CQ-TV 261 – Autumn 2018

Getting ready to receive Es’hail-2

Noel Matthews G8GTZ

Whilst the BATC web SDR at Goonhilly will provide a

means to listen to the narrow band segment, it will only
provide a spectrum monitor for the wideband DATV
segment and if you want to decode any of the signals, you
will need to set up a system at home.
The expectation is that the wide band DATV transponder
will be able to be received in most of the UK on a 1
of other Octagon units available which are standard DRO
meter dish and it may even be possible use a smaller
LNBs – ensure you buy the OTLSO PLL unit).
80cms offset dish. This article primarily describes setting
up a dish and equipment to receive the wideband These are a very good example of modern microwave
transponder but the techniques can be used to set up integrated design – as the picture shows it contains very
a dish to receive the narrow band transponder, where a little silicon and uses the Rafael RT320M at its heart,
smaller dish will be adequate for most areas of the UK. which is a dual synthesizer, dual mixer, RF switch and logic
chip with a 25MHz reference crystal. You will see some
Equipment required – a dish frequency drift when resolving SSB signals with this LNB
As mentioned above, to receive the wide band and it is possible to improve the frequency stability by
transponder, ideally you will use a 1 metre or larger dish locking to an external source but that is beyond the scope
to receive Es’hail-2 although it may be possible to use a of this article.
smaller 80cms dish. Larger dishes are available on ebay
Other units PLL LNBs are available such as the Goobay
and a number of members have recently purchased
unit are also currently available on ebay.
brand new 1.2 metre dishes for £20. Your local domestic
recycling facility (AKA the tip!) can also be a useful source Narrow band Receive equipment
of dishes and second hand 80cms and 1 metre dishes are
Using one of the above LNBs means that the IF frequency
often available on Gumtree.
fed down the co-ax to your receiver will be in the
Even an 80cms dish will have 30 dB plus gain at Ku range of 739.55Mhz to 739.80MHz for the narrow
band with a very small beam width of approximately band transponder and 741.0MHz to 749.0MHz for the
2.5 degrees making mounting and aligning the dish very wideband or DATV transponder.
critical.

Equipment required – Low Noise Block

(LNB)
Just like any consumer satellite system, you will need an
LNB at the dish to convert the 10 – 12GHz Ku band
signals down to L Band which can then be decoded by the
satellite receiver. Whilst any modern Ku band satellite LNB
To receive the narrow band transponder you can simply
will receive the BADR4 signals, it is recommended that
use an SDR receiver such as FUNcube dongle, Lime
you use a Phase Lock Loop LNB to receive the Es’hail-2
SDR or the cheap RTL dongle which will cover the IF
amateur signals. This is because the frequency
frequencies from the LNB. Alternatively, if you wish to use
stability of a standard DRO unit will make
an amateur band receiver on HF, 144 or 432 MHz you
it difficult to receive the Narrow Band
will need an additional unit to covert the IF frequencies to
transponder SSB signals and Reduced
your amateur band of choice.
Bandwidth DATV (RB-TV) signals on
the wide band transponder. You will also need to arrange to feed 12 volts DC up
the co-ax to power the LNB – this can either be done
The most common unit is the
internally in your receiver or by an external bias tee.
Octagon Optima PLL OTLSO
(Note: 12v and not 18v will be required to receive the
LNB (Beware there are a number
vertically polarised Es’hail-2 narrow band transponder.)

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Wide band Receive equipment

To receive the wide band, horizontally polarised DATV
transponder you will need a DATV receiver capable of
receiving 741 MHz to 749MHz. Unfortunately this is
outside the normal tuning range of a consumer digital
TV Set Top Box (STB) and you will need an additional up
converter to shift the IF frequency up to be in the tuning
range of the STB at L-band between 950 – 2150MHz.
Such converters are available, however there is a USB
tuner designed specifically for Amateur TV use which
covers down to 143MHz and is suitable to receive
Es’hail-2 with no modifications or additional up-converter.
These units are called MiniTiouner and are available
from the BATC and other sources and are used with the E Footprint of BADR4 downloaded from Lyngsat.com
MiniTiouner software developed by F6DZP to receive
http://www.dishpointer.com/ is a very useful site to
and decode the signals. See https://wiki.batc.org.uk/
check if you have clear take off in the required direction
MiniTioune for more details. The other reason why
– simply enter your QTH postcode and select BADR4
MiniTioune is the preferred solution to receive the DATV
as the satellite and it will overlay the direction to the
transponder is that most amateur TV transmissions are
satellite on a Google satellite view so you can see which
expected to use Reduced Bandwidth DATV (RB-TV)
neighbours house to aim for! The panel below the map
with a bandwidth below 1 MHz. Unfortunately standard
gives you azimuth and elevation from your QTH and LNB
consumer STB will not receive these RB-TV signals
skew angle.
but MiniTiouner has been designed to receive RB-TV
signals with less than 100 KHz bandwidth. Note - there
will initially be a DATV beacon transmission running at
2.4Ms (3MHz bandwidth) which can be received using a
standard DVB-S2 receiver and appropriate up converter.
Note that the DATV receiver will need to be capable
of providing 18v DC to the LNB to select horizontal
polarisation required for the wide band transponder.

