DX PATROL - Ham Radio QO-100 Groundstation 2.0 - Satellite working - Tips & Tricks for the Beginner
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- Опубліковано 23 сер 2023
- I have to admit, I’ve been interested in the concept of using satellites for amateur radio operation for quite some time. This video is intended for newcomers to working satellites and, specifically, QO-100 Geostationary satellite, using the DX Patrol Groundstation.
QO-100 is a joint project between the Qatar Satellite Company (Es'hailSat), the Qatar Amateur Radio Society (QARS), and AMSAT Deutschland (AMSAT-DL) which provided the technical lead.
The geostationary satellite (officially named Es’hail-2) was launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in 2018. It carries the first amateur radio transponders to be put into geostationary orbit and which provides coverage for radio amateurs from Brazil to Thailand and from Greenland to India and South Africa. The transponders operate with an uplink on 2.4 GHz (13-cm band) and downlink on 10.45 GHz (3-cm band) A 250 kHz bandwidth linear transponder intended for conventional analogue operations and an 8 MHz bandwidth transponder for experimental digital modulation schemes and DVB amateur television.
QO-100 has clearly been designed to be straightforward for amateurs to use. Both the uplink and the downlink are in amateur bands, the uplink is adjacent to the 2.4GHz wifi band, so there is lots of hardware, such as high gain antennas, available. The downlink is adjacent to the frequencies used for commercial satellite TV, which means that existing satellite TV dishes and LNBs can be repurposed for use with the satellite.
DX-Patrol, is a small accompany, based in Portugal, who design and manufacturer equipment specifically for use by amateurs who wish to operate on QO-100. They released their first iteration of the QO-100 Groundstation during 2021 - This was the advent of an ‘all-in-one’ solution which contains all the electronics necessary to provide the amateur radio user with a turnkey RX and TX solution. Since then, the company have released a follow up QO-100 Groundstation 2.0, which provides full duplex operation. Further details are available here: dxpatrol.pt/produto/dxpatrol-...
Online webSDR for listening to QO-100: eshail.batc.org.uk/nb/
AMSAT Dish pointing tool: eshail.batc.org.uk/point/
The satellite finder app I used in the video is Satellite Finder (DishAligner) from Exultation.de - Наука та технологія
I went with the 9700 and DX Patrol up converter and works perfect.
Yes, I was actually considering using my 9700 instead. Much easier with the duplex operation.
Keep them coming, as I’m interested in getting my own set up for this satellite. Dave 2E0KD
@davegc16 cheers Dave. I'll setup the new antenna and will have a go using my 9700 - I.l put together a follow up video 👌
@@JonathanCreaser thanks
Tnx
TNX Jonathan for this very good Video!! It help's me a lot! Greetings from Germany! DK3UH
Cheers and best wishes. I'm going to change the helix antenna for an ice cone feed from nolle.engineering/en/ice-cone-feed/ and I'll make another video using my ic9700.
So nice 💯💯💯💯💯💯💯 video sir ji ❤
Hi Jonathan,
Really impressed with your setup and how well everything works.
I am a HF low band person but have now got the interest to work satellites. So I am just building a satellite station for the LEO satellites which I hope to complete in the next month. I have got a pair of cross yagi,s 42 and 28 elements on one of my spare towers. This will be controlled by a Spid ras Azimuth & Elevation rotator and for software HRD.
Anyway after watch you great video's I am now keen to build a station for the AO-100 and was hoping you could give me a bill of material or suggestion to construct the station. So far I have only collected a few bits managed to get a 2m dish and bought a yeasu earth station 847 which was for the LEO satellites not sure if this will be the right radio?
My station is at my works QTH and all fully remote. Most of the antennas are mainly fixed to sea containers and I have checked and I have a good line of sight to the bird if I fix it onto of one of the containers
Hope you can help Many thanks
Richard
M0UOO
Hello Richard, great hearing from you. I'm glad you found the video interesting. I'm currently making an update video which will cover some of the changes I've made to my QO-100 setup. Regarding your questions, I've also written an article for my local radio club magazine. I'll email you a copy and will try to provide feedback on your questions. Hopefully I'll get on to this early next week, things are a bit manic with me this weekend. 73, Jonathan, M0XXJ
@@JonathanCreaser Really grateful as its a little different from the run of the mill radio operation and I think you could make a few mistakes and struggle to acess the bird.
In the 80s I got into tv satellites and long before sky came along I had a really great reciever which was just a vfo skew and a big needle signal meter. I had a good friend who worked in the RND in IBM and made a decoder so you could watch most channels from bird to bird. So I am now of the age a financial ability to start again but with up down.
Even the LEO setup has taken a few month of research speaking to a couple of antenna manufacturers and I have also had them build for DX on either band so quite looking forward to getting up and running. But I think the 100 will be far better seeing from you video's and more coverage.
Thanks again have a good weekend
Cheers Richard
Unfortunately i live in north America so im outta luck. 73 in any case
Thanks for watching, 73, Jonathan, M0XXJ