Alphasat

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Receiving the Alphasat Beacon on 39 GHz

 

After interest in millimetre wave EME is tried to receive the Q-band beacon from Alphasat at 39.402 GHz

Some data from the available beacons
 
  Table summarizes the Alphasat beacon characteristics.

Parameter  Ka-band Q-band
Frequency 19.701 GHz 39.402 GHz
Polarization linear vertical linear tilted NW-SE 45º
Antenna boresight 32.5º N, 20º E 45.4º N, 9.5º E
EIRP (Effective Isotropic Radiated Power) 19.5 dBW 26.5 dBW

My initial idea to try and receive the beacon was to use a Witlink 2000 microwave link receiver and test to receive the beacon.

I tried a setup able to receive between 38.7 and 39.5 GHz so quite usable for this experiment.

After connecting the Witlink 2000 to power supply I found that the unit had an output at 141 MHz but this was only 5 MHz wide.
I tried to find at what frequency the unit was working and found fast that is was not the right frequency.
I needed to find a way to change the LO frequency but this is a software setting which I cannot handle up to now.
I have made some arrangements that I expect to be able to set the frequency of the Witlink unit within some weeks time.

After this fail I tried to disconnect the first down converter and see at what IF the expected frequency would be, a measurement using the harmonics of my 18 GHz synthesizer learned me that the IF for receiving the Alphasat beacon would be around 3410 MHz. So that was easy and I became the idea that for the time being the best way to proceed is using a available converter for 9 cm to 2 meter to get an IF of 154 MHz.

An initial test with the 18 GHz synthesizer worked out fine and I could receive the frequency of the beacon. Some more mechanical preparation was done and then I had to wait for some good weather to try life receive of Alphasat.

On 5 February 2020 weather was nice and I mounted the Witlink unit on my mast.

For receiving Alphasat I need an elevation of 27.5 degrees and an azimuth of 157.8 degrees.

With help of some nice app's on my Iphone I adjusted the dish as good as possible to the needed heading and I tried to find a signal using a spectrum analyzer, but nothing was found.

I then started turning the dish up and down and later right and left and after about 15 minutes I found a signal.

Optimalisation of azimuth and elevation took me lot longer

The receive system is the standard Witlink front end so a lot of extra losses between antenna and the pre amp.

Perhaps I will rebuild a unit special for receiving Alphasat and make some long term measurements of received signal strength

Listen to the signal in a 3 kHz bandwidth SSB filter


Interesting measurement result: 20-2-2020

During the monitoring of the Alphasat beacon I found that the received frequency was having quite some doppler on it
This doppler is caused by the Orbit of the satellite

I measured the received signal for a few days and it is obvious that the orbit is a daily repetitive pattern

I measured this using SBSpectrum, there is some ripple on the measured frequency,
this is caused by the down converter LO stability and the temperature variations from the LO

It is obvious that around 3 hr and 15 hr the orbit is returning, the satellite drifts a eight form orbit through hemisphere every day

The scale of this measurement: the vertical scale is in total 4800 Hz wide

In total I measured 4266 Hz doppler

this is much more than published and therefore it's possible that the Alphasat is in inclined orbit

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Measuring solar noise using my receiver

I tried to measure the solar noise from my RX system

From the past I know the existence of solar outage in receiving geostationary satellite signals.

I tried to calculate the date's for solar outage using an online calculator

Results of these are in the picture below

Using these results I started measuring on 27 february at 10.15 UTC until 10.45 UTC to see if I notice noise increase.

I found at 28 feb a first positive increase but noticed that time was a few minutes later than predicted in the calculator.
I measured more days after each other and also found a better way of measuring.
I am using Perseus receiver and the logging function.

For improving the measured result I place max number of markers each measuring noise at a different frequency.
I then import these data in an excel spreadsheet where I calculate the average of the results

Now I show the results of 3 days measurement 28 and 29 February and 1 March.
Curious if the max solar noise will be even stringer on 2 march, still have to measure this.


In the first part of May 2020 I measured the received signal strength during several days.

I already tried to do this measurement much earlier but then I used a tool which was not able to work with the high doppler variation.

For this measurement I use Spectrum lab, the first day I also have some glitches caused by too large doppler.

In overall this diagram shows quite nice the difference in signal strength caused by the inclined orbit

This is the measured signal strength from 5 may 09.20 until 8 may 2020 08.44 UTC, it is clearly visible that there is a repetitive pattern

Signal strength is dB signal to noise ratio

 

 


Info from M0EYT also receiving Alphasat