Aligning the dish

Whilst the actual launch date for Es’hail-2 has not yet been
released it is already possible to set up and align your dish
and test your decoder using an existing broadcast satellite
called BADR4. BADR4 is in the same orbital slot that
Es’hail-2 will occupy and has a European wide spot beam
Another useful site is https://www.suncalc.org which
carrying a number of free to air TV services including the
tells you exactly where the sun is in the sky at your QTH
BBC Arabic service which can be received throughout
at any particular time – using this information you can tell
Europe.
when during the day the sun is on the same Azimuth as
The first step is to check that you are going to mount BADR4 and use this to align your dish.
your dish in a position in a position where it can see the
Also, near every equinox, the sun passes through the same
satellite – as a rough guide Es’hail 2 is only 2 degrees to
position in the sky as a given satellite – using this website
the south of where the Astra satellite transmitting Sky and
https://www.satellite-calculations.com/Satellite/
Freeview is positioned at 28 degrees east of south. (Note
suninterference.php you can calculate when the sun
the bearings are referenced to the South and therefore
will be in the same position as BADR4 – this happens for
Sky is further round to the east (or left!) than Es’hail 2.
a few days around the 10th of October 2018 for the UK
and as long as it is sunny, you will be able to see where to
place your dish by seeing where there is direct sunlight.

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Aligning the dish with a DATV receiver

Once you have the dish mounted securely and pointing in
roughly the right direction, you need to set up your LNB
and receiver – note a Sky STB is not suitable and you
must use a Free To Air STB.
Whilst MiniTiouner is the recommended system to
decode DATV signals on the Es’hailsat wide band
transponder, it is recommended that you use a standard
free to air satellite box or satellite finder to align the dish
on BADR4. This is because you will need to configure the
LNB to run the correct local oscillator for the channel you
If you do not have a set top box and need to use a standard
want to receive plus you need to ensure you are using the
MiniTiouner, which does not produce 18v or 22KHz on the
correct polarity.
LNB feed, you can use the following method for setting up
Next you need to know what parameters to set in your your dish:
STB – this will depend on what channel you want to
Rotate the LNB on the dish mount through 90 degrees
receive and for a full list of channels available on BADR4
so the satellite cable comes out of the LNB at 90 degrees
see this Lyngsat page. https://www.lyngsat.com/Badr-
to vertical – this will mean that you can use a 12v feed to
4-5-6.html
receive horizontal signals.
Most people have used BBC Arabic as the test signal –
Because you are not sending 22KHz up the co-ax, the LNB
Lyngsat gives the following parameters:
will not switch in the higher frequency Local Oscillator and
 Frequency = 11,996MHz which means you need will use the 9,750MHz oscillator and you will need to enter
to select the LNB LO frequency to be “high” or 02246000 in the MiniTiouner frequency panel (11996
10.600MHz and then set your receive frequency to – 9750 = 2246MHz). Note that you can only do this in
11,996MHz. MiniTiouner as a standard STB will not tune above 2150MHz.
 Horizontal polarity means you will need 18 volts on the The easiest way to find the strong satellite from Astra (Sky)
LNB feed at 28 degrees East and use the SDR, sat finder or analyser
 Symbol rate 27,500 and ¾ FEC will need to be and watch for several 27MHz wide signals to appear. Once
selected in the satellite set up menu you have peaked on the signal you need to decode a
program to try and identify which satellite you are actually
If you have an SDR or spectrum analyser these will receiving. Do a satellite or transponder scan with 27,500
be useful during the alignment process and should be SR, H and V polarity and auto FEC and see what appears –
connected in to the LNB feed via a splitter with the STB on these are very common parameters and almost all European
the other leg providing volts and 22KHz tone. A DC block satellites have signals which will decode using them. Now
should be used to ensure no damage to the analyser and refer back to Lyngsat to try and identify which transponder
also to ensure no incorrect voltage is fed in to the LNB. you are actually viewing by looking at the various satellite
program lists.
Once you know which satellite you are receiving, work out
which way the dish needs to be rotated and set your receiver
for the BADR4 BBC Arabic service (11996MHz, 3/4 FEC and
27500 SR) and tweak the dish round until you see it start to
decode. If you are looking on an analyser or SDR, BADR4
is much weaker than Astra at 28 degrees or Eutelsat at 13
degrees and if you are starting to see another set of very
strong signals, you have probably gone too far! Note – there
is a 2nd BBC Arabic channel on Eutelsat at 13 degrees.
Once you are sure you are receiving BADR4, tweak the
horizontal and vertical mounting and LNB skew using either
the STB quality meter or MiniTiouner for best MER / SNR /
signal quality.

