Joe Fitzgerald, KM1P, writes on the Sci-Tech ARS mailing list:Several satellites carrying Amateur radio payloads are expected to launch next week. While launches are often delayed due to technical and weather issues, presently the launch is scheduled 0403 UTC July 2, or slightly after midnight local time. New England Sci-Tech and its crack team of orbital analysts stands ready to supply the amateur radio community with the Two Line Elements, AKA TLEs that describe the orbit of an earth satellite via daily bulletins. TLEs are used by tracking software to determine exactly when satellites will pass overhead, and where to point your antennas.
The satellites in this mission are designed to be in a “sun synchronous” orbit which takes advantage of the slight bulge of the earth at the equator nudge the orbit the orbit such that it passes over ground stations at approximately the same times every day. Since this launch is at 9 pm local time, we expect these satellites to pass over us at about 9AM and 9PM daily . This orbit was chosen in part to assure that these spacecraft are always in sunlight reducing the need for on board batteries. If you don’t want to stay up to watch the launch, don’t despair, you can listen for the new baby satellites on Tuesday morning once the rotation of the earth places us under the orbital plane of these birds. Below is a summary of the satellites transmitting in the amateur satellite service, more details of these and other payloads transmitting in other services are available.
MESAT-1 has a 30 kHz wide V/U Transponder plus a 1k2 BPSK telemetry downlink. Telemetry downlink 435.800 MHz with transponder downlink 435.810-435.840 MHz, and transponder uplink 145.910-145.940 MHz Note: the ham radio equipment on this spacecraft was provided by NEST partner AMSAT.
Serenity has a 4k8 FM with AX25 on 437.100 MHz
CatSat UHF downlink using 9k6 or 38k4 GMSK but will also relay WSPR and FT8 signals from HF. Downlinks on 437.185 MHz and 10470.00 MHz
KubeSat 1 UHF downlink using 9k6 GMSK. A downlink on 437.085 MHz
SOC-i UHF downlink using 4k8 GMSK. downlink 437.125 MHz
-Joe KM1P