Satcom hot lately

[mancow]

258.550

265.550

263.575

...and last night some guy was singing while doing sound checks and ended with "*****es"

For whatever reason there seems to be more traffic the lately.

 

[oZscan]

Hi mancow,

what are you hearing on 263.575 ?

 

[mancow]

I had some inverted voice traffic in a foreign language.

 

[OpSec]

Must be nice to be down there in the cornfield with a low noise floor

 

[mancow]

I'm in town (small town) but there's still some crap to overcome. I have a couple of Vhf LEO transmitters and a 500 watt vhf paging transmitter that like to mix.

As for the traffic lately, right now it's down right odd. Someone on 263.575 sounds like a bad imitation of a Monty Python character but I don't think they're putting on an act. It sounds like some transsexual south american weirdo.

Must be nice to be down there in the cornfield with a low noise floor

 

[W9NES]

Mancow, what are you suing for a antenna to receive Satcom? Are you using the back of set antenna of the scanner? What mode are you hearing this in WFM, OR NFM. I have a Regency MX-5500 that I would like to use for monitoring .Please advise,Thanks

 

[mancow]

Dorne and Margolin DMC-120 portable military antenna and a GRE 3001 preamp that feeds a BCD996. I monitor in regular FM mode.

A back of set antenna won't work. You have to have a bit of gain and some preamplification helps a-lot.

The 996 makes a great receiver for that range.

 

[W9NES]

Thanks mancow.

 

[nexus]

mancow, in addition to w9nes's question...

what satellites are these? if I pull orbitron up, what would they be labeled as. Are these geosynchronous or not?

 

[mancow]

They are milsats and are geosynchronous. I'm never really sure what sat it's coming from or where it is. I've tried looking stuff up on the web but it's confusing. There are tons of references to the old fleetsatcom birds but they should be long gone since they are 1970s vintage. I think it's the followon series that are being used now.

I don't know if there is any actual list or complete position data out there or not.

I would assume that the best traffic would be heard in europe due to all the conflicts but I'm not sure. Paul Marsh who runs a website dedicated to sat monitoring seems to hear quite a bit from the UK.

If anyone has a comprehensive list of what is what and where it is in relation to US listeners it would be appreciated.