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KiwiSAT will now carry an additional special beacon which, it is planned, will be used by radio amateurs around the world to collect data on atmospheric aberrations to assist with finite information collection directly associated with Global Warming concerns and Carbon Balance monitoring.
Details have yet to be finalized however the KiwiSAT structure has been modified to incorporate a second 70cm monopole mounted on the Z- face.
A high level of filtering has been incorporated to minimize any desensitizing of the on-board 70 cm receivers.
The operation of the beacon will be switched as required but will normally be ON for whole orbit data collection.
The KiwiSAT linear flight transponder is currently transmitting from the Whangaparaoa area with beam antennas pointing South.
Transponder is inverting type to compensate for Doppler shift when in orbit.
* Transmit Power is 2 Watts PEP.
* Beacon frequency is 145.885 MHz
* Uplink is from 435.265 to 435.235 MHZ LSB (note the sideband)
* Down link is from 145.850 to 145.880 MHz USB A test transmission on 435.2544 LSB came out at 145.860 USB.
As it’s a linear transponder 30kHz wide, any mode can be used, but FM is discouraged (but not banned). Amateur stations are encouraged to try out the transponder. Try to better the previous distance of record of 292 km previously achieved with the prototype transponder (same location/antenna).
Reports welcome to < amsat-zl(at)kiwisat.org >
[ANS thanks AMSAT-ZL for the above information]