AO-92 Amateur Radio Satellite Has Come Back to Life!

AO-92 Amateur Radio Satellite Has Come Back to Life!

AO-92, also known as Fox-1D, was launched on the PSLV-C40 mission from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India on January 12, 2018. AO-92 which was thought to have been inactive recently has come back to life and a few reports of ‘Transponder/Repeater’ active have appeared on the AMSAT Live OSCAR Satellite Status Page. N2YO website has also noted AO-92 as active. Incidentally, AMSAT Webpage on AO-92 has the full pass voice recording of the first pass way back in January 2018, when it was opened for amateur use. In addition to a U/v FM transponder, AO-92 also had L-Band Downshifter, Virginia Tech Camera, and the University of Iowa’s High Energy Radiation CubeSat Instrument (HERCI). The status report on the AMSAT Live OSCAR Satellite Status page is of the U/v transponder with uplink on 435.350 MHz with CTCSS tone of 67 Hz and downlink on 145.880 MHz.

L-Band Downshifter working on L/v mode has uplink on 1267.350 MHz and downlink on 145.880 MHz. The AMSAT webpage on AO-92 gives Doppler correction details for both transponders. Interestingly no Doppler correction has been mentioned for downlink, which is fixed at 145.880 MHz for all steps. Five frequency steps each of 5 kHz have been given for the U/v transponder and thirteen steps of 5 kHz each have been given for the L/v transponder. Earlier, the transponder schedules were to be published on AMSAT Satellite Schedules webpage. But the page has not been updated yet and mentions that ‘AO-92’s transmitter is currently off due to low battery voltage’. KO4MA, who in 2018 had declared AO-92 open for amateur use, in his Twitter post today, has mentioned that we are free to use the repeater while illuminated and reports as well as FoxTLM data would be appreciated.