Acronyms

1U, 3U, etc. -- 1 unit, 3 units, etc. of CubeSats

ADAC -- Attitude Determination and Control

AGM -- Annual General Meeting (of the corporation)

AMSAT -- Amateur Radio Satellite Corporation

AMSAT-NA -- same as AMSAT, but North America

AMSAT-UK -- AMSAT-United Kingdom, also -JA, -DL, etc.

APRS -- Automatic Packet Reporting System

Arduino -- a particular type of micro-computer

ARISS -- Amateur Radio on the ISS

AREx -- Amateur Radio Exploration

ASCENT -- Advanced Sat. Communications & Exploration of New Technology

AO-85, AO-91, etc. -- AMSAT OSCAR plus number designation

AOS -- Acquisition of Signal

Azimuth -- direction an antenna is pointed in the horizontal plane, from zero (north) to 360 degrees (north again)

BoD -- Board of Directors

BPF -- Band-pass filter

BPSK -- Binary Phase Shift Keying

C or C+ or C++ -- a computer language and language variants

CAD -- Computer-Aided Design

CAN bus -- Controller Area Network wiring

CAS -- Chinese Amateur Satellite (ie. CAS-4A, etc.)

COTS -- Commercial, Off-the-Shelf

CPU  Central Processing Unit

CubeSat -- a satellite frame of 10 x 10 x 10 centimeters

DCT -- Digital Communications Transceiver

Doppler Shift -- the change in frequency of a wave caused the motion of the wave source in relation to an observer

DSP -- Digital Signal Processing

Downlink -- the signal coming down to earth from the satellite

Duplex -- The ability to transmit and hear your signal at the same time

DVB-S -- Digital Video Broadcasting - Satellite

ElaNa -- NASA's Educational Launch of Nanosatellites program

Elevation -- direction an antenna is pointed in the vertical plane, from zero (horizon) to 90 degrees (straight up).

EMI -- Electromagnetic Interference

FEC -- Forward Error Correction

FET -- Field Effect Transistor

Fox, or FoxSats -- a series of ham radio cubesats built by AMSAT

FoxTelem -- a program for decoding telemetry from FoxSats

GEO -- Geostationary Earth Orbit

GHz -- GigaHertz (1 Ghz = 1000 MHz)

GitHub -- a website where computer code is shared

GPS -- Geo-Positioning Satellite system

GOLF -- Greater Orbit, Larger Footprint

GOLF-TEE -- GOLF-Technology Exploration Environment

      (GOLF-TEE will be the first satellite of the GOLF series)

HEO -- High Earth Orbit

HF -- High Frequencies (shortwave bands up to 30 MHz)

HGA -- High-Gain Antenna

IARU -- International Amateur Radio Union

IHU -- Internal Housekeeping Unit (control computer in a satellite)

Inclination -- the angle at which a satellite's orbit crosses the equator as it circles the earth

ISS -- International Space Station

ITAR -- International Traffic in Arms Regulations

Keplerian Elements -- (sometimes "Keps") the mathematical parameters that define the orbit of a body in space

kHz -- kiloHertz (1 kHz = 1000 cycles per second)

LED -- Light-Emitting Diode

LEO -- Low Earth Orbit

LIHU -- Legacy IHU

Linear Satellite -- Usually used when referring to a satellite that is for SSB/CW, you don't want to use FM on these sats.

LOS -- Loss of Signal

LNA -- Low-Noise Amplifier (usually, a receiver pre-amp)

LTM -- Linear Transponder Module

MHz -- MegaHertz (1 MHz = 1000 kHz)

OSCAR -- Orbiting Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio

PCB -- Printed Circuit Board

Polar Orbit -- an orbit inclination approaching 90 degrees so that it passes very near to both the North Pole and the South Pole on each orbit

Python -- a computer language

RAD-tolerant -- Radiation-tolerant

Raspberry Pi, or RPi -- a particular type of micro-computer

RF -- Radio Frequencies, or Radio Frequency energy

RFI -- Radio Frequency Interference

RT-IHU -- Radiation Tolerant IHU

SDR -- Software-Defined Radio

SMD -- Surface-Mount Device(s)

SNR -- Signal-to-Noise Ratio

Sim -- simulator

STEM -- Science, Technology, Engineering & Math

TLE -- Two-line Elements (of Keplarian data)

TLM -- telemetry

TT&C -- Telemetry, Tracking & Command

UHF -- Ultra High Frequencies (usually, 435 MHz)

Uplink -- the signal being transmitted from earth up to the satellite

VHF -- Very High Frequencies (usually, 145 MHz)

WSPR -- Weak Signal Propagation Reporter (a digital transmission mode)