Thread: Nimiq 82W contour map, a first take

After a week of collecting data and working with nelson61 to try and reproduce the information, attached is a projected contour map of the Nimiq 4 satellite located at 82w.

Note that this map is based soley on user reports of reception (I collected over 70 different reception reports). If you have a reading for Nimiq 4 that you see is not placed on the map, please report it and hopefully nelson61 can find some time to make some additions. The elements that we looked at were satellite size, highest peaking TP (excluding TP 3 & 4 which may still be broadcasting from another Nimiq satellite) and lowest peaking TP, as well as location of the user.

Here is his notes in the last message he sent me on it...

Green = good
Red = none
Yellow = some

A definite footprint.

Hope this helps some out, and maybe we can slip this into the Uplink Report

I believe it is SmithP who was saying in the Signal Strength Thread how there was no mention of Dish Size and such. So I figured I could post the raw data so people can get an idea of what size dish they need. Note that I skip the 2 TPs from the readings that are not from all accounts broadcasting from Nimiq 4.

Can we get some more readings in from southern US folks.

In the raw data on the first page, there are 2 Dallas, TX, US locations. The 3m dish has no signal, and the 90cm dish has 50-60... That can't be right.

Since 8PSK, I lost a couple of transponders on 82W with my 76 cm here in Nashville. I upgraded to a Fortec 100 cms and now get the following results in Nashville on my 