Space Comms training in UTN La Rioja

Last June, two of us traveled to the lands of La Rioja to drink wine and eat olives to train students and teachers of UTN (Universidad Tecnológica Nacional) in a 3-day event about "Digital Comms and Software Defined Radios in Space Comms".

This was one of the first steps towards building their first CubeSat, and we were asked to share some knowledge and experience.

## First day: basic level

We gave a broad account of the NewSpace Industry, our place in it, how to design a CubeSat mission and the challenges of Space Communications.

## Second day: intermediate level

We showed how to build transceivers using GNU Radio. This session was mainly practical but we talk about some of the theory behind the "magic" of SDR: frequency conversion, DSB, SSB, baseband signal, IQ format, complex numbers, sampling theorem, etc.

We had some fun implementing a "retro-futuristic" radio in which the user of the receiver has to manually correct all imperfections. We were inspired by Peter Mathys.

## Third day: advanced level

The last day was a workshop in which students (and teachers!) brought their own computers and explored how to use what we showed in problems of their interest using real SDRs.

We were proud to see so many students (and teachers!) eager to go deeper into the "mud" of Linux, GNU Radio, SDR drivers, complex numbers and many of the things that make this discipline so challenging.

## Conclusion

We received a lot of positive feedback from teachers and students and brought back not only wine and olives but also the pride of watering the seed of what may become a new Space Comms hub in Argentina.

We love the teaching experience; its another way of keep learning, because putting ourselves in the place of those attending showed us the blind spots in our own understanding.

Now we know how to improve.