lunedì 28 dicembre 2015

A SSTV image from new satellite Fox-1a (AO-85)

A Slow Scan TV (SSTV) image that a Brazilian radio amateur reported receiving on 13 December from Fox-1A (AO-85) was most likely a prank, not any sort of official test of the satellite's SSTV capabilities.
AMSAT Vice President for Engineering Jerry Buxton, N0JY, said the Robot 36 image, which depicted a cartoon fox and the legend
"Testing Fox-1A/AO-85 AMSAT satellite," was of terrestrial origin and transmitted via the AO-85 satellite's transponder.

"I can tell you that in South America, they are having some fun and that our analogue-to-digital to analogue IHU processing of the audio seems to work very well at SSTV frequencies!" Buxton told the ARRL.
"I do not know who uplinked the signal, but it was a ground-satellite-ground contact, nothing that originated on AO-85."
Buxton called the prank "just a very good demonstration of the capability of the FM repeater on the Fox-1 series satellites."
The FM satellite uplink is at 435,170 MHz (67 Hz CTCSS tone required). The downlink is at 145,978 MHz. Both frequencies are subject to Doppler shift.
(Credit:  Southgate)