Amazing New LEO Satellite; RS-44

Alan

A new Low Earth Satellite, RS-44 has recently become usable for Amateurs.

RS-44 is using a Linear Inverting transponder on the SSB mode.  RS-44 has a passband of up to 40 kHz allowing multiple QSOs for each pass.  RS-44 is unique when compared to present linear birds in that its downlink frequency is on 70 CM band.  

RS-44 is a Russian Satellite, that I understand "failed to deploy" and is attached to its delivery vehicle in a higher than normal orbit.  Also at 5 watts of  RF output power, it is much higher than other LEO birds of typical 10 Mw of output power.

All this makes for a very powerful satellite.

Attached is a video of the Satellite screen of my first observation of a pass.   Several key observations;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GTVDt_0yS8&feature=youtu.be

1- The doppler on the downlink (the upper panadapter) is very pronounced.  Note how FlexSatPC is doing a fine job of tracking the downlink (upper panadapter) and the uplink (lower panadapter).  You can see me moving the downlink frequency and the uplink following below.

2- See the SATPC32 map on the left.  The cone of influence for RS-44 is very large.   I was listening to "pile-ups" on a station calling CQ from Europe, as I sit in my Michigan station.   I have never experienced that before!

Programs in use are SatPC32, FlexSat and Smart SDR.

Alan
WA9WUD 

Steven WA8Y

Hey, cool, I'll have to try it. Thanks for the YouTube but where's the audio?