PCsat, A Naval Academy Amateur Radio Satellite
note: All informations on this page was taken from the official site by WB4APR

ITALIAN LANGUAGE

PCSAT is a new satellite for Amateur comunications in APRS and has a limited Emergency Status and Reporting (SAR) capability to assure that emergency and    priority packets from travelers anywhere on the planet can be captured not
just those in range of an IGate.

It is a US Naval Academy AEROSPACE major's student project designed to give students real hands on experience in satellite design and operations. The project was funded by the Naval Academy, and a Grant from Boeing Corporation, and the launch was secured through the DOD's Space Test Program in cooperation with NASA. The project is the first of the USNA Small Satellite program under the guidance of LTCL Billy Smith and supported by the Satellite Project Engineer, Bob Bruninga, WB4APR.

Frequency used from PCsat , Starshine and Sapphire Sat's:

• 145.825 1200 baud PCsat downlink (TLM and,  QRP and HT's only)
• 145.825 9600 baud PCsat downlink (TLM and,  Mobiles)
• 144.39   1200 baud PCsat downlink over USA for brief PCsat posit and Telemetry
• 145.825 9600 baud Starshine downlink (Telemetry 1 packet per 2 minutes)
• 437.100 1200 baud Sapphire downlink (and Voice synthesizer) clik here

**** NEWS REPORT **** 23-March-2002

* PCsat reported in trouble: Bob Bruninga, WB4APR, reports that PCsat could be lost if ground controllers are not able to get the spacecraft into a positive power budget. He has asked all users to not digipeat via PCsat until further notice. Bruninga said PCsat is resetting--and running the batteries dead--on every eclipse. "This is killing it, unless we are successful soon," he said. Command stations in the Southern Hemisphere--where PCsat currently just encounters the sun and the only place where a "low power" command would have any chance of recovering the spacecraft--are working to resolve the problem. "There is nothing we in the Northern Hemisphere can do other than turn our transmitters off, so as not to add to the power load," he said. Built by midshipmen from the US Naval Academy under Bruninga's guidance and launched last September, PCsat is a 1200-baud APRS digipeater designed for use by hand-held transceivers or mobiles. Bruninga said command stations are on top of the situation, and he discouraged outside reports.

***  NEWS BULLETIN  ***

PCsat is still resetting randomly. Thus the satellite is often in a different mode than intended for users. To avoid any frustration to users and until we figure out what is going on, we are changing our recommended operating procedures so that NORMAL user mode and RESET mode are the same. THus, you will not have to change parameters if it happens to RESET prior to your pass. We are taking this step because PCsat appears to be safe, with a good power budget and not in any danger. So you are authorized to digipeat via the CALLSIGN of W3ADO-1 or W3ADO-2 in accordance with the recommended procedures posted on the satellite and web page. We will not be reloading it with the PCSAT-1 and -2 calls for now...

*** LAST NEWS ***

Due to bad sunligth PCsat is often powered Off. During MARCONI day on Dec 12th will be active with trasmission of the  "S" word  in morse and "HI" for  remind 40th of the first Amateur Satellite launched on Dec 13 year 1961.

Please for APRS trasmission use only APRSAT callsign and not W3ADO-1, thank you.

Visit the official site of PCSAT edited by Bob WB4APR for more details.

Here you can find my personal interesting and experiment with this satellite.Thank you for the support.

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