Hello I believe this subject has been kicked around on this BB before. It did generate some creative thinking. Given all the satellites up there and all the varied uses of them, eventually some of them get compromised for whatever reason. Is there any way any of these old relics can be reprogramed, used or otherwise "adjusted" to suit us? We don't need a real good S/N ratio to make us happy, and we are pretty good at cobbling together whatever we want. We have some very informed and smart people on this BB who know. 73 Bob W7LRD Seattle
Interesting idea.... Jim KQ6EA
--- On Wed, 3/11/09, w7lrd@comcast.net w7lrd@comcast.net wrote:
From: w7lrd@comcast.net w7lrd@comcast.net Subject: [amsat-bb] old satellites To: amsat-bb@amsat.org Date: Wednesday, March 11, 2009, 9:24 PM Hello I believe this subject has been kicked around on this BB before. It did generate some creative thinking. Given all the satellites up there and all the varied uses of them, eventually some of them get compromised for whatever reason. Is there any way any of these old relics can be reprogramed, used or otherwise "adjusted" to suit us? We don't need a real good S/N ratio to make us happy, and we are pretty good at cobbling together whatever we want. We have some very informed and smart people on this BB who know. 73 Bob W7LRD Seattle _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
There have been cases in the past, where Old commercial satellites have been assigned other light duties. Example, a marginally functional satellite was assigned free telephone status for the remote island Pitcairn.
so it may be possible to find some other satellites that still have working transponders which are not good enough for profit but could still be used by hams. Example, if the sat was designed as a Geo sat and it's Fuel runs out, it will drift out of its parking space. The transponders still work but it can not be used since its Moving and its not in its assigned parking space. we should not only check out the Geo Sats, but also Tumbling Iridium sats too.
Any one have contacts are Huges or one of the other satellite companies?
wf1f.
--- On Thu, 3/12/09, w7lrd@comcast.net w7lrd@comcast.net wrote:
From: w7lrd@comcast.net w7lrd@comcast.net Subject: [amsat-bb] old satellites To: amsat-bb@amsat.org Date: Thursday, March 12, 2009, 12:24 AM Hello I believe this subject has been kicked around on this BB before. It did generate some creative thinking. Given all the satellites up there and all the varied uses of them, eventually some of them get compromised for whatever reason. Is there any way any of these old relics can be reprogramed, used or otherwise "adjusted" to suit us? We don't need a real good S/N ratio to make us happy, and we are pretty good at cobbling together whatever we want. We have some very informed and smart people on this BB who know. 73 Bob W7LRD Seattle _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
I would be surprised if any of the transponders on the geo stationary satellites can work on amateur frequencies althought some of the C band transponders might be fairly close.
Does any one know if the comercial transponders have any degree of frequency agility ?
Mark VE7AFZ
----- Original Message ---- From: MM ka1rrw@yahoo.com To: amsat-bb@amsat.org; w7lrd@comcast.net Sent: Thursday, March 12, 2009 3:57:38 AM Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: old satellites
There have been cases in the past, where Old commercial satellites have been assigned other light duties. Example, a marginally functional satellite was assigned free telephone status for the remote island Pitcairn.
so it may be possible to find some other satellites that still have working transponders which are not good enough for profit but could still be used by hams. Example, if the sat was designed as a Geo sat and it's Fuel runs out, it will drift out of its parking space. The transponders still work but it can not be used since its Moving and its not in its assigned parking space. we should not only check out the Geo Sats, but also Tumbling Iridium sats too.
Any one have contacts are Huges or one of the other satellite companies?
wf1f.
