JY1Sat, JO-97, Jordan-OSCAR 97 Amateur Radio Satellite

JY1Sat, JO-97, Jordan-OSCAR 97 Amateur Radio Satellite

JY1Sat designated as JO-97 is Jordan’s first Amateur Radio satellite, which was launched on 3rd December, 2018. It is a 1U CubeSat, a project of the Crown Prince Foundation of Jordan. Name of the satellite reminds us the callsign of Jordan’s late King Hussein, JY1. JO-97 has an inverting linear transponder for SSB/CW. It is a U/V transponder with uplink on 435.100 to 435.120 MHz and downlink on 145.855 to 145.875 MHz. In addition, it had a Slow-Scan Digital Video (SSDV) system to transmit stored images. It has an altitude of around 550 km. On checking the AMSAT Live OSCAR Satellite Status Page, it can be seen that it has been heard in several countries almost regularly.

Other names for the satellite are FUNcube 6 and Jordan-OSCAR 97. It was built by a team of engineering students from various universities in Jordan. Royal Jordanian Radio Amateur Society is a key partner for the project and contributed the necessary ham radio expertise and equipment in support of the mission. Several excellent SSDV images received on 145.840 MHz in Thessaloniki, Greece in 2019 has been posted online by SV2HWM. The images were received using Moonraker Turnstile antenna and RTL-SDR.COM DVB-T Tuner Dongle. They are of much higher quality than the SSTV images received by many of us during the recent session of SSTV transmission from Amateur Radio on International Space Station.