Yes! There’s a ham radio on SBUDNIC. We tapped into the TinyGS network. Our specific module was the RFM96. This part of the mission failed. We also built two wide angle cameras into the front end of SBUDNIC, with the intent that we would transmit a couple potato vision quality images down from space over ham band. We tested the ever-living daylights out of that subsystem and- for reasons that will forever remain unknown- it just failed to work on orbit. We never actually heard a radio ping of any kind from SBUDNIC.

That being said, we know the satellite was alive- at least in the beginning- otherwise the sails would not have deployed.

We optimized for satellite lifetime rather than broadcast frequency. It’s totally possible that we were just never in the right place at the right time to catch SBUDNIC’s radio blast. It was set up to transmit every 10 minutes, for about a minute. The TinyGS network is pretty great, however we were broadcasting at 50mW so it was a VERY quiet signal even in the best of times. It’s not impossible- it’s been done before by other satellites- but it’s certainly challenging.