26 Aug 2016

Amateur Satellites

Next year, if all goes to plan, we may have an amateur satellite in a geosynchronous orbit permitting long distance propagation at almost any time day or night. As the solar activity declines, this could be a lifeline.  I have little experience of amateur satellites and only had a single QSO via a low orbit satellite. Geosynchronous should mean lower Doppler and hours of operation whereas low orbit satellites go out of range within 20 minutes. Years ago I recall the excitement of hearing US and Canadians on Oscar 6 and 7 on 2m. Being on microwave bands should mean much greater transponder bandwidths. Also, dishes can be fixed as the satellite will always be in the same place in the sky like a TV satellite.

4 comments:

G4BWP said...

Great news, where can I find more info?

73 Fred G4BWP

Roger G3XBM said...

Fred, I read this some time ago and will try to find the link. It was part of the payload of a Middle East satellite (Qatar?) I think. It would be good if it was successful. Launch date is (I think) planned for next spring.

Roger G3XBM said...

https://amsat-uk.org/satellites/geosynchronous/eshail-2/
Sorry, launch planned for Q3/2017.

Rupert N2OTO said...

After reading your post about the well made Bulgarian 23cm transverter, I did some googling and found out that LZ5HP also designed/sells 33 and 13cm transverters for the same price as the 23 or at least did at one point.

The 13 would make a great low cost uplink to eshail-2.