FASTRAC Digipeating Announcement

December 1, 2011
Sebastián Muñoz

The FASTRAC satellites have been in operation for more than a year and the team has been able to get a lot of data from them, in great part due to the amazing support from the amateur radio community.

Over the last month the team noticed that one of the on board microcontrollers on FASTRAC-1 which controls one of the experiments has not been booting up correctly. The team has done everything possible to correct this issue apart from turning it off which can only happen if the batteries fall below an specific charge level. Since the satellites have been power positive throughout this whole year the only way this can happen is if the satellites transmit more often. Given that one of FASTRAC goals has always been to eventually provide a platform for amateur radio enthusiasts to use after the primary mission was over, the team has decided to open up FASTRAC-1 to the amateur radio community with the hope as more people use it to digipeat through the satellite, the battery levels will diminish and cause a hard reset of the microcontrollers on board.

The satellite will be configured so that amateur radio operators can use it beginning on Friday Dec 2 at 10:00 AM CST. Starting on this date people will be able to digipeat through the satellites. The call sign and frequencies of the satellite are summarized below in Table 1 and an example of digipeating through the satellite is also shown in Figure 1. To increase the chances of causing a hard reset, it is requested that as many amateur radio enthusiasts try to digipeat through the satellite on the weekend of Dec 10. If you are successful at digipeating through the satellites or have any problems doing so please let us know at fastracsats@gmail.com, through our Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/fastracsats) or through the forums on our website (http://fastrac.ae.utexas.edu/for_radio_operators/users/phpBB3/index.php).

Frequency Information for FASTRAC-1



Example of Digipeating through FAST1

Here the example shows KE5DTW (UT Austin Ground Station) digipeating through FAST1 to connect to CALLSIGN. CALLSIGN represents an arbitrary callsign and should be replaced with the callsign of the
station with whom a connection is being attempted. The above example is based on a Kantronics KPC9612+ TNC.

For a PDF version of the announcement please go to the following link: http://fastrac.ae.utexas.edu/FASTRAC_Digipeating_Announcement.pdf

Thanks a lot,

THE FASTRAC TEAM

News Archive

December 1, 2011 - FASTRAC Digipeating Announcement by Sebastián Muñoz

March 9, 2011 - FASTRAC is Separating!! by Sebastian Muñoz

November 20, 2010 - FASTRAC Is In Orbit! by

November 19, 2010 - FASTRAC is launching Tonight!!!! by

November 2, 2010 - FASTRAC is launching this Month!!! by S. Munoz and E. Ferguson

April 19, 2010 - FASTRAC Ready to go into Space!! by Sebastian Munoz

June 26, 2008 - FASTRAC Satellites Get Updated Software, New Antennas by Stephen Clark

March 8, 2008 - FASTRAC Satellites to Set Up and Ship Out! by Eric Hagen

August 27, 2006 - Satellites Undergoing Testing at AFRL by Glenn Lightsey

June 25, 2006 - FASTRAC Satellites Leave Texas by Greg Holt

June 14, 2006 - FASTRAC Frequency Request Submitted by Glenn Lightsey

December 15, 2005 - FASTRAC Mission Receives Critical D.O.D. Ranking for Launch by Jamin Greenbaum

April 20, 2005 - FASTRAC Personnel Changes by Glenn Lightsey

January 11, 2005 - FASTRAC Victorious, Headed to Space! by Glenn Lightsey

January 7, 2005 - FASTRAC Headed to Nevada for Competition by Glenn Lightsey

January 3, 2005 - FASTRAC Satellite Completes Thermal/Vacuum Test by Glenn Lightsey

December 19, 2004 - Satellite Integration Nears Completion by Glenn Lightsey

December 7, 2004 - FASTRAC Thermal Vac Testing Progresses by Greg Holt

November 28, 2004 - Solar Cells See Sunlight by Greg Holt

July 27, 2004 - FASTRAC Separation Test aboard KC-135 a Success! by FASTRAC team

May 15, 2004 - Balloon Satellite by FASTRAC team