AMSAT Adventures (Part 1)
Aug 29, 2025Wouldn’t it be awesome to pull telemetery and images from the downlink of a satellite orbitting the Earth?
Thought so too! So I got started here https://makezine.com/projects/homemade-yagi-antenna/ , learning about Yagi antennas and UHF FM – I ended up just grabbing one on ebay.
I wanted a tracking rig and I knew they existed, and were pretty expensive, but figured the antenna is light enough and folks are always doing projects like this..
Enter satran! This project is amazing.
It seems like a kit they sold at one time, but ended up opensourcing. The 3d files, the BOM, PCBs, part lists, all of it.
Very cool folks!
And other awesome internet people have put together spreadsheets w/ places you can order all the parts online.
3d Printing
The files print perfectly, matte white w/ a Bambulabs P1P.
MK3 print files (.rar) from https://satran.danaco.se/downloads/
Next Steps
I’ve ordered the PCBs and aluminum pieces from OSHPark and OSHCut respectively and the electronic components should be here in a few weeks.
🤞