Further Progress on Es’Hail-2 system

As mention on my Twitter (DXing) account, I have planted a 3inch diameter, 6 foot, galvanised pole in a 2 foot deep hole near the shack. The hole was back filled with 10mm gravel (from Homebase at £2.50 bag) and then top soil on the top of that.

My 90cm Channel Master offset dish is attached to its original az/el non-motorised mount. I’m glad I didn’t through that out!

I had to fabricate a new saddle top to hold the LNB as I’d lost the original and besides the 40mm diameter LNB would not quite fit the original clamp.

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Currently I can easily swing the dish between 28E and 26E. The Freesat TV at 28E is very strong here in East Anglian, using the 90cm dish. The 26E signals I can see might be from BADAR, but I need to check this.

I need to connect my SDRPlay RSP2Pro to the LNB output and check what the noise is like at 739MHz (The IF from the LNB when receiving the Es’Hail-2 amateur narrowband (voice/data) signals. G8DKK has suggested an attenuator will be required. This will cause a problem as I intended to use the RSP2Pro internal bias tee to drive the LNB. As it happens, the 4.7V output from the RspPro2 is too low for the LNB, anyway, so an external bias tee and 12v supply for the LNB are required.

Sam