Knudsen South Earth Station

The Knudsen south station is the newest addition.

 

2 weeks before launch, ELFINers build the Knudsen south station, a beefy VHF uplink tower meant to serve as a backup uplink tower. The tower was fully erected in a week, with operational capabilities ready just in time for launch.

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Overview

Knudsen South serves as UCLA’s backup uplink station, with the planned upgrade path allowing it to serve as a full uplink/downlink backup station.

Main features of the Knudsen Station include:

  • Two phased 2MCP8A circularly polarized VHF yagis with polarizer switching capabilities

  • AlphaSpid’s Big RAS rotor with a Green Heron RT-21 Az-El controller

  • Shared Icom IC-910H for TX

  • 500 W Gemini 2-500 Linear Amplifier

  • Hamlib to control rotors/ custom tracking script using PyEphem and TLEs

  • [Planned for future] Quad array 436CP42UG cross polarized UHF Yagis

  • [Planned for future] Two FunCube Dongles Pro+'s with power splitter for RX

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Details

 

 

 

UHF/VHF Antenna

UHF/VHF Gain (Est)

Polarization

Preamplifier

Noise Figure ( with additional ZRL-700+)

Gain

Amplifier

Output Power 

Rotor

Vertical Load

Torque

Break Torque

Coax

dB/100m @ 150MHz

Run Length (Est)

 

 

436CP42UG (4x) / 2MCP22 (2x) with 17.39 dBi  (14.39 typical + 3 from phasing)

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Circular

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Gemini 2-500

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AlphaSpid Big RAS

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