Hello everyone!
With talk of some of the future amateur satellites using higher and higher frequencies, I can assure you that I for one am going to have a lot of questions about the world above 1GHz.
Since I have been taking baby steps by monitoring L-Band with some success, a pattern has become so regular that I wonder if it will be applicable if/when I am ever equipped to work next generation AmSats in the GHz range.
I have noticed (quite reliably) that the quality of my received signal easily doubles at night. One example would be the Outernet data stream from Inmarsat 4-F3. The SNR value reported by the Outernet software might be in the area of –6- during the day, but often jumps to –11- or –12- (or even higher) at night.
Is this normal? Should I generally expect to have significantly better performance above 1GHz at night (at least in the case of ground-to-space contacts)?
If so, of course that would be nice to know before trying to work nextgen satellites on those higher frequencies.
Thanks!
-Scott, K4KDR Montpelier, VA USA