--- On Thu, 3/12/09, w7lrd@comcast.net w7lrd@comcast.net wrote:
From: w7lrd@comcast.net w7lrd@comcast.net Subject: [amsat-bb] old satellites To: amsat-bb@amsat.org Date: Thursday, March 12, 2009, 12:24 AM Hello I believe this subject has been kicked around on this BB before. It did generate some creative thinking. Given all the satellites up there and all the varied uses of them, eventually some of them get compromised for whatever reason. Is there any way any of these old relics can be reprogramed, used or otherwise "adjusted" to suit us? We don't need a real good S/N ratio to make us happy, and we are pretty good at cobbling together whatever we want. We have some very informed and smart people on this BB who know. 73 Bob W7LRD Seattle _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
_______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
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Satellites not allowed to intentionally "drift" out of their assigned orbital slot. When the fuel gets down to a critical level, *sometimes* they'll allow them to drift North-South in an inclined orbit to get some extra operating time out of them, but they're carefully controlled as to East-West movement. When the fuel gets _really_ low, they use the remainder to boost them up higher into a graveyard orbit. Unless something catastrophic happens, the ground controllers NEVER allow a commercial satellite to run out of fuel just sitting in it's assigned slot. Hughes Space and Communications doesn't exist anymore. They were bought by Boeing in 2000, and are now the Boeing Satellite Development Center.
Jim KQ6EA Former Hughes and current Boeing employee
--- On Thu, 3/12/09, MM ka1rrw@yahoo.com wrote:
From: MM ka1rrw@yahoo.com Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: old satellites To: amsat-bb@amsat.org, w7lrd@comcast.net Date: Thursday, March 12, 2009, 3:57 AM There have been cases in the past, where Old commercial satellites have been assigned other light duties. Example, a marginally functional satellite was assigned free telephone status for the remote island Pitcairn.
so it may be possible to find some other satellites that still have working transponders which are not good enough for profit but could still be used by hams. Example, if the sat was designed as a Geo sat and it's Fuel runs out, it will drift out of its parking space. The transponders still work but it can not be used since its Moving and its not in its assigned parking space. we should not only check out the Geo Sats, but also Tumbling Iridium sats too.
Any one have contacts are Huges or one of the other satellite companies?
wf1f.
--- On Thu, 3/12/09, w7lrd@comcast.net w7lrd@comcast.net wrote:
From: w7lrd@comcast.net w7lrd@comcast.net Subject: [amsat-bb] old satellites To: amsat-bb@amsat.org Date: Thursday, March 12, 2009, 12:24 AM Hello I believe this subject has been kicked around on this
BB
before. It did generate some creative thinking.
Given all
the satellites up there and all the varied uses of
them,
eventually some of them get compromised for whatever
reason.
Is there any way any of these old relics can be reprogramed, used or otherwise "adjusted" to
suit
us? We don't need a real good S/N ratio to make
us
happy, and we are pretty good at cobbling together
whatever
we want. We have some very informed and smart people
on
this BB who know. 73 Bob W7LRD Seattle _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are
those
of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the
amateur
satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
Greetings,
Bit of a lurker here, but my day job is at a Satellite Earth station for SES Americom, a satellite owner/operator.
Normally, when a satellite is about to run out of fuel, it is sent into what is called a graveyard orbit, to keep it from drifting and running into other satellites. It is boosted high above the geosynchronous belt where it wont run into anything.
A satellite is usually hard wired for the frequencies in use. Up link in the C band is usually 5.9 to 6.4 Ghz, and there are 24 TWTs, each tuned to a 40 Mhz hunk of spectrum.So, Transponder 1 is the first 40, transponder 2 is the second 40, etc....
At Ku band, it runs from 14 GHZ to 14.5 Ghz. sometimes the transponder width is 40mhz, sometimes it is 54Mhz. again, the individual TWT is tuned for its little slice.
All of this filtering is done pre and post amp by hard filters that can not be changed from the ground.
Without command and control of the satellite, it is for all practical purposes useless.
Chris Hackworth N8PHU
On Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 12:24 AM, w7lrd@comcast.net wrote:
Hello I believe this subject has been kicked around on this BB before. It did generate some creative thinking. Given all the satellites up there and all the varied uses of them, eventually some of them get compromised for whatever reason. Is there any way any of these old relics can be reprogramed, used or otherwise "adjusted" to suit us? We don't need a real good S/N ratio to make us happy, and we are pretty good at cobbling together whatever we want. We have some very informed and smart people on this BB who know. 73 Bob W7LRD Seattle _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
participants (5)
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Chris Hackworth -
Jim Jerzycke -
Mark Spencer -
MM -
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