Nilesat 301 on Extended Ku in UK

s-band · Mar 4, 2023

KooLy on Satellites Community found 2 transponders on Nilesat 301 (13572H and 13552V).
This is what they look like from near London, UK using an SMW Q-PLL type R (11.3GHz LO, NF about 4dB at 13.5GHz) on a 1.2m dish. My guess is that using something like a 15-20m dish you might get pictures in the UK. The signals are around the same level, on the 1.2m, as James Webb telescope on 26GHz.

John · Mar 4, 2023

s-band said:
KooLy on Satellites Community found 2 transponders on Nilesat 301 (13572H and 13552V).
This is what they look like from near London, UK using an SMW Q-PLL type R (11.3GHz LO, NF about 4dB at 13.5GHz) on a 1.2m dish. My guess is that using something like a 15-20m dish you might get pictures in the UK. The signals are around the same level, on the 1.2m, as James Webb telescope on 26GHz.

View attachment 147898 View attachment 147899

Good going - Nice one

.

moonbase · Mar 4, 2023

@s-band

Nice wan, top bit of dx'ing there.

John · Mar 4, 2023

I don't think i'll get a sniff of it half way up the UK but curiosity is compelling me to take my Extended Ku lnb off the 1.2 Gibby and side-saddle it on the 2.2 PF and go sniffing - - i'm flogging a dead horse but iv'e got to try

moonbase · Mar 4, 2023

John said:
I don't think i'll get a sniff of it half way up the UK but curiosity is compelling me to take my Extended Ku lnb off the 1.2 Gibby and side-saddle it on the 2.2 PF and go sniffing - - i'm flogging a dead horse but iv'e got to try

I tried all of the listed frequencies of both Nilesat 201 and Nilesat 301 in normal Ku-Band before swapping out the LNB for the extended Ku version. Unfortunately I got nowt apart from a spectrum of bumps above noise level on a Promax Ranger. I used Eutelsat at 7.3W as the marker and peaked on that, nudged the dish 0.3 degrees East onto the Nilesats but no luck.

Good luck with your test.

yang sat · Mar 4, 2023

s-band said:
KooLy on Satellites Community found 2 transponders on Nilesat 301 (13572H and 13552V).
This is what they look like from near London, UK using an SMW Q-PLL type R (11.3GHz LO, NF about 4dB at 13.5GHz) on a 1.2m dish. My guess is that using something like a 15-20m dish you might get pictures in the UK. The signals are around the same level, on the 1.2m, as James Webb telescope on 26GHz.

View attachment 147898 View attachment 147899

Can you share a photo of the device that you use for receiving the frequency?

s-band · Mar 5, 2023

yang sat said:
Can you share a photo of the device that you use for receiving the frequency?

I was using an SMW Q-PLL Type R set to 11.3GHz LO but would normally use a modified single band SMW LNB as pictured. The plots are processed outputs from a spectrum analyser. The spectrum is normalised by subtracting the clear sky capture from the one from the target. I had to use a 1Hz video bandwidth and a lot of averaging to reduce the noise.

Note that if you use normal LNBs for DVB, some extra gain and a high pass filter is needed in the IF chain to remove any signals below 12.75Ghz which may overload the DVB card. The only normal LNBs that I have found to work are the SMW ones with 11.3GHz LO options. Even than, they really need to be tweaked for use at 13.5GHz.

yang sat · Mar 5, 2023

s-band said:
I was using an SMW Q-PLL Type R set to 11.3GHz LO but would normally use a modified single band SMW LNB as pictured. The plots are processed outputs from a spectrum analyser. The spectrum is normalised by subtracting the clear sky capture from the one from the target. I had to use a 1Hz video bandwidth and a lot of averaging to reduce the noise.

View attachment 147913

Note that if you use normal LNBs for DVB, some extra gain and a high pass filter is needed in the IF chain to remove any signals below 12.75Ghz which may overload the DVB card. The only normal LNBs that I have found to work are the SMW ones with 11.3GHz LO options. Even than, they really need to be tweaked for use at 13.5GHz.

That's impressive. It takes a lot of passion to fine-tune equipment like that.

moonbase · Mar 5, 2023

yang sat said:
That's impressive. It takes a lot of passion to fine-tune equipment like that.

It is part of normal daily life for the "Extreme Ultras" of the satellite DX'ing hobby !

dreamsat · Mar 5, 2023

I can only detect it very weakly at 2.20m. When the weather improves, I'll have to try the 3.70m antenna.

s-band · Jun 14, 2023

I can no longer see anything on horizontal polarisation but there is a new signal around 13438V. It looks a bit stronger than the ones seen previously but that may be due to the lower NF at that end of the band.

dreamsat · Feb 23, 2024

13413 H 6000 DVBS/QPSK 3/4

John · Feb 23, 2024

dreamsat said:
13413 H 6000 DVBS/QPSK 3/4

Nice one, i'm waiting for my replacement Ext Ku lnbf to arrive as my one used previousley went faulty

Nilesat 301 on Extended Ku in UK

s-band

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John

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moonbase

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John

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s-band

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yang sat

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