News Page 22
This page contains all the latest news about school amateur radio clubs. Please contact us to add your SARC news to this page. Send us a picture and description of your SARC activities. Remember to get parental permission to publish student photographs on this site and in our newsletters.
SARCTRAC Space
Following on from the success of our SARCTRAC - School Antenna Rotator Controller and TRACker projects, comprising light, medium and heavy duty antenna rotator hardware, we set about to develop automatic tracker applications to control them. Our first application was SARCTRAC Earth, in early 2024, which can be used to track Earth-orbiting satellites. In a new project for late 2025, we developed SARCTRAC Space, an automatic tracker application for spacecraft orbiting the Sun, Moon, Mars, Jupiter and even ones venturing into deep space!
SARCTRAC Space Tracking the Lunar Reconnaissance Observer spacecraft
After finishing the development and testing of this application, we are now setting about building our own spacecraft frequency database and a modest S-Band (2.2GHz) receiving setup.
In February 2026 the SARCTRAC Space database was completely rebuilt from scratch with accurate spacecraft downlink frequency data verified using the AMSAT-DL 20m dish.
SARCTRAC Space Spacecraft Frequency Database
For the receiving setup we will first build a quick prototype system using a 1m Cobham 8100 Explorer dish with motorized mount and commercial components. We then hope to redesign the system using our own rotator and recycled satellite TV hardware, to keep the price down. With a bit of luck and careful design we expect it to be able to receive some of the spacecraft orbiting the moon. Our aim is to provide a free DIY construction project for our readers and to provide a working, portable receiving system for demonstration at schools.
Our Cobham 8100 Explorer 1m Dish on a motorized mount