[amsat-bb] Digital Voice Transponder Satellites

[Peter Goodhall (2M0SQL)]

Hi Clayton,

TL;DR: I think it was Linux/GNU Radio that limited the uptake.

For myself I had a couple of contacts via the satellite, it was mostly
due to the logistics of the software stack required. for myself I have
my automated station running on the Windows with SatPC32 and some
custom software for controlling antenna settings so this needs to be
running and for LO-90 I needed a separate computer running Linux with
GNU Radio, sadly that landed during a period where I moved and no
longer had a permanent setup for a while.

I'm all for a digital satellite, in fact, I'd like to see the AMSAT
community launch another one as in theory could have quite a few
signals in the same bandwidth of a standard FM sat, but for the
community to "take it up" I think the software supporting it needs to
be Windows/Multiplatform in an easy to use form as not everyone is
comfortable with GNU Radio, let alone Linux.

I suspect for portable ops to take it up, if a software setup could
run on a little arm board or similar without much hassle again people
would use it with simpler setups.

Hopefully, we can launch another.

73,

Peter.

On Thu, 4 Apr 2019 at 20:27, Clayton Coleman W5PFG via AMSAT-BB
<amsat-bb at amsat.org> wrote:
>
> Historically, strong opinions about digital vs. analog voice
> transponders have been made public here on the AMSAT-BB.
>
> Since Chinese satellite LO-90 recently re-entered and is no longer
> available, I wanted to hear from those that are pro-digital-voice
> satellites on their experiences using it. LO-90 was single channel but
> it offered a perfect platform to experiment with digital voice on an
> amateur satellite.
>
> I congratulate the team that built it for trying something new and
> giving us an opportunity to play with it.
>
> It is my observation that the satellite had very little use, as
> evidenced by the telemetry dashboard statistics. Why was that? I seem to
> recall many pro-digital voice conversations on the AMSAT-BB in the past.
> This was an excellent opportunity to try digital voice, and yet so few did.
>
> My excuse was that “life got in the way” and I didn’t spend the time
> until near the very end of its operational life. Unfortunately, I let
> time slip away and didn’t get to enjoy this fascinating digital voice
> experiment as much as I should have. Thankfully I was able to get my
> station up and running in time to hear my own voice, decode, and submit
> telemetry before re-entry.
>
> Are we ready for digital voice? Why or why not?
>
> 73,
> Clayton
> W5PFG
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