Fox In A Box

Fox in Box... no, not a Dr. Seuss rhyming story, but a pre-configured software distribution of the fox satellite telemetry software.

http://burnsfisher.com/AMSAT/FoxInABox/Building%20The%20Fox-in-a-Box.pdf
Building The Fox-in-a-Box(FIAB)Raspberry Pi Telemetry Station, 
Burns Fisher, WB1FJ ,Chris Thompson G0KLA/AC2CZ
 
I really don't know the full history here, but I put together a 7" screen, Raspberry Pi 3, RTL-SDR receiver, and this pre-configured SD card containing an image that was essentially plug-reboot-and-play.

I originally hooked this up to my 2m/70cm MFJ groundplane, but that seems to have been compromised and does not deliver a strong enough signal. Not sure of the coax has been damaged but I noticed a degradation of signals first when I had my HP Stream tablet setup to receive NOAA WX images.  Using this, I had only been able to pull maybe a dozen packets a week with FIAB.

Right now, I've shifted to a fixed orientation of my elk log periodic, just pointing NW at around 30 degree elevation, and am picking up dozens of packets a day across AO-85, 91 and 92, ... I think I picked up 1 packet from AO-95 when I caught a good pass and tracked the satellite directly by hand.

Eventually I'm going to change to yet another antenna and computer controlled tracking.

To that end, I'm putting my gasping U-100 az rotor to bed. Both the manual controller and the rotor itself need serious troubleshooting, and I just don't have the time. These will go into storage until I retire and can take on the project of fixing them. In the meantime, I ordered a Yaesu G-450A to go along with my nicely working Kenpro KR-500 elevation rotor.

Next up after getting that working will be to finally try building the "New Old Stock" TAPR Trakbox kit I purchased last year (was it last or 2 years ago???).

In the meantime, my current Fox Telemetry standings are:
#333 KA2CZU

and the last sat I collected data on was:

AO-92 (Fox-1D) | latest spacecraft health | Camera Images
Frames: 65,175 - last 24 hours: 6,819 - last 90 mins: 867
From ground stations:
SQ5WAF TI2RF K4OZS N8MH N9IP WA4SCA K4RGK KK4YEL KO4MA KB5SQG W8MRR KB2ESY NA5SS N5ZNL K9EK-FIAB K3ADA W2MMD wc7v-dn46 K3RLD-RPi K9JKM WB1FJ-main W1EME W2JTM KA2CZU KD8TBD

Happy Sat Hunting everyone and 73!