@fredy - This is indeed for NRCSD29. SilverSat’s deployment is at 08:20 UTC. I can check with our deployer-mates and see if they’re OK with me sharing their information.
We will need to command the SilverSat beacon on, and our first opportunity to do this will be ~14:50 UTC. One thing to note: our antenna is a turnstile perpendicular to the magnetically-stabilized axis. We will be predominately LHCP for northern-hemisphere stations and predominately RHCP for southern-hemisphere stations.
We made first contact with SilverSat at ~14:46 UTC. The beacon should now be on, transmitting every three minutes. The beacon is 16 wpm CW: ‘WP2XGW’ followed by 4 characters of status.
We had limited success on this pass, but it was a very low elevation pass. The satellite responded to No Op commands and to setting the beacon, but other commands got dropped. We will have a better shot on the next pass.
For now the following TLE can be used and the satellites will be added to https://db.satnogs.org/ so it can also be used to create observations in the network.
Decodes won’t be possible because it is using LoRA.
If other modes are used or more satellites specific decoding software is available please share it.
By chance does anyone have additional information, or contact with the Foras Promineo Team? I emailed the contact on their IARU Coordination page but have not gotten any reply.
Until we get word that CU-Alpha goes active with its LoRa downlink, I have been monitoring 437.400 for any sign of the 125k LoRa downlink from Foras Promineo, but nothing so far.
If the Spreading Factor parameter listed on the SatNogs page (SF6) is correct, I fear that it’s going to be extremely difficult to get a clean decode from this satellite.
SF6 produces a packet that resembles a camera flash going off - nearly instantaneous. If fact, it’s such an extreme transmission that I have thus far failed to get clean decodes IN-HOUSE between LoRa-capable devices! As a sanity check, I changed both devices to SF10 and the payload decodes perfectly.
So, just wanted to ask in case anyone knew anything about this satellite or if the Team is monitoring this thread, we sure would love to hear from you.
