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WHAT IS TELEMETRY?

Telemetry is the science of measuring a quantity; then transmitting the measured quantity/value to a distant station where these data transmitted by means of radio wave are intercepted recorded and/or analaysed for utility. Amateur Radio Satellites send continuous Morse code telemetry on their primary beacon frequencies. This telemetry is arranged in blocks. For example a telemetry message from a Russian (erstwhile) Radio Sports Satellite might look like: K00 D75084 G01 U01 S17 W18 RS3. The block consists of seven sections and a call-sign(RS3). Each section contains one or two letters and two figures. In the above example, various information like output power, voltage, charge current, satellite temperature, transmitter temperature etc. can be decoded also the information whether the transponder is ON or OFF can be known. In this telemetry, according to data available by the radio amateurs, the letter K is equivalent to the value 0.2 and to get the power of the transmitter the formula to use is K x 0 x 0 = 0.2x0x0=0, that means the satellite’s transponder is ‘OFF’.