Amateur Radio
HAM Radio at USASK
Historically, the University of Saskatchewan had an Armature Radio Club called VE5US. This club was formed in 1956 with a station located at the top of the College of Engineering building. Members were given lessons to secure a license, allowing students to communicate with other universities across the country and allowing free contact between students and their families. During the clubs operations the club expanded its bandwidth to communicate around the globe. Unfortunately, with the development and surge of the internet,'s operations, the club came to an end.
Currently, the HAM radio community at the University of Saskatchewan is hosted by the SkCubeSat Amateur Radio Club, operating under the call sign VA5RAD.
Amateur Radio on RADSAT-SK2
A major objective of RADSAT-SK2 is to support the amateur radio community through educational outreach and operational services. We accomplish this through two primary methods:
Educational Outreach
All operators on the RADSAT-SK2 team are required to obtain their basic amateur radio licenses, with strong encouragement to pursue advanced licenses. This initiative aims to increase awareness of the amateur radio community in Saskatoon by providing students with hands-on project experience, fostering interest in local amateur radio groups, and promoting collaboration with other operators.
Amateur Radio Services
RADSAT-SK2 will provide dedicated amateur radio services to promote and support the amateur community worldwide:
Beaconing
A global beacon will transmit telemetry data, including GPS location, and battery voltage information. The beacon is critical for first contact and mission operations, operating on a scheduled basis to provide consistent monitoring capabilities for amateur radio operators worldwide. The beacon will operate on UHF using Morse code at 15 words per minute (15WPM) with ITU designator 400HA1A.
Beacon Operations
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Frequency: UHF (Global coverage)
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Modulation: Morse Code (15 words per minute)
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Content: Telemetry data, GPS location, battery voltage
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ITU Designator: 400HA1A
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Coverage: Global
Digipeater (Digital Repeater)
Global Digipeater to Advance Ham Community
The satellite will feature a digipeater service with worldwide VHF uplink capability and UHF downlink coverage limited to ITU Region 2 (the Americas). This configuration allows global access while focusing downlink coverage on the regions most relevant to the mission. Digipeater will be VHF uplink UHF downlink 25K0G1DAN
Digipeater Operations
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Uplink: VHF (Global coverage)
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Modulation: GFSK, 9600 bps
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Downlink: UHF (ITU Region 2 - Americas only)
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ITU Designator: 25K0G1DAN
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Purpose: Packet relay for amateur radio operators
Spacecraft System
Transceiver
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2 Needronix cormorant transceivers will be used on RADSAT-SK2.
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One will be set to VHF and the other will be set to UHF.
Uplink
Downlink
Frequency
VHF (144-146 MHz)
UHF (435-438 MHz)
ITU Designator
15KOF1DAN
15KOF1DAN
Modulation
GF5K
GF5K
Data Rate
9600 bps
9600 bps
Antenna
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VHF and UHF antennas will be based on an open-source design from the University of Victoria's Orcasat project.
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The antennas are linearly polarized dipole antennas
Ground Station (RADSHACK-SK)
RADSAT-SK2 has a ground station located at the University of Saskatchewan. This station is used primarily for communication with RADSAT-SK2, however RADSAT-SK2 members can utilize the RADSHACK-SK to gain experience using amateur services such as Amateur Radio on the ISS (ARISS). Students will also communicate with amateur digipeaters using the same Needronix transceiver, a list of satellites is available here Missions | Needronix
The Ettus Research USRP B210 is the main software-defined radio (SDR) used by the RADSAT-SK2 ground station. Our GNURadio flowgraph will be posted on the team’s GitHub page once it has been completed and thoroughly tested.