The secondary terrestrial station of the small satellite Masat-1 was also successfully tested on 31 March 2009. Levente Dudás (HA7WEN), who is also responsible for the communications subsystem of the satellite, established connection from Érd with Charles Simonyi on board of the International Space Station.

QSO data

• 31 March 2009
• 17:32 GMT
• 145,800MHz
• HA7WEN – HA5SIK
• sent report 59 +10dB, received report 59
• QTH: Érd, JN97KJ
• Rsdió: FT897
• Power: 50W
• Antenna: Antenna: 5 element cross-Yagi

Early afternoon on 31 March 2009 the ground station of the first Hungarian satellite was introduced. This will receive the signals of Masat-1 and will also control the cubesat. Charles Simonyi on board of the International Space Station was also involved in its testing.

Completion of the terrestrial station at BME and its proper operation is a significant success in the development of Masat-1, since this station will maintain contact with the satellite after launching.

The BME Ground Station is located in the Radio Club of BME in building V2 of the university. The antenna on the top of this building will track the satellite and receive the information from the space. The station mainly consists of a radio and an amplifier, an antenna rotator, and a computer connecting all these units, with monitors and software developed by our team. In addition, the position of the counterpart in space (i.e. the satellite or, in this case the ISS) is permanently displayed on an Earth map by a projector.

An automatic, computer-controlled antenna system tracks the passing satellites and ensures communication with the CubeSat Masat-1. The speed of the satellite will be approximately 7 km/s at an altitude of 600-700 km around the Earth. As a consequence of all these, it will be visible from a certain location for about 7 to 10 minutes. The orbit will be polar and sun-synchronous, i.e. it will pass above the North and South Poles, and, due to the rotation of the Earth, the satellite’s signals will be visible from almost everywhere on our planet. The communications system will be accessible for others too, therefore international radio amateurs from America to Australia will also be able to receive the satellite’s transmissions and transfer them to BME via Internet. Besides its own call sign, measurement data will also be transmitted by the CubeSat ― for instance, its on-board thermometers will measure both the internal and external temperatures.

The ground station at BME, which is the primary station of Masat-1, is already 24/7 operational. However, if this main station fails (e.g. due to the failure of the mains supply), the secondary station located in Érd will also be suitable for establishing contact with the satellite.

The terrestrial station of BUTE was tested on 29 March. The connection was actually set up by dr. András Gschwindt project manager and Gábor Marosy system engineer in the Radio Club of BUTE. A trial transmission was performed early afternoon with Levente Dudás, operating the backup station of Masat-1 in Érd. Slightly before 3:30 PM the voice of Charles Simonyi came in, who greeted every Hungarian from the International Space Station quoting from a drama of Madách. After this, Gábor greeted Simonyi too in behalf of the participants, and invited him to the developers of Masat-1. Next, the terrestrial station of BUTE gave other radio amateurs the opportunity to establish connection with Simonyi.

It was a great honor to talk to Charles Simonyi and we are pleased that the connection was mainly successful.

Even more details about the March 29 radio transmission and the terrestrial station of BUTE were presented on our press conference held on 31 March. Prior registration to the press conference and further information are available on the Press page. Everyone interested is welcome.

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The second space flight of Charles Simonyi, for which we are also preparing, is already in the doorway. We have been testing and preparing the satellite receive station of BUTE for a while to be able to reliably receive the transmissions when Simonyi establishes radio connection with several Hungarian students. This preparation may still last for a few weeks. Simultaneously with this we started to extend the station to control our satellite and receive its telemetry more efficiently.

The printed circuits boards are being designed this week and in the coming ones, where thermal aspects must also be taken into consideration besides the production constraints stipulated by the manufacturer. The vacuum does not contain any ambient air or any kind of gas in sufficient density that may be adequate for cooling / thermal exchange. The electronic components emit the generated (dissipated) heat by infrared radiation, or, via physical contacts, by conduction into the satellite structure.

Besides designing, we also visited the KFKI Research Institute for Particle and Nuclear Physics with Gyula and Zoli, where we were offered the opportunity to use an instrument that is capable to simultaneously create the vacuum and temperature we need (thermal vacuum chamber), while we are testing the satellite in operation.