Modular CubeSat Radio
The Modular CubeSat Radio (MCR), a GNU Radio compatible, modular SDR designed for small satellite applications is designed and built by a Consortium led by the UVic Propagation Laboratory, with funding from Amateur Radio Digital Communications. The initiative consists of the creation of a state of the art, globally available, affordable, easy to manufacture CubeSat RF system with flight heritage and the possibility to be developed for use on any spectrum assigned to the Amateur satellite service by an average academic CubeSat developer or hobbyist.
New 3U CubeSat CubeSat
The Propagation Laboratory is partnering with UVic CfAR and UVSD to for the development of a new 3U CubeSat, with an Amateur radio and ionospheric science mission. The spacecraft will carry a number of Amateur radio experiments, as well as a radio beacon to allow the lab’s ionospheric research project to be extended to transionospheric sounding. The RF system which will serve as the payload of this mission will be the first flight of the Modular CubeSat Radio.
The ORCASat CubeSat
ORCASat was a 2U CubeSat developed by a partnership led by the University of Victoria Centre for Aerospace Research, with a mission to train highly qualified personnel for the space industry in Canada. The Propagation Laboratory was a partner in this project, jointly constructing a satellite ground station to serve as the telecommand facility for ORCASat, and an OSCAR ground station for the laboratory.
The HamWAN Network
HamWAN is an american non-profit organization (501c3) developing best practices for high speed Amateur radio data networks. HamWAN also runs the Puget Sound Data Ring, which is a real-world network implementation of the proposed designs. UVic is part of the Puget Sound Data Ring, with the on campus node providing coverage for the are around UVic, and adding to the network’s backhaul capabilities.
Ionosphere Research
The Propagation Laboratory has an ongoing research program related to the ionosphere since 2019, using the Long Wavelength Array (LWA) radio telescope in the USA, with partners from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Victoria, and US institutions. s part of this, the radio telescope is used n two modes; one mode images waves in the ionosphere caused by Earth-disturbing events (big weather systems, earthquakes, lightning strikes, forest fires, etc.) and the other mode images atmospheric parameters in 3D.
UHF Amateur Radio Repeater
The Propagation Laboratory operates an UHF Amteur radio repeater on UVic campus, with call VE7RUV. The repeater is intended to serve the Amateur community around the University of Victoria for emergency communciations and generic Amateur communication. More information on this repeater can be found on Chris VE7ALB’s frequency summary site.
LEO-NET
LEO-NET is an initiative by Dr. Jianping Pan of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Victoria. It is a low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellite network (LSN) testbed, with access to SpaceX’s Starlink and Eutelsat’s OneWeb user terminals (UT, also known as “dish”). The Propagation Laboratory hosts some test equipment for this project to support Dr. Pan’s research.