Look at that antenna! WOW. Is more information available or coming out?
TKS
Bob
N6RFM
2 Likes
To be short, I tried to make an antenna to fit into my backpack, so it will be easier to transport. Seen some pictures in the internet I found similar helical antenna and tried to make a DIY one for 70 cm band. IT WORKS but it is an alpha-version, to experiment with…all its elements. It has many issues - it is bulky - nearly 900g, to much sail force in the wind, and some other but it worth to continue improvements. Now I see that I undeservedly forgot this project (mage it last summer) as I have many other projects of interest and very little time and energy so when I`ll be satisfyed with the result I might be decicive enough to publish a more detalied article.
Reflector`s material - faraday fabric (or anti-RF), helical wire - copper braid (for solder removing). Others - nylon straps, plastic tubes and 3d printed parts
Here are some photos, old, but the most sucсessful ones)
7 Likes
SILVERSAT 11:34-11:36 UTC Same image, helical RHCP antenna. 56 valid packets in 2 minutes, lost first minutes of IQ record as my usb cable got disconnected from smartphone.
Small addition - signal strength pulsation was observed, mostly sensible in the beginning of the pass, but the more satellite goes higher in the sky the lesser this effect. This also might be felt more noticable as antenna was deformed by the stronger wind so its radiation pattern changed
6 Likes
Just received the packets over VU Region. Signal strength flickers.
1 Like
Can you some day scheduled for transmission over Indonesia/Southeast Asia please 
What days and times do you want do receive it? We can schedule sessions after 2 February at 17:00 UTC. In the meantime, we might schedule a few during high passes (in which case we will post times to SilverSat’s social media).
1 Like
Thank You!!
All - We have canceled the upcoming SSDV downloads as of 2026-02-01T22:27:00 while we sort out our attitude problem. I will let you know when these resume. The beacon will still be active, and US stations may hear data as we pull down telemetry.
Dave
KC3CQJ
2 Likes
Tonight’s SilverSat pass (2231utc on 01-Feb) was not on the SSDV schedule, but instead of CW, I got all kinds of neat data:
6 Likes
That was the satellite responding to commands I was sending it. Somewhere in there should be two ‘RES CPQ’ responses, which was me clearing the SSDV downlink queue. We need to pause our payload operation for what is hopefully only a few days.
10 Likes
The ‘RES GPW’ line is telemetry from the power system. The battery is at 4.22V, 0.12A current. Battery temperatures are around 13 deg C. The ‘RES GTY’ is a response from the accelerometer / gyroscope.
8 Likes
Very interesting! Thanks for the info.
1 Like
The SSDV downlinks from SilverSat continue to be fantastic - thanks to all involved in making that happen!
Is there enough power, or whatever the limiting resource might be, to extend (or repeat) each of the scheduled events? What I mean is, I keep seeing high-elevation passes on the schedule for my location but the downlink has finished before the satellite is high enough above the horizon to see a signal.
Please don’t get me wrong - it’s great that you target a wide variety of locations to give everyone a chance! But when a time slot is chosen, would it be possible to repeat the downlink once every minute or two? I’m sure everyone will understand if that pushes the hardware too hard… so just asking.
Thanks!!
2 Likes
2026-02-07T08:43:35 shas
2026-02-07T08:46:38 shai
2026-02-07T08:49:43 shat
1 Like
Yep, the Event got cancelled:
2 Likes
@K4KDR - The picture repeats 3 times during each scheduled SSDV downlink. Overall, they should be about 6 minutes long. Currently, we’ve paused both the camera operations and the image downlinks while we work through our attitude problem. I’m hoping we can resume soon.
Our scheduling process is a bunch of students sitting around table each running gpredict and picking times by hand. We try to do a week’s worth of passes at a time, and then go out to the ground station and uplink them to the satellite on the next available pass. They take requests, if there are times that are especially good. The Eastern US is probably disadvantaged because we will often leave the high passes over Maryland free for tweet opportunities.
I’ll definitely let this crowd know when we can resume.
8 Likes
Thanks a million for the update!!
And of course, best of luck w/ the issue being looked at currently.
-Scott
Hey All -
We are resuming our camera operations and SSDV downlinks within the next 2 days. Someone from SilverSat will post SSDV times here as we uplink them to the satellite
Dave
5 Likes