The version of my Rot2Prog controller had relays to switch polarity/power and these got damaged once a week (!!!) after tracking a few passes. It is not easy to find prime focus dishes nowadays…įor tracking I use an SPID BIG RAS AZ/EL rotor and the Rot2Prog controller. I was lucky enough to find a 1.4 m prime focus dish with f/D 0.38 (Andersen True Focus). There are also Elektro L2 / 元 geostationary satellites at 7500 MHz. Real-time processing (demodulation/decoding etc) isn’t possible at these high rates (e.g over 20 MSPS) even with a powerful PC so the whole pass needs to be recorded and post-processed offline.īelow are some X band LEO weather/earth observation satellite frequencies as of March 2021: Satellite There are not many SDRs around, capable of sampling at over 60 MSPS at a reasonable price. įor the direct reception of weather / earth observation satellites on 8 GHz typically a ~1.2 m or bigger dish is needed, a AZ/EL or even better a X/Y rotor, a suitable feed and low noise amplifier, a downconverter and an SDR with the appropriate software. An excellent GEO-Quarterly article describing Jean-Luc Milette’s pioneering work on X band weather satellite reception can be found following this link.

Amatuer dropbox links