RS-44 Amateur Radio Satellite

| September 6, 2023 | Amateur Radio (Ham Radio), Amateur Radio Satellites | No Comments

RS-44 Amateur Radio Satellite

DOSAAF-85 (RS-44) is an amateur radio satellite with a linear transponder (SSB/CW).  RS-44 was launched in December 2019. It is a V/U satellite with uplink from 145.935-145.995 MHz and downlink from 435.670-435.610 MHz. The transponder has 60 kHz bandwidth. It has an inverting transponder, meaning that uplink is on LSB and downlink on USB. It is fully operational with a lot of DX communications going on. Unlike the FM satellites, SSB satellites have higher bandwidth, which allows multiple stations to have QSOs at the same time, but you need an SSB capable radio, which I do not have currently!

RS-44 has an elliptical orbit with a perigee of 1175 km and an apogee of 1511 km and an inclination of 82.5 degrees. The onboard radio has 5 watts power output and there is a beacon which transmits CW callsign RS44 at 435.605 MHz. If you have a look at the AMSAT Live OSCAR Satellite Status Page, you can see that it is uniformly active, with numerous status reports.