I've written a new Ground station for FalconSat-3. If you had an initial go with WISP without success or if you have never tried to decode FalconSat-3, now is a good time to try. Don't be put off if you don't have a hardware TNC, this will work with a soundcard TNC. Or, if you didn't try to listen to FalconSat-3 because you don't have a station that can transmit commands to the spacecraft, then read on. We still need your help.
You can read about FalconSat-3 on amsat.org. The summary is that this is a US Air Force spacecraft that is now available for Amateur use.
In particular we would like to encourage people to download the Telemetry and forward it to an AMSAT telemetry server. Currently more telemetry is generated that we can download with AMSAT Operations ground stations. Receive only stations can contribute to that as well as stations equipped to transmit to FalconSat-3 and request files.
This is ready to go with a software TNC like hs_soundmodem. It can listen directly to the KISS TNC port. So no need for a hardware TNC.
There are details about the spacecraft, how to install the software and how it works in the Pacsat Ground station manual.
Download the software and install it on Windows, Linux or MacOs. I have also written some other blog posts and thoughts about the software for anyone interested.
There is much to do here of course and most of it probablly won't get done. If you have suggestions or bug fixes please log them online at https://github.com/ac2cz/Falcon/issues
The software is open source and you can find that on Github too.
73
Chris
g0kla/ac2Cz
Enter Comments Here:
| On: 12/31/20 22:22 K7MT Bill said: |
One request for the Ground Station software is to allow copy and past from windows notepad into the message. Ex: in Wisp I can copy a ascii picture then past into the message. I cannot find a way to do this in Ground Station. I know what ascii pictures. Christmas Holidays etc as they are small and easily uploaded. I am an old rtty Navy and 1200 baud packet and ascii pictures are fun to send. Happy New Year. Bill K7MT Helena, Mt. USA |
| On: 01/01/21 19:19 Chris G0KLA said: |
Hey Bill. Thanks for the comment. I agree ASCII art is fun. You can paste into the editor with Ctrl-V, but I suspect that is not the issue. There is no way to change the font, so it will look bad without a fixed width font. One work around would be to tell people to select the whole received message and copy/paste it into notepad or any other editor with a fixed width font. They can select the whole message and copy it with ctrl-a ctrl-c. You could put those instructions just above the ascii picture perhaps 73 Chris |
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