Outernet 3.0: 30kbps now, 100kbps eventually - even smaller antenna

Konrad
Real cool and drizzled in SoCal yesterday near 50 during day so didn’t test much. In fact later DC got wet and quit. Dried it off, OK but no wi-fi. About hour later, I see wi-fi! Very lucky I guess. Maybe when you get MK-1, we compare notes. Mine didn’t get wet.

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Somewhat random question - does anyone know what carrier the new Dreamcatcher will ship for the US once it is released? FedEx/USPS/UPS? Just want to know if I’ll need to defend my porch on the day it is supposed to arrive :wink:

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In the US, it is definitely USPS. Europe is usually via international post. Everywhere else is usually FedEx.

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I burned up my DC2.03 that way. It rained and it shorted out. Yes. Very Lucky indeed.

I got the MK-1 in the mail yesterday. I will definitely be comparing notes with you, @donde.

–Konrad, WA4OSH

Defend your joy.

–Konrad, WA4OSH

@donde @Syed I hooked up my Maverick LNB to a Mini Circuits ZFBT-4R2G bias tee on the RF+DC port, 12v on the DC port and an RTL-SDR on the RF port. I see the noise floor come up a bit in the L-Band, and a couple of carriers, which I assume are spurs because they don’t change in intensity. I can run the LNB across my laptop and hear some drifiting carriers. I’m assuming I found the 5th harmonic of my PC’s CPU clock. But I don’t seem to receive Ku-band signals on the raw LNB.

Apparently what I was observing the other day with the DirecTV LNB must have been L-Band signals, not Ku Band.

Now I’m curious to see if there’s a cheap Ku-band source that can see with my LNB. Maybe I can find the LO of my DirecTV LNB?

From Wikipedia …
Here is an example of an LNB used for DBS:

Local oscillator: 11.25 GHz
Frequency: 12.20–12.70 GHz

My Maverick has an LO of 10.75 GHz 11.25 - 10.75 = 500Mhz. Hmmm
Maybe I can hear it on my RTL-SDR. Maybe I can build a real cheap DC power injector to get it running. Wow … I would love an LO of around 11.75 GHZ Maybe I can tweak this thing if it half-way works.

Ideas?

–Konrad, WA4OSH

Bought the MK-1 “bundle”. The MK-1 includes the 20 volt power supply/injector and LNBF bracket. The RTL-SDR is FunCube Pro II. Software SDR#. PC is laptop. For bit of noise reduction I added 1065 MHz bandpass filter from Flightradar24 days. This will limit me to the low end of Ku band, but I’m just fooling around. At 20 volts, just horizontal polarization. Used Lyngsat to see Galaxy 19 frequencies and N2YO for alignment of LNBF at my location. Fired everything up. Noise floor about -45 dBm. Moving slowing around the channels, I do see spikes at -33 to -35, both on main screen and waterfall as thin blue line and confetti noise in background. The line is constant, not random. So it must be a signal or a spur :slight_smile:
Don

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That’s consistent with what I was seeing on my Maverick at 12v.

I’m considering getting a Freesat v8 satfinder and mounting it on a surplus dish.

–Konrad, WA4OSH

Right now seeing very strong signal almost -25 at 1096.4 MHz, even hearing a slight tone in background. Two or three either side somewhat weaker.
Hey Konrad, dishes are not allowed! :grin:

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OK … I will look for that carrier when I get home later this eve. G28? 11,846.4 H? I will take a picture.

–Konrad, WA4OSH

Correct frequency, but I was looking at G19. 2nd channel which is horizontal and starts at 11842. Of course 1096.4 is the IF out of LNBF. Haven’t hardly looked anywhere else, but this seems to be a good enough till we all figure more things out. Happy Holidays! Quitting for a while to enjoy nice WX for a change.

OK G19 H

WX OK here. 73, Happy Holidays.

–Konrad, WA4OSH

@Donde I’m new at this. I am learning.

