Satellite Comms

Submitted by K3RSJ on Mon, 09/16/2019 - 20:24
Forums: 
Anything else

Would lik to have discussion with anyone/everyone working satellites:

Do you notice ionispheric effects?

Do you experience better reception as the bird approaches versus ging away i.e. directional?

Sometimes absolutely no one is QRV when birds foot print covers most of US?

Anything else of interest.

73, Bob K3RSJ

K3EEZ - Sat, 09/28/2019 - 14:14

I've never noticed any ionospheric effects.

I've had instances where I seem to acquire a spacecraft towards the end of the pass, I attribute this to incorrect pointing, early in a pass, when I hand steer an antenna.

Sometimes I don't hear anyone on the frequency at the time when a pass is to occur. However, some prediction programs don't tell you all of the conditions that may apply to a given spacecraft. For instance, the spacecraft may not operate in eclipse because of bad batteries, it may operate in different modes and be switched to another mode, it may be under maintenance by the satellite control, and more...
Also, some receivers have "chirpees" on some downlink frequencies. If you are listening near those you may not hear anything, unless you wait sufficient time and your software, or you, compensate enough for Doppler to move away from that frequency.