most part. The best pass so far - callsigns heard VK2MAL Mal, VK2UD Steve portable Jindabyne, VK2AYE Graham, VK2GWB, VK2AJP Joe, VK3VTH Tony portable Brisbane, VK8GMT, VK2TJU Judy.