Here’s the Lyngsat listing for Galaxy 19

11842 H is the second listing under Ku for G19. But it says TP6. This is the 6th transponder.
And, the frequency is the center frequency (not the start) of that transponder’s carrier.

11836 V is the first listing for G19. Note this is TP5.

11867 V is the third listing for G19. Note this is TP7.

11898 V is the fourth listing for G19. Note this is TP9.

So the pattern I’m seeing is that the odd transponders are Vertical and the even transponders are Horizontal polarization. The vertical transponders are 31 MHz apart from each other. And there’s 6 MHz between TP5 and TP6.

If the pattern holds…

TP1 11774 V
TP2 11780 H
TP3 11805 V
TP4 11811 H
TP5 11836 V
TP6 11842 H
TP7 11867 V
TP8 11873 H
TP9 11898 V
TP10 11904 H
etc.

So if I want to find transponder 6, I need to tune to 11842 MHz (cf) - 10750 MHz (lo) = 1092 MHz.

Did I miss something?

So I will re-aim my raw LNB in the direction of G19 and will see what I get.

–Konrad, WA4OSH

I’m sure learning too! One thing, you may be incorrect. Transponder 6 at 11842 says H or horizontal. I think all the channels are horizontal. Each TP doesn’t alternate, even it looks they do. Check TP 7 and 8. They show to be both vertical. I only indicated a frequency that seemed to be consistently strong. It may not be a true customer transmission at all. Ran out of time to go further. Tuesday of next week will set up again.

:grin:

Check the listing again.




–Konrad, WA4OSH

@Konrad_Roeder That strong signal might be a beacon that the operator maintains.

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@Syed I’ve been watching it off and on all day with peak hold on. It looks like it might have drifted. The temperature has dropped since it’s started to snow here in Seattle. The LNB is aimed roughly at G19.

If I did not mention it, this is a Maverick MK1-PLL LNB driven by a MicroCircuits ZFBT-4R2G bias tee at 13V into a NooElec RTL-SDR dongle in a metal case. The laptop is running Gqrx on Skywave Linux.

I still don’t know how to identify which satellite(s) I might be hearing.

–Konrad, 73 DE WA4OSH

If you are using only an LNB (no reflector) then I’m not aware of anyway to know for sure which satellite that carrier is coming from.

The only viable way to determine what your seeing (with your equipment) is by two ways 1) determine which transponders are active at what polarity, then check the updated satellite directory to see what matches… this isn’t very easy as there are lots of wild feeds. (Unscheduled temporary uplinks)

And 2) hookup an fta satellite receiver and see if they decode, which I doubt ill work well without a dish

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Thanks for the insight. I realize that I’m basically playing a game here. How much can I do on a shoestring? If I were at work, the spectrum analyzer on my bench would have been the obvious answer for #1. It’s calibrated and has plenty of bandwidth to see the whole satellite in one sweep (even the Ku low and high bands).

  1. I have used Lyngsat.com as the satellite directory. G19 has alternating vertical and horizontal transponders. Many of them are not listed. I’m assuming they are running data not TV or Radio.

I’m stuck with a very narrow sweep on my RTL-SDR running Gqrx. However, if I run Gnu Radio Companion (GRC), I can probably sweep the RTL-SDR to give me the full 500 MHz view of the satellite. Slowly hunting by hand, it looks like the pattern I expected on the even transponders on G19 since my antenna is horizontal.

  1. I don’t have an FTA satellite receiver, but I’m considering getting a portable one. I’ve watched a couple of hours of YouTubes on various models. I’m looking at the FreeSat V8 Satellite Finder since it also has an HDMI output for watching programs on a larger screen. I think this might make a good addition to my low-cost satellite hunting toolkit since it seems to get some pretty good reviews the world over. If it comes with a 220V cord, I might need to spring for a 110V adapter.

–Konrad, WA4OSH