The oldest working comms sat

Analoguesat

Analoguesat

Administrator
Staff member
My Satellite Setup
TM 5402HD
Sky+ UK.
My Location
Scottish Borders
The record holder appears to be ATS-3 still nominally operational after an amazing 41 years!

_http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-satellites1-2008dec01,0,2501895.story

Its been used as a comms link during the 1985 Mexico City earthquake and the 1980 Mount St Helens eruption.

Meanwhile another oldtime - Marisat-F2 has just been retired by Intelsat after 32 years - and it was providing internet traffic to the south pole right up until the end.

......scientists at the South Pole, who were using it for internet access in more recent years, since it had actually proven to be more capable than the two other more recent satellites serving the area.
Click to expand...

_http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/03/intelsat-retires-marisat-f2-satellite-after-32-years-of-service/
 
..Just out of curiosity Hans..
On a related topic ..
do you know if ?
Meteor-M2 still functional ?
..and can one still get APT weather images from it ..
This was possible in 2014 I believe...but I suspect only during initial test period .
rgds
VS
 
Thanks for that ..but looks like thats another one I wont be receiving ..
on account it also uses 137.9 mhz
Ffffing POCSAG..
Im now calling it POX-SLAG
 
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Vipersan said:
Thanks for that ..but looks like thats another one I wont be receiving ..
on account it also uses 137.9 mhz
Ffffing POCSAG..
Im now calling it POX-SLAG
Click to expand...
From memory the fire brigade use pagers to call the retained, and to set the bells off at the full time stations.

I think that's 147.8000 NFM. But can be very very strong.
 
Fairy nuff Chris ....and yes these services are important ...but why use already designated spectrum ..?
Why use such high power transmitters..?
Why use such wide bandwidth ?
Why send messages nationwide ...which are not even relevant except in the area of origin..
Why continually broadcast hanshake sequences ..with no data attached ?
Why abuse this power to the detriment of all else ...particularly something than can only really be changed and modified frequency wise ..by owning a space shuttle..
"I have a big and loud transmitter so f**k you" should be their motto..
cest la vie
 
Vipersan said:
"I have a big and loud transmitter so f**k you" should be their motto..
cest la vie
Click to expand...


I bet you had a truly enormous afterburner in the early CB days .....

And a rubber duck, I'll warrant.
 
Lazarus said:
I bet you had a truly enormous afterburner in the early CB days .....

And a rubber duck, I'll warrant.
Click to expand...
Actually no ..G ..
Had yer basic colt ..
No addons no burners..
More than adequate..
;)
..and back when I was an AM band Pirate..
Could work most of Europe on a couple of watts..
 
Vipersan said:
Actually no ..G ..
Had yer basic colt ..
No addons no burners..
More than adequate..
;)
..and back when I was an AM band Pirate..
Could work most of Europe on a couple of watts..
Click to expand...
I had a burner, oh and a modded rig kicking out 12W before the burner :-) only trouble was in upper side band I kept setting off bugler alarms.
 
Darn those pesky bugler alarms.
 
POCSAG in UK apparently uses 5 narrow channels from 137.975 to 138.175 MHz. That shouldn't disturb 137.8 MHz, maybe you need to improve the front-end to better deal with strong signals?
 
hvdh said:
POCSAG in UK apparently uses 5 narrow channels from 137.975 to 138.175 MHz. That shouldn't disturb 137.8 MHz, maybe you need to improve the front-end to better deal with strong signals?
Click to expand...
I was thinking the same thing. Unless there is something wrong with your local TX, VS?
Try attenuating the input a bit and setting the SDR to narrow band and display the full dynamic range. Disable any mast-head amp, if you have one. Does the apparent bandwidth decrease?

Vipersan said:
..and back when I was an AM band Pirate..
Could work most of Europe on a couple of watts..
Click to expand...

"I was only using a modified 19 set, Your Honour, they don't put much out on medium wave"
or was that an Essex thing?

Analoguesat said:
The record holder appears to be ATS-3 still nominally operational after an amazing 41 years!

_Satellites' longevity limits sales

Its been used as a comms link during the 1985 Mexico City earthquake and the 1980 Mount St Helens eruption.

Meanwhile another oldtime - Marisat-F2 has just been retired by Intelsat after 32 years - and it was providing internet traffic to the south pole right up until the end.



_Intelsat retires Marisat-F2 satellite after 32 years of service
Click to expand...

That reminded me of a ground station for GOES-1 in the Cook Islands back in '83. It was used for PEACESAT for distance learning, news etc around the Pacific. It used about 150W @ 149MHz up and 135MHz downlink. Antennas were crossed yagis. Some info here on PEACESAT using ATS-1: www.its.bldrdoc.gov/publications/download/90-261_ocr.pdf In those days and in that location there wasn't a big problem with interference;-)
 
Well TBH ..the transmissions causing me problems never used to be so strong ...
It's as tho the bandwidth has been increased to the point of bleeding over onto Noaa frequencies...
I'm hopeful that the new dedicated receiver I ordered recently from Germany will have greater resistance to this pager sh!t ...
We shall see ..
it should arrive soon ..
The lengths and expense I go to for my hobby ...
this is the receiver :-
Weather Satellite Station - Wettersatelliten NOAA Receiver and Antenna
It wasn't cheap ...but should hopefully be more resistant than an SDR dongle..
fingers crossed..
Previously was using SDRplay ...that unit wasn't cheap either but not dedicated..wheras the Apt-O6..IS

What would you consider 'narrow bandwidth' Hans ?
The problem stuff here is approx 20khz wide and very close frequency wise to Noaa APT frequencies ..

Also ...I am receiving other prequency POCSAG transmissions lower in frequency than 137.975 and upwards ?
but you say they dont use lower frequencies ?
how is this possible ?

Im seeing signals at all these frequencies ..with my SDRsharp..
137.975
137.923
137.850
137.752
137.700
137.627
137.531

approx ..
It dont make sense ? ..unless 137.975 is just so strong it is completely overloading the SDR ..and causing 'phantom' occurrances..

Check out the Weathersat images thread for more details..
 
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