Update on projects
2025-Mar-3
Despite a lack of posts here I have been busy with many projects. I relocated to Montreal, Canada and became VE2TCP in addition to my other callsigns. Over the past couple of years I have been working on the following Satellite and Amateur Radio projects, continuing to support STEM education, the education of other Radio Amateurs and citizen scientists wherever possible:
- I have updated FoxTelem to support new satellites, such as Maine Universities MESAT1 which was launched 4-Jul-2024. You can see the data being decoded by FoxTelem on the MESAT1 Telemetry list at amsat.org or by running FoxTelem, adding MESAT1 as a spacecraft and downloading the data from the server for analysis. Anyone can do this to analyze any of the satellites supported by FoxTelem.
- I created the FoxTelem Telemetry Designers Handbook to explain how FoxTelem's layouts should be designed and implemented in the configuration files.
- FoxTelem is now shipped with a prototype but comprehensive spacecraft editor. It allows designers to create layouts and configurations that FoxTelem can decode. This simplifies the painstaking work that needs to be done to specify binary telemetry layouts and how they are translated into human readable values.
- I created a pacsat implementation that runs on Linux or the Raspberry Pi. I call it pi_pacsat and you can see the pi_pacsat source code on my github site.
- Based on the Linux implementation of pacsat I supported AMSAT-NAs pacsat project and ported the pi_pacsat Linux code to RTOS. The RTOS Pacsat code is on AMSAT-NAs github repository. It is designed to run on a TMS570 processor but could no doubt be ported to other microprocessors running RTOS.
- I updated the Pacsat Groundstation to support these new implementations of the pacsat protocol. In particular I added commanding and the ability to change all of the pacsat parameters remotely. On the Linux implementation you can upload programs or scripts and run them remotely. This is quite a lot of fun.
- I did a live demonstration of pacsat (youtube) at the AMSAT-NA Symposium in 2023
- I spent considerable time supporting ARISS in its STEM education mission. I created a demo of the ARISS PI, a device to remotely control the Interoperable Radio System on the ISS. I presented a paper on Automation and remote Control (ARC) of the IORS on the ISS at the AMSAT 2024 Symposium.
- The development versions of FoxTelem are now shipped with an embedded Java Runtime Environment (JRE) as part of an installer. This simplifies installation for users on Windows and has allowed MacOs support to be re-introduced. If you have a chance to test these new installers then please give me feedback.
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