Es'hail-2 beacon frequency (non-amateur)

  • Hi

    Remco and HB9ADJ, thanks for valuable test protocol and snapshots.

    Where my 10706 V is same than yesterday, I don't retrieve today the 11205 H carrier... Will recheck all the stuff when WX allows.


    hb9adj,

    Your 10706 V snapsho shows 2 traces : is that what we are supposed to see ? I did not see that from other users snapshots ?


    Merci

    73, Pat

  • Hello All,


    I have setup with a 80 Cms dish and a PLL LNB + Airspy SDR. The dish is pointing at 261 degree west of my location MK83TB with elevation of 27.7 . Tried listening to both the EB frequencies on V * H polorization, I could get a beacon at 11.205.945 but not sure if this is ES2 .

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    73

    Nitin VU3TYG]

  • Thanks Frank for the update, I will continue to listen, with great difficulty I was able to order a PLL LNB in India as most of those available in India are DRO and the amazons and other vendors in DL / UK do not ship to India. Also I am not sure if the beacon from ES2 has a beam for south east asia. I fully understand that AMSAT DL is under a NDA and will wait for information of Es2 to be available under the public domain. My location is below the equator and none of the satellites at 25/26 E have a beam covering south east asia.


    73

    Nitin [VU3TYG]

  • Well they are setting up the commercial antennas which will mainly cover the North African region. So signals from the engineering beacons have dropped here since. I suppose we must wait until the Amateurradio Transponder is switched on to really see what we are going to deal with.


    Here is a list of satellites and their beacon frequencies. Maybe this can help you to determine which satellite you are hearing.

    http://frequencyplansatellites…pe-Africa-MiddleEast.html

  • Hi Pat,

    I looked more closely at the two frequencies. Both traces appear when I am in vertical polarization this on both frequencies. I made two new photos in horizontal polarization with the control of the azimuth at 24 °. Here they are:

    73, Charly.


  • vu3tyg : My 'beacon of salvation' is ArabSat 5A 30.5E 10706.009(7)H MHz to determine if 'everything works' as planned/expected. Since Dec 12 I can receive a faint trace of the Es'hail-2 10706-beacon. Before this time mark both beacons (10706 and 11205) came in good.


    Since you are at +77.6° longitude you need a considerable amount of skew, try 45°. My observations (at ~5° longitude) are, when turning my dish to 30.5E in V-mode @10706 MHz I receive the ArabSat 5A beacon solid. Turning the LNB 90° (relative to the 'skewed' V-position) (a) second carrier(s) appear, as depicted in the picture below.



    If you turn your dish (from your perspective) somewhat westwards and you switch to V-pol and see a carrier emerge it should be Es'hail-2 (provided that the 'assumed' MENA beam intrusively penetrates into your region ;- )

  • Noted Frank. I also planning to test and use a 120 / 137 Cms Ku band dish for the beacon but will wait until the p4A xponder is commssioned,


    73

    Nitin [VU3TYG]


    I think it's the wisest thing to do.

    First: the beams of the commercial part of the satellite do not concern us. The satellite points the beams where it is interesting to cover that area. The amateur transpoders, I think, do not have this limitation but they will want to cover the whole part of the globe visible from the satellite.

    second: the satellite is at 24 ° E but its final position will be at 26 ° E (in a few days / weeks).

    If all this is true, I would not bother my head until the satellite reaches its final position and turn on the amateur transponders.

    Finally remember that from your QTH you will have:

    Dish Setup Data

    Elevation: 29.7 °

    Azimuth (true): 259.9 °

    Azimuth (magn.): 261.6 °

    LNB Skew: 73.6 °

    Turn LNB clockwise standing behind the dish

  • Thank you all for the suggestions and pointers. I am in south India and none of satellites at 23/24/25 have beams covering my location. Even MENA covers only North India. MY friend in New Delhi which is in north India VU2UUU will be trying Badr and Arabsat 5A.

    • Official Post

    Thank you all for the suggestions and pointers. I am in south India and none of satellites at 23/24/25 have beams covering my location. Even MENA covers only North India. MY friend in New Delhi which is in north India VU2UUU will be trying Badr and Arabsat 5A.

    Hi Nitin,


    even here the signals are very faint and I'm not entirely sure if they are from Es'hail-2 or not...


    Interestingly I can see some carriers which seem to swap in intensity when I switch between V and H.


    Anyway.. don't worry.. this is the MENA spot and this has nothing to do with what we expect from the WB & NB AMSAT transponders. The transponders have there own antenna horn to cover the whole earth hemisphere from Brazil to Thailand...


    WB transponder downlink will be (H)orizontal, NB transponder downlink will be (V)ertical polarization.


    Reminder: no official activity planned before the new year (i.e. around February 2019) :/


  • Hello,

    how do we even know that the mentioned and currently observed frequencies (11205 and 10706 MHz) are actually the beacon frequencies used by Es'Hail-2 ?


    73´s de Robert

    Hello Robert,

    It's true that it's not easy to make sure you do the right thing. I spent a lot of time with lots of uncertainties.

    First there is the list of tags that allows you to see that only Es'hail-2 uses the two frequencies 10706 and 11205.

    http://frequencyplansatellites…pe-Africa-MiddleEast.html

    So by being correctly pointed (24 ° for now), the two signals are almost of the same amplitude. For example Arabsat 5A 30.5 ° also uses 10706 MHz but has nothing on 11705. A reliable system of control of the azimuth is necessary. Also be sure to measure on the right frequency. I control with the GPS-driven spectrum analyzer.

    Now we are waiting patiently for the start of the AMSAT transponders to play with our beacons!

    73, Charly.

  • The signals are back to their initial levels here. Anyone having trouble to receive or identify them should try again... these beacons are 30dB above the noise here when viewed in gqrx.

    (I am currently using an 80cm dish and an unmodified StarCom SR-3602 LNB)