Returning to 26 East, I have attached below a chart and a table that present my miserable effort at scanning this cluster of satellites. From a UK location you need a big dish and a favourable geographic location with respect to the beam footprints.
I achieved a lock on some of the transponders but was some way adrift of securing a lock on the others. The Badr-4 frequencies were easily lockable but a toddler with a dustbin lid can pick those signals up, they offer no challenge to the UK located extreme fringe men. For the satellites at this 26 East cluster other than Badr-4 I had very limited success, more dish acreage is needed.
I included two data points in the chart, the column in the foreground is the signal level required for a lock, the column in the background is the signal level I achieved. Hopefully the use of two data points per frequency provides comparative visibility of the lock level and the signal achieved level?