Since AO-40's premature silence, the amateur satellite community has been yearning for another HEO satellite. Come October 2006, P3E will be launched into orbit.
A High Earth Orbit will allow people to communicate with an entire hemisphere at a time. Someone literally half way around the world can now be within reach with this satellite. AO-40 fans, dust off your downconverters and BBQ dishes, P3E will have S band downlink, along with 2 meters, X band and K band. Uplinks are on 70cm, 23cm and C band, and a 10 meter RUDAK only uplink.
If you have one of these HF radios that has VHF/UHF too, like the Icom IC-706mkIIG, you might have all you need to get on this satellite, minus the antennas. The transponders on this satellite are linear, so they will require the use of a SSB/CW rig. Simply constructed yagi beams will work fine, and you could set them up on a tripod to point them since the orbit will keep the satellite in the same general direction in the sky for hours at a time.
S band downlink can put some good use to your spare 18" DirecTV dish. These make excellent receive antennas at 2.4GHz as others have found out modifying them for WiFi. Just construct a helical feed or a patch feed in place of the DBS LNB. How do you receive a signal at 2.4GHz? Well, in many areas around the country, there used to be something called wireless cable. This ran at about 2.4GHz, and to get your TV to pick up these stations, they used a downconverter to convert the 2.4GHz signals to 450MHz signals that you could receive on your cable ready TV. Now that DBS services have practically wiped out wireless cable, there are many old antennas and downconverters that aren't being used and are for sale on the cheap on eBay and the sort. Just search for MMDS downconverter and see what you come up with. There are many plans on the internet on how to make these work in the amateur band, and many models can be modified very easily without sophisticated test equipment. Google around for AO-40 downconverter and you'll come up with many solutions, which will work for P3E in the future.
Downconverters are going for around $10 these days, but once P3E is launched, expect to see many hams grabbing them all up, and the prices going up with it. So, what else can you do with one of these downconverters in the meantime? Besides listening to cordless phone calls and wireless video sender audio, AO-51 has an S band downlink mode which gets turned on about one week per month.
For more information on P3E, check out this AMSAT page, and the link contained within it for the latest updates.
http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/express
A High Earth Orbit will allow people to communicate with an entire hemisphere at a time. Someone literally half way around the world can now be within reach with this satellite. AO-40 fans, dust off your downconverters and BBQ dishes, P3E will have S band downlink, along with 2 meters, X band and K band. Uplinks are on 70cm, 23cm and C band, and a 10 meter RUDAK only uplink.
If you have one of these HF radios that has VHF/UHF too, like the Icom IC-706mkIIG, you might have all you need to get on this satellite, minus the antennas. The transponders on this satellite are linear, so they will require the use of a SSB/CW rig. Simply constructed yagi beams will work fine, and you could set them up on a tripod to point them since the orbit will keep the satellite in the same general direction in the sky for hours at a time.
S band downlink can put some good use to your spare 18" DirecTV dish. These make excellent receive antennas at 2.4GHz as others have found out modifying them for WiFi. Just construct a helical feed or a patch feed in place of the DBS LNB. How do you receive a signal at 2.4GHz? Well, in many areas around the country, there used to be something called wireless cable. This ran at about 2.4GHz, and to get your TV to pick up these stations, they used a downconverter to convert the 2.4GHz signals to 450MHz signals that you could receive on your cable ready TV. Now that DBS services have practically wiped out wireless cable, there are many old antennas and downconverters that aren't being used and are for sale on the cheap on eBay and the sort. Just search for MMDS downconverter and see what you come up with. There are many plans on the internet on how to make these work in the amateur band, and many models can be modified very easily without sophisticated test equipment. Google around for AO-40 downconverter and you'll come up with many solutions, which will work for P3E in the future.
Downconverters are going for around $10 these days, but once P3E is launched, expect to see many hams grabbing them all up, and the prices going up with it. So, what else can you do with one of these downconverters in the meantime? Besides listening to cordless phone calls and wireless video sender audio, AO-51 has an S band downlink mode which gets turned on about one week per month.
For more information on P3E, check out this AMSAT page, and the link contained within it for the latest updates.
http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/express
