Seminar on Antenna Development by ACE GS team

An ISTE approved two weeks short term training program on "Recent Trends In Antenna & Wireless Communication" (14th June 2016 -24th June 2016) was organized by Department of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering, Atharva College of Engineering, Mumbai. 

The training program was targeted towards academicians, scientist, researchers, faculty members interested in the field on antenna & wireless communication to enhance their knowledge and research skills.

Atharva Satellite Ground Station team collaborated in the training program on 14th June, 2016, by presenting a session on:

• Working of an antenna
• Antenna parameters
• Yagi Uda antenna structure and working
• Design process of Yagi Uda antenna
• Fabrication process of Yagi Uda antenna

Apart from this, the distinguished alumni from Atharva College of Engineering and from the previous generation of the Ground Station team, Mr. Anoop Tiwari and Mr. Priyank Salot, presented a session on:

• Projects undertaken by Atharva Satellite Ground Station
• Plasma antenna structure and working
• Plasma antenna designing process
• Plasma antenna fabrication process

Also, the team showed the Ground Station setup to the audience of the training program to give an insight about our tracking and data acquisition process.

Mr. Anoop Tiwari giving insights on Plasma Antenna

Mr. Priyank Salot giving presentation on Antennas

Faculties from various colleges attended this seminar

Miss. Aishwarya Wahane giving presentation on Antenna Development

AD8302 Test Sucess and Visit to IIT-B

Date: 15th July 2016
A very important day for history of ACE-GS when the chip AD8302 which is used for detecting phase change for RF frequencies 145.98 Mhz and 437.455 Mhz was finally characterized and tested.
The day began with a warm welcome from the Pratham Team and discussion regarding the work of Pratham. Various thoughts were exchanged between teams about the project. Pratham team gave us insight on the launch of the satellite, their deadline and work they are conducting. After the discussion we carried on the testing procedure of our AD8302 chip. We started our tests with help of RF function generators, multi meters. We were able to get correct values as expected in datasheet of the AD8302 module. Both the chips were verified and tested at their facility and We would like to thank the whole Pratham team for facilitating this visit. Their immense support has helped ACE GS to be ready for Pratham Project.

Team working on the testing of AD8302 chip

RF function generator used for testing

AD8302 Chip and Function Generator used for testing

Tracking Satellite Success

We started the new year with a target to complete link by fabricating antennas for both VHF and UHF band.
Research was undertaken by Team. Team a lot of papers and gained lots of insights on the following topics:
1. Protection of antennas from weather and degradation.
2. Design of Yagi Uda antenna in various methods,
3. Fabrication of Yagi Uda antenna in various methodology.

Apart from these topics we sat down and fixed a method to fabricate the antenna and complete the link setup and start receiving beacons from satellites.

During this period we found out that the essential part of fabrication is accuracy. Also, for a good SWR and Bandwidth the dipole is an essential part. The folding was undertaken by the indigenous brains inside the team who can build a solution in minutes. The folded dipole was then constructed using a former.

We got to work and fabricated 2 Yagis- 1 Antenna for 145Mhz and 1 Antenna for 437 Mhz and tested it with SWR meter. We did open air test and found the bandwidth of our antennas being huge for 145 Mhz. We got 1:1 SWR for frequency range of 140 Mhz to 150 Mhz.

In a same way we fabricated the 437 Mhz yagi and found a good bandwidth in open air test from 433 Mhz to 440 Mhz. We also used our Kenwood TM-V71A radio to listen on VHF band. We heard a conversation of HAMs on 145Mhz (Matheran Repeater).

In pursuing this endeavor we would like to thank the faculties and assistants in workshop lab for helping out.

Tracking Swayam Satellite

Swayam is satellite initiative of College of Engineering,Pune which was launched by ISRO on PSLV-C34 Launch Vehicle from Sriharikota,India along with 19 other satellites.

Swayam had a overhead pass over Atharva Satellite Ground Station on Sunday 26th June 2016 at 21:50. The link setup for this includes a handheld yagi antenna and Kenwood TMV71A
The team developed a unique type of single plane yagi made up of Wood Boom and aluminium rods as elements. This design was simulated on 4NEC2 had an advantage of being lightweight. It was mounted on a pivoted stand and moved around manually. This handheld type yagi had a gain of 14dB and had 9 elements for frequency of 437 Mhz. The fabrication and design was done solely by members of atharva satellite ground station.

The beacon signal was in form of CW morse code and was recorded on kenwood tmv71a transceiver. The recording of the same you can listen to here: Swayam Beacon

This gives us the assurance of proper working of the complete link and antennas. The team is now planning to track many such satellites in near future.