NigComSat-1R @ 42.5° East

[william-1]

FlySat NigComSat-1R @ 42.5° East ZX-10
Ex SinoSat 5 / Xinnou 5

Main C & Ku band footprints are aimed @ West Africa
The Ka band has a European footprint that may interest some members here if & when it becomes active.

 

[John]

FlySat NigComSat-1R @ 42.5° East ZX-10
Ex SinoSat 5 / Xinnou 5

Main C & Ku band footprints are aimed @ West Africa
The Ka band has a European footprint that may interest some members here if & when it becomes active.

View attachment 103695

Thanks to william-1
Ka downlink frequencies --- RHCP 19.075 to 20.125 GHz.

 

[shawl_who]

few channels have started on this sat, african beam.

 

[Analoguesat]

Yeah and seeing as we have virtually no active members based in West Africa we are unlikely to get any direct reports

 

[John]

Thanks to william-1
Ka downlink frequencies --- RHCP 19.075 to 20.125 GHz.
View attachment 103701

Might be a job for a DirecTv SL3 & BBC to be lashed onto the 1.2 Gibby when the weather gets a bit more friendly ?.

 

[Llew]

Yes, a job to do when this interminably damp weather relents.

 

[Anonymous_1]

Flat scan from my QTH
Orbital lnb for this test

 

[John]

Needed something to do to pass the time whilst waiting for summer ...
Well, for Ka use, decided to alter the physical shape of a SL3 DirecTv lnbf but leave it completely unmodded internally so that the output F connectors didn't hit the changer bracket when it was bought up to focus position.
It would be more useful on the changer for any circular pol stuff in band A&B or if anything becomes active on Nigcomsat @42.5° East.
Basically, just hacksawed the row of F connectors off and sealed the holes, drilled the case and hard wired a short fly lead to it that will go to a spare way on the diseqc switch. Checked output on analyser before and after butchering it & all ok.
A few pics of work so far, will install it on changer shortly.

 

[John]

** @VS & Llew
I'm just doing a bit of testing using the 5th harmonic 3750 from the SSA signal source which gives me a received signal from the SL3 lnbf of 18.750 GHz band A whilst using the modded BBC. Setting my lof setting to 17.050 on the Promax gives me the correct frequency readout.
For Ka band B on the SL3, ive set the sig source to 5th harmonic of 3950 to give me a readout of 19.750GHz on the Promax which it does, using lof of 18.050.
Does those two lof's of 17.050 for band A & 18.050 for band B Ka ring any bells with you from when you were doing your mods etc.
Ta.

 

[Llew]

I've mislaid my notes on the SL3 LOFs I tested with, John (typical), but I checked a .crs I added in my Crazyscan profile list for a Band B SL3 scan, and it shows the LOF as 18.050GHz, which tallies with your test.

Don't have a SL3 .crs for my tests on Band A, but I would expect it to be 17.050GHz, as with you.

 

[John]

I've mislaid my notes on the SL3 LOFs I tested with, John (typical), but I checked a .crs I added in my Crazyscan profile list for a Band B SL3 scan, and it shows the LOF as 18.050GHz, which tallies with your test.

Don't have a SL3 .crs for my tests on Band A, but I would expect it to be 17.050GHz, as with you.

Cheers Llew, that's good enough for me.

Iv'e said it before and i'll say it again --- these SSA 138MHz to 4.4GHz devices are really really useful. I feel confident now to put this Ka band SL3 up on the Gibby and it will work. Wether it picks anything up on LorR circular is another story.

 

[John]

Needed something to do to pass the time whilst waiting for summer ...
Well, for Ka use, decided to alter the physical shape of a SL3 DirecTv lnbf but leave it completely unmodded internally so that the output F connectors didn't hit the changer bracket when it was bought up to focus position.
It would be more useful on the changer for any circular pol stuff in band A&B or if anything becomes active on Nigcomsat @42.5° East.
Basically, just hacksawed the row of F connectors off and sealed the holes, drilled the case and hard wired a short fly lead to it that will go to a spare way on the diseqc switch. Checked output on analyser before and after butchering it & all ok.
A few pics of work so far, will install it on changer shortly.

... Just a bit more to add to this for something to do. Made fixing bracket for SL3 lnbf and placed it on lnb changer, connected into spare port of diseqc switch and tested on Ka band B sat @ 37.8°E-"Athena Fidus".
LOF of 18050 for band B. Pics shows beacon @ 20196 and data freq 19819 RHCP & 19710 RHCP as listed on www.satellitescommunity.
No final tweeking done as yet so could possibly squeeze a bit more out of it if i tried.
A few pics to look at if anybody fancies a go.

 

[John]

..... I'm still at a loss why some of the pics are being flipped on their sides, they were posted as correctly orientated .
It's a bit annoying so if anybody can come up with the answer i'd appreciate it.

 

[Llew]

Some excellent, innovative work done there John. Got to get the SL3 up on the Gibby again, before that will have a play with the VMA Signal Source to check the SL3 LOF. Decorating's held me back for a couple of weeks.
Can't help with the pics, I use ACDCee for my pic resize and uploadng etc., with no problem.

 

[John]

Some excellent, innovative work done there John. Got to get the SL3 up on the Gibby again, before that will have a play with the VMA Signal Source to check the SL3 LOF. Decorating's held me back for a couple of weeks.
Can't help with the pics, I use ACDCee for my pic resize and uploadng etc., with no problem.

Cheers Llew, it was quite pleasant working outdoors today, enjoyed it. re: the pictures ... why it's only doing it to some and not all is a bit baffling, i'll have to give it a bit more thought.

 

[Llew]

Do you still have a dipole cut to the correct frequencies attached to the VMA dongle when testing the LOFs?

 

[John]

Do you still have a dipole cut to the correct frequencies attached to the VMA dongle when testing the LOFs?

I still have the thing i knocked up for when i was trying a 21GHz-XMW lnb but i found the device radiates rf good enough without any antenna plugged in at all over a distance of two to three foot Llew.

 

[Llew]

That's good John, I noticed when I first checked out the unit there was a lot of rf picked up by the Promax nearby. Thanks.

 

[John]

That's good John, I noticed when I first checked out the unit there was a lot of rf picked up by the Promax nearby. Thanks.

Noticed that as well, when using the spectum mode in vma's software you could see spikes travelling across the Promax display that corresponded to the scan sequence of the vma spectrum sometimes.
Ive got a metal hobby box in the draw, i think i will enclose the SSA device in that.

 

[Analoguesat]

..... I'm still at a loss why some of the pics are being flipped on their sides, they were posted as correctly orientated .
It's a bit annoying so if anybody can come up with the answer i'd appreciate it.

For a guess That may have something to do with the size of the images. I tend to resize any images I post to a maximum size of 1024 pixels on the long edge. (That seems to be a reasonable compromise between pic size & file size. Anything bigger takes bloody ages to upload on our slow bb anyway)