• Author Author: rsc
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Automatic Satellite Tracking System

Table of contents

Automatic Satellite Tracking System

Abstract

This project is an automatic satellite tracking antenna system for amateur radio communications.

This project is an update to my satellite tracking project started a few years ago.  It seems fitting to include it as a Time and Space Project14 entry.  The only issue is that I don't use any arduino boards in the system.

 SatNOGS automatic satellite tracking antenna rotator 

As part of a grant from the ARDC (Amateur Radio Digital Communications Foundation), our radio club at the University of Notre Dame purchased the equipment to build up this system.

The parts that we purchased is as follows:

MSQ-2MCP14 2M band Yagi antenna

MSQ-436CP30 70cm band  Yagi antenna

ZYS-G-5500 Yaesu G-5500DC Azimuth-Eleevation Rotor System

ZYS-GS-232B Computer interface for G-5500

ZXN-25-TPD Tripod for antenna

SatPC32 tracking system software

https://www.dk1tb.de/indexeng.htm

The antennas took a full day to assemble.  Here's a pic of the assembled system a few months ago before winter. 

I will be putting the system back together again now that the weather is getting better.

image

Two antennas are required because the ISS repeater communicates using one band for upload and another for download.

The FM voice repeater frequencies are 145.800MHz, and 437.800MHz.  The APRS digital packet frequency is 145.825MHz

The status of various (LEO) low earth orbit satellites including the ISS can be found at this link

https://amsat.org/status/

The current status of the ISS (International Space Station) radios can be found at this link

https://www.ariss.org/current-status-of-iss-stations.html

Here's a video of the system tracking in operation.

The SATpc32 software gets the orbit coordinates of the satellite chosen for tracking, and interfaces with the rotor controller to automatically point the antenna in the direction of the satellite.

image

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Category : Project
  • in reply to kmikemoo

    Most of the time the "making contact" part is very difficult because you only have a couple of minutes when the satellite is passing overhead at a high enough elevation to send and receive a good signal.  At the same time there can be dozens of other people trying to make a contact in several states in a zone that can be a thousand miles in diameter.  I actually talked to an astronaut once, that was fun.

  • Nice project,  .  I had though about something similar - but then had to admit that I wasn't ready to take on a challenge of that magnitude. Laughing  I'm still more enamored with the tracking capability than I am with the "making a contact" aspect.