Receiving SatCom

[LarryMax]

I am not new to monitoring, but I am new to SatComs. This type of monitoring appeals to me because of my location.

I live in Orting,Wa and if anyone looks it up you will notice I am in a valley. It's a giant RF deadspot. I have done many experiments with no luck with hf/uhf/vhf. My listening is very limited. I also live in a neighborhood with an HOA. No antennas allowed except the good 'ol Sat dish.

Lucky for me since the neighborhood is so new, we don't have any trees over 10ft, and the dishes are allowed. I have a vast expanse of the sky open to me. So in my frustration I turn to Satcom.

I would like to know what everyones favorite receiver is for audio coms (I'm sure I will get into video later). I understand there is no "best receiver" I just want to get your fav and most versatile.

Do you know of a versatile dish that is "not so big"? I gotta keep the HOA happy. I assume I will need multiple dishes with different LNBS. Let me know what the most popular types are.

I have checked mentioned websites but I really don't understand the lingo.

BTW I am a lineman for a communications company. I do have an understanding for communications just on a "closed" system. Open air perplexes me.

I would like to an idea of a basic setup. I understand a basic setup could be several thousand dollars. I'd like to know cost of ghetto, middle class, and high end setups

Thanks

[prcguy]

When you say you want to listen to "SatComs", do you mean UHF military or just satellite reception in general? Military comms on the UHF satellites (roughly 245 to 272MHz) are easy to pick up but not with traditional satellite dishes and LNBs. You could however put up a HOA legal 30" Ku FTA (free to air) dish and LNB with motorized mount and DVB receiver and pick up lots of free and unusual TV stuff and the 30" dish would be large enough to be a ground plane reflector (not a focused parabolic reflector in this case) for a 245-270MHz crossed dipole to pick up UHF satcom. The dipoles would be around 18" across and sit about 9" out from the center of the dish. The dipoles would have little effect on Ku reception and at UHF the dish would have a very broad pattern of around 45degrees. This is good because the Ku dishes have offset feeds for Ku and do not point directly at the satellite at Ku, so UHF reception will just fall into place. FTA receivers cost from around $100 to $250 for non HD models, a 30" Ku dish and LNB is about $75, a motor that is controlled by the receiver is about $75 and the dipoles can be made from 1/2" copper pipe and PVC pipe to insulate and hold them out from the dish.
prcguy

[eorange]

Originally Posted by prcguy

Military comms on the UHF satellites (roughly 245 to 272MHz) are easy to pick up but not with traditional satellite dishes and LNBs.

For this, I have used nothing more than my handheld scanner, manually searching this range using narrow FM and a whip. Although there's not much mil com in the clear, you can occasionally hear Spanish-sounding folks pirating the satellite for their comms.

Visit the wiki page on this site (see the SATCOM section at the bottom):

http://wiki.radioreference.com/index...ary_Monitoring

[LarryMax]

What about the L and S band? I've noticed quite a bit of people talking about that. Like I said, I've been to a few sites but haven't really found out the types of receivers, lnb's, and antennas (dish) they use. I also will need a downconverter or downconverters. I used one a few years ago when I was decoding geosats so my experience with downconverters is limited.

For the time being I have my BC250D searching 240-270 25khz steps in NFM. Hopefully I'll get lucky and hear something with the diamond rh77.

Thanks for the replies.