I was looking at Lyngsat today, and noticed that there were some updates on AMC2 and AMC4. I found it interesting because I was under the impression that one of these sats was going to be used for C-band, and the other for Ku, however I notice that they show both sats being used for both C and Ku.
At first I figured that people just weren't sure which sat to put updates into, but then I noticed that one individual had updated 3 transponders, showing 2 transponder changes on AMC4 and 1 transponder update on AMC2.
I guess my question is, how would this person know whether he was seeing a transponder from AMC2 or AMC4? I thought that perhaps there is some indication of this in the NIT packets, but they don't seem to say anything useful. I've never seen any information in these sat transmissions that would identify what sat we're watching.
Anyway, is there some way of identifying what sat a transponder is coming from? Or does this fellow have some inside information? Or is he just guessing?
I've seen some people suggest that they can tell what sat they're looking at by looking at a spectrum analyzer trace, perhaps by signal strength, but I can't see any difference between the transponder reported for AMC2 vs the rest of the spectrum reportedly from AMC4.
I also remember some posts here about that one specific transponder, so maybe it's public knowledge? But it really seems to me that we don't have any reliable way to tell what specific sat we're viewing, and that probably goes for the uplinkers as well. I'm thinking that only the sat controllers actually know which transponders are turned on and which are turned off, and the uplinkers just know what freq they're transmitting.
EDIT: Forgot to mention that the person who updated Lyngsat was a P.Smith, and I know we have a P.Smith here too, but I don't know if it's the same person.... if so, I guess I'll find out for sure how he knew.
However, being someone with a common name myself, I know that there are plenty of P.Smiths out there, just like there are plenty of Bill Jones's out there.
At first I figured that people just weren't sure which sat to put updates into, but then I noticed that one individual had updated 3 transponders, showing 2 transponder changes on AMC4 and 1 transponder update on AMC2.
I guess my question is, how would this person know whether he was seeing a transponder from AMC2 or AMC4? I thought that perhaps there is some indication of this in the NIT packets, but they don't seem to say anything useful. I've never seen any information in these sat transmissions that would identify what sat we're watching.
Anyway, is there some way of identifying what sat a transponder is coming from? Or does this fellow have some inside information? Or is he just guessing?
I've seen some people suggest that they can tell what sat they're looking at by looking at a spectrum analyzer trace, perhaps by signal strength, but I can't see any difference between the transponder reported for AMC2 vs the rest of the spectrum reportedly from AMC4.
I also remember some posts here about that one specific transponder, so maybe it's public knowledge? But it really seems to me that we don't have any reliable way to tell what specific sat we're viewing, and that probably goes for the uplinkers as well. I'm thinking that only the sat controllers actually know which transponders are turned on and which are turned off, and the uplinkers just know what freq they're transmitting.
EDIT: Forgot to mention that the person who updated Lyngsat was a P.Smith, and I know we have a P.Smith here too, but I don't know if it's the same person.... if so, I guess I'll find out for sure how he knew.
However, being someone with a common name myself, I know that there are plenty of P.Smiths out there, just like there are plenty of Bill Jones's out there.
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