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Results Note the BADR7 beacon is horizontally polarised so you

Based on results posted on will either need to feed the LNB with 18v or physically
BATC forum you should see the rotate the LNB by 90’ as described above if you only
following results on BBC Arabic channel on BADR4 have 12v available. And don’t forget that Es’hail-2 Narrow
band is vertically polarised so when alignment is complete
For more details see on BADR7 you will need to switch back to vertical
https://forum.batc.org.uk/viewforum.php?f=101 polarisation.
Aligning the dish with an SDR
If you do not have a Digital satellite receiver and want to
just receive the narrow band transponder, almost every
geostationary satellite runs a narrow band telemetry
beacon which can be used to align your dish using just a
simple SDR such as FUNcube or RTLdongle.
The beacons are on different frequencies so can be
used to easily identify which satellite you are receiving
- unfortunately the BADR4 beacon is in the higher E BADR7 beacon received by G7JTT on an RTL dongle
frequency band above 12GHz and requires the LNB to For more information on other satellite beacons check
be fed with a 22KHz tone to switch in the higher local out this site: http://frequencyplansatellites.altervista.
oscillator which is not easy to do using a standard SDR. org/Beacon-Telemetry_Europe-Africa-MiddleEast.
However, the BADR 7 satellite is in the same orbital html
slot and has a telemetry beacon which is receivable
throughout Europe on 11,200.5MHz which gives an IF Conclusions
signal on 1450.5MHz – you may have to tune +/- 100KHz Whilst no actual launch date has been announced for
depending on the stability of your LNB. Es’hail-2, it is scheduled for launch before the end of 2018.
Use the same dish alignment procedure described above Using the BADR4 signals or the BADR7 beacon to align
but monitor 1450.5MHz on your SDR waterfall – you will and test your system means that once the Es’hail-2
see a high level of wideband noise from other satellite amateur transponders are commissioned, all you will need
signals such as Astra at 28 degrees but should clearly to do is tune down to 739.55Mhz to 739.80MHz for the
see the beacons carriers when aligned on BADR7 at 28 narrow band transponder and 741.0MHz to 749.0MHz
degrees. for the wideband or DATV transponder.

BATC Awards Presentations at CAT18

In addition to the contest winners published in the CAT18 Band First Second Third
report, the BATC awarded certificates to those amateurs who Overall IARU M0DTS G8GTZ G8GKQ
succeeded in the BATC Activity Contests. All those in first place 70 cm G8GKQ G8GTZ G4GUO
received certificates to celebrate the fact; congratulations to the 23 cm G7AVU M0DTS G1LPS
winners and thanks to those who took part. 13 cm M0DTS G8GTZ G1LPS
9 cm G4CBW */ - G1LPS
BATC Prizes: G3NWR *
1 A £50 Amazon Voucher to the winner of the BATC 146 MHz 6 cm M0DTS G4CBW G8AGN
Contest. Won by a Committee member (G8GKQ) with the (then)
3 cm G4CBW/ - G8GKQ/
Chairman second. So not awarded.
G3NWR G8GTZ
2 A £50 Amazon Voucher to each station in the Best DX 2-way 5.6
GHz Contact. G3NWR (G4EWJ) and G4CBW achieved the best 24 GHz G8GTZ * G8GKQ G4LDR
DX 2-way 5.6 GHz Contact at 154 km. They are awarded a £50 76 GHz G4LDR */ - -
Amazon Voucher each. G8GTZ *
3 A £50 Amazon Voucher to the transmitting station using a 146 G8GKQ G8GTZ G4CBW/
Portsdown system received at the furthest distance (any band). G3NWR
The best Portsdown DX by a non-Committee Member was G4LDR
for a contact with G8GTZ at 64 km on 24 GHz. Notably, this was * IARU Contest Band Winners
Neil’s fist contest and he also had a Portsdown contact on 76 GHz.

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