Astra 2E: On Hold At 43.5E

[Pietclock]

Today I improved my set up by inserting an adjustable 0.5-20dB attenuator. Now I can even hear those beacons on 19.2 East.... never thought this was possible.

 

[solly]

the color change from green to red
astra 2e old then 20 year old but
http://www.satellite-calculations.com/Satellite/Catalog/catalogID.php?39285
0.8w deg for 1 days

 

[Pietclock]

@solly: it is red because it says inclination is more than 0.1°. It shows 0.1079° inclination. Maybe this is part of the moving manoevre?

 

[solly]

it need to change to blue staus move soon

 

[Huevos]

New transponders on 2F.

 

[Vipersan]

Ok ..this talk about beacons has now got me interested...
I'm curious as to what exactly I might be able to 'hear/see' with SDR radio and RTL dongle ..
Top frequency around 1700mghz so maybe not high enough ?
Anything worth trying for (within range)
A downconvertor might be an option above 1700 mghz ...but not looked into this yet.
anyone ?

 

[Huevos]

You need 1893MHz for the upper beacon of 2E.

 

[Llew]

VS, there's a 11707.5 MHz beacon too on 2E. Try 1107.5MHz.

 

[Vipersan]

VS, there's a 11707.5 MHz beacon too on 2E. Try 1107.5MHz.

Thanks Llew ..
No luck so far ..but then no guarantee the dongle is working ..or indeed that I am pointing at 2E..
Do you know any similar frequency beacons on a sat currently in service I can test on ? (fully active)
I have the lnb line from the gibby split ..and a DC block in the split line to the dongles input ..
NFM selected ...but nothing found at the pont on the arc I'm pointing ...about 20 clicks East of Turksat..
I need to make sure I can get it working on a known sat before searching for a needle in the cosmic hay-stack

also ..are the beacons polarity dependant ?
rgds
VS

 

[Pietclock]

yeah, I get 11707.5 vertical, while 12493 is horizontal...

 

[Lazarus]

..but then no guarantee the dongle is working ..

VS

Sadly, this is all too common.

 

[Llew]

Thanks Llew ..
No luck so far ..but then no guarantee the dongle is working ..or indeed that I am pointing at 2E..
Do you know any similar frequency beacons on a sat currently in service I can test on ? (fully active)
I have the lnb line from the gibby split ..and a DC block in the split line to the dongles input ..
NFM selected ...but nothing found at the pont on the arc I'm pointing ...about 20 clicks East of Turksat..
I need to make sure I can get it working on a known sat before searching for a needle in the cosmic hay-stack

also ..are the beacons polarity dependant ?
rgds
VS

As Pietclock has found, beacons with strong adjacent transponders may cause interference, I suppose they may overload the input of your receiver. The ideal would be finding a satellite (2E being the ideal) with little interference from other satellites in the vicinity.

However, 19.E might be worth a shot - there's a strong beacon from one of the Astras on 11703V (tune to ~1103MHz).
Other beacons in that spot are 11708V, 11708.50V, 11710V and 11712V.

 

[Llew]

Some interesting stuff on the types of modulation transmitted by beacons (scroll 3/4 down) -

http://www.secinfo.com/dsvr4.8548.p.htm#x0vx

 

[Vipersan]

I believe I managed to capture a sample of rough beeping audio from the 19 East beacon ...
around 1300 mhz ...but then frequency accuracy of the SDR dongle up above 1000mhz gets debateable at best ..
Please listen to the sample and see if this is what one would expect to hear from a beacon..??
It DEFINATELY comes from the lnb via the dish ..
I know this cos I went outside and threw a wet cloth over the lnb ...and as expected ...it vanished.
rgds
VS

 

[Llew]

Definitely a regular pulsing tone there VS. someone with perfect pitch (not me) might be able to recognise the audio frequency?

 

[Pietclock]

sounds simular to what I get.... I'll try to do some sound recording as well.

 

[Vipersan]

Yes indeed ..that audio pulse can be heard at intervals through the whole 'hump' you can see in the picture ...with nulls in between...
I suspect what is needed is a receiver that takes the whole wide 'hump' of signal and filters at a specific audio frequency ...
That way the background noise would vanish ..and the satellite could be tracked easily ..
So ..one would need to know the beacon frequency ..and the audio frequency to filter for clean tracking..
nonetheless ..it works ..
Another success foe SDR & dongle.
rgds
VS

 

[M60]

Sounds like FSK to me. Perhaps the data is carousel'd and as such the carrier tone indicates the beginning of the transmitted data, possibly info relating specifically to the satellite, it's NORAD ID and other things?

Llew, is the beacon for 2E still at 43.5 or have you seen any drift? Just wondering as per Solly's post if we could be beginning to see some sort of movement? I won't hold my breath though!!

 

[Llew]

Sounds like FSK to me. Perhaps the data is carousel'd and as such the carrier tone indicates the beginning of the transmitted data, possibly info relating specifically to the satellite, it's NORAD ID and other things?

Llew, is the beacon for 2E still at 43.5 or have you seen any drift? Just wondering as per Solly's post if we could be beginning to see some sort of movement? I won't hold my breath though!!

Still holding at 43.5.

FWIW, I amplified the 'cleaner' section of that clip of tone in VS's file and it reads as 630Hz, although that may be sum/product of several harmonics?

Not that much help really though.

 

[AHMET_YILDIRIM]

Why are u hurry? It is annonced that 2E will be operates first half of February. Which means it will be on the way to 28.2 on 15th -20th of January.