Many years ago I built a Satellite groundstation. It was for my final year project as an undergraduate at the University of Southampton. It was configured to automatically track a given low earth orbit (LEO) satellite, record its signal strength (preferrablly its signal to noise ratio) and transfer any AX.25 digital traffic that we had stored. It used the Kansas City Tracker software for predictions and was all under the control of a program I wrote in Pascal. My advisor, Steve Braithwaite, was interested in the satellites launched by Surrey Univeristy as a means of providing digital connectivity to remote parts of Africa using Packet store and forward mailboxes.
Twenty years later there is a huge surge in the interest of Low Earth Orbit Satellites. They have shrunk in size and the opportunity to launch them has dramatically increased, with NASA's cubesat initiative as a good example.
One of the most intersting is AMSAT-UKs cubesat called FunCube, or AO-73. It's primary mission is to provide a satellite the schools can gather data from and use in the classroom as part of the science curriculum. In the process children will learn about space, orbits, satellite, radio, telemetry and the science experient itself, which focuses on Thermodynamics.
There are lots of materials at the FunCube site. The ARRL have als produced an excellent document that helps teachers to integrate the spacecraft into their lessons.
Enter Comments Here:
| On: 03/22/18 10:10 said: |
| on this page: http://www.g0kla.com/workbench/2014-03-27.php Last line ARRL link "excellent document" shows only ARRL logo. |
| On: 04/01/18 16:16 g0kla said: |
| Thanks! I have fixed the link |
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