Hi everyone, I kinda need help so my lab professor gave us a project and building a mini ground station, we got hex data from ConnectaIoT-1 and I kinda need to decode the hex since my professor for some reason wont accept that ConnectaIoT is a private satellite and that I cant decode it. I tried to get signals from other satellites this is the most successful one I had. Is there anyone here that can help me with it. would love to hear your thoughts and help me out on this.
There are a lot of successful receptions and decodes in the SatNOGS network.
Here is an example looking at the data the Satellite seems to use 9600 baud AX.25 G3RUH framing.
I am not aware of any details on the Hex data payload.
Jan | PE0SAT
Hi, thank you for the reply, I had the same results, I showed this to my professor and he just told me i should decode the hex, he does not accept that I got random letters and numbers, when I showed him the AX.25, also I am very new to this so there are terms I dont know sorry if i make it confusing.
I have never been into decoding. But you can make your point and show you can take the from and to “callsign” from the packet and the actual packet is not decodable for earthlings…
Which could be explained by telling no one would use a sattelite for his IoT application if his data was available to all over the world with a simple hex editor.
Here you can find satellites which we can decode, maybe there are some more that there is a description but we haven’t add them, but this is more or less for decoding.
Thank you for the reply, I would definitely use this explanation, I might also go to the main professor of the course since he wont listen.
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Thank you for this 
Just remember, their goal is not to let you fail. Their goal is to let you think of all possible solutions plus 1.
As of, communication, we tend to ask our customers at work why they want a specific solution. We ask 5 times why and usually at the third or fourth why they get annoyed and realise they did not specify their problem well enough to decide about a certain solution. That’s life and you are part of it 
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i recommended these sat , that easier to obs and decode for noob (the ax25 is human readable):
GRBBeta
ORIGAMI-2
LASAR-SAT (GFSK and CW MORSE = 2 in 1)
to learn about ksy that @fredy share the link, i recommend this thread
and to decode image / photo:
meteor m2/4
i wondering if your station running satnogs-client or no? if yes congratz, maybe you can share here. if no, this your homework, now is best time to install 
73!
bali
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Small thought, maybe it helps to separate the decoding layers here.
If you can show the RF reception, demodulation, AX.25 frame, source/destination callsigns and raw payload bytes, that is already a valid decoding result up to the public transport/protocol layer.
The remaining hex payload may still be application data, proprietary, compressed, encrypted, or simply undocumented. Without an ICD, public spec, known decoder, or repeated samples with known meaning, it is not always possible to turn those bytes into human-readable telemetry.
So for the project report, I would probably document the chain explicitly:
- signal received
- modulation/framing identified
- AX.25 frame decoded
- callsigns / packet structure extracted
- payload bytes preserved
- payload semantics unknown because no public spec is available
That makes the limitation clear, but also shows that real technical work was done.
F.
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Some of the ConnectaloT-1 frames do contain AX25 decodable information. If you look at this observationm as @pe0sat suggested, in the upper right side the page loads as hex. You can also click on ax25 and scroll down. You will then see the message. As mentioned, we do not have a decoder for most of the frames.
Good Hunting,
Bob
N6RFM
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My station is good i received signals and got the hex codes, SatNOGS Network - Observation 13954669 here is my observation, my professor wants a person from the community to verify this observation. I also tried scheduling the satellites you recommended I think my setup is limiting the signals that i get, so ill just stick to this and explain that the other hex codes couldnt get decoded and show him this post that i did. Thank you for your help.
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I would definitely show him this, He wanted us to take signals from ISS, FUNcube-1, SONATE-2, NOAA-15 / NOAA-18 / NOAA-19 and METEOR-M2-3 / METEOR-M2-4. but most of the observations I see uses a different antenna than what I use, so I think its a hardware limitation for me. Thank you for your response though I appreciate it.
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Thank you for the help, I agree and I think everyone agrees that some of the hex values that I get from ConnectaIoT isnt decodable, I just hope my professor agrees 
.
I looked at observation 13954669.
From what is visible there, I would consider it a valid technical result for a small ground station project.
The observation is marked Good, the waterfall shows signal, the pass geometry looks strong, and SatNOGS extracted several data entries for ConnectaIoT-1 using the U-GMSK 4k8 AX.25 telemetry transmitter.
So I would describe the result like this:
- RF signal received from ConnectaIoT-1
- valid pass / TLE / observation context
- demodulation and framing reached the AX.25/data level
- raw payload bytes were preserved
- full payload semantics remain unknown because there is no public decoder/spec available for most of those frames
That is still real technical work.
For your report, I would not write “I failed to decode it”. I would write that the signal was received and decoded up to the publicly identifiable protocol/framing layer, while the application payload could not be interpreted without an ICD, public decoder, or official payload specification.
F.
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some note from me:
please dont turn off your station when all is done..
based on these:
your obs result:
73!
Thank you!!
My setup is running on a portable power bank, and I couldn’t leave it running since my setup is in my rooftop and is running on mobile hotspot and some people usually go to that rooftop so I don’t want to risk it getting stolen or broken since its borrowed from the university, so I keep it inside. but thank you for the advice you helped me a lot.
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To everyone that helped me in this thank you!! I enjoyed this project minus the back and forth with my professor .
for solid proof this is the based:
run gr_satellites in listening mode:
gr_satellites CONNECTA-T1.2.yml --audio --samp_rate 48000
CONNECTA-T1.2.yml.txt (377 Bytes)
then reply the audio from this obs:
result:
gr_satellites CONNECTA-T1.2.yml --audio --samp_rate 48000
-> Packet from 4k8 GFSK downlink
Container:
header = Container:
addresses = ListContainer:
Container:
callsign = u'PLANS1' (total 6)
ssid = Container:
ch = True
ssid = 0
extension = False
Container:
callsign = u'CNT001' (total 6)
ssid = Container:
ch = False
ssid = 0
extension = True
control = 0x03
pid = 0xF0
info = b'ISTIKBAL GOKLERDEDIR! MUSTAFA KEMAL ATATURK\x00' (total 44)
identic same result with satno web decoder:
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Woah, I didnt know this existed, I will definitely do this, I think this is a better decoding proof for my professor. Thank you so much!!