AO-123 FM transponder will be continuously on soon!

AO-123 (ASTRU-1) is a 12U Cubesat which was launched last year. One Cubesat unit measures 10 x 10 x 10 cm. FM transponder was activated intermittently on weekends and I could have a contact with E21EJC from Thailand over a distance of about 2700 km on AO-123 once. Now it has been reported on AMSAT Bulletin Board that starting this weekend AO-123 will be activated continuously. That will add one more FM satellite for us to work regularly! The amateur radio payload on AO-123 has provision for telecommand uplink and telemetry/digital image downlink.

The telemetry downlink is on UHF while the image downlink is on 10.5 GHz band. Amateur radio transponder is a V/U transponder with uplink on 145.850 MHz requiring a 67 Hz CTCSS tone and the downlink on 435.400 MHz. Doppler correction is needed during the pass as usual. Satellite is available on Gpredict satellite tracking software for Doppler and other details. The transponder is an SDR based transceiver.