November 9, 2019

If you bought Fox-in-a-Box SD card from the AMSAT store and it has a serial number older than 110 (that is you received it before about November 4, 2019), or if you downloaded the SD card image from this website, before about November 10, 2019 there is a newer, better-performing version of FoxTelem with some new features available.  As of about November 9th, I am attempting to upload an image of this version to this website.

The AMSAT store SD cards are now shipping this newer version, V1.08r and you can upgrade by buying a new card.  However, it is also easy to do yourself, either by downloading the new image from this site, or just upgrading FoxTelem on your existing SD card.  Here are the instructions for upgrading FoxTelem:

1) Download FoxTelem V1.08r from 

http://amsat.us/FoxTelem/linux/FoxTelem_1.08r_linux.tar.gz

You can do this as follows:

You may get a notification from the older FoxTelem that there is a new version available with a question about whether you want to download it.  Say yes and click on the FoxTelem_1.08r_linux.tar.gz link when it appears.

If you do not see this notification, or if you said "no" when it appeared, go to the "raspberry" menu on your Raspberry Pi, slide down to "Internet" and choose "Chromium Browser".  Then type the above URL (internet address) into the top white window of the browser.

In either case, the file should download and you will see a rectangle button at the bottom of the browser with the name of the file you just downloaded.  Be sure to wait until the download is complete!

2) Extract the folder containing FoxTelem V1.08r from the "tarball" archive.  Click on the button with the filename, and you should start up the program "Xarchiver" which will show a folder on the screen entitled "FoxTelem_1.8r_linux" (without .tar.gz).

Hit the 'extract' button at the top of the screen (it looks like an empty box with a tag on the side (not the box with the green arrow pointing into it).  You will get a file choice dialog.  Have it extract the folder to your desktop (type "Desktop" in place of "Downloads" in the text that is there).  

3) Edit the startup shell script to point to the new folder.  Close the browser and archiver windows.  Find "StartFoxTelem" on the desktop.  Right click and select Text Editor.  About 3 lines from the bottom of the file you are editing, you will see something like:

cd /home/pi/Desktop/foxtelem_1.07y

Change foxtelem_1.07y to FoxTelem_1.08r_linux.  You must get the upper and lower case letters correct when you make this change.  Then choose the menu file/save.  Then file/quit.  

4) Run FoxTelem and allow it to update its properties and spacecraft files.  Double click on the newly-edited StartFoxTelem.  It will give you a number of choices.  Select "Execute". FoxTelem will start and give you several dialog boxes like "Could not read properties" and "New Spacecraft File".  In all cases answer yes.

You are done.  You can reboot your system to be sure it all starts automatically as it did before.  There are also updated instructions in the folder you extracted that describe the new features.  One important new feature is that FoxTelem V1.08r can switch between receive bands depending on the current satellite.  This is necessary for Fox-1e and HuskySat.  HuskySat is currently inside a Cygnus spacecraft docked at the space station.  We anticipate that it will be moved to a higher orbit, released, and turned on sometime in January, 2020.  Fox-1e is expected to be launched "real soon now".  There may be a race to see which satellite is available first!

73,

Burns WB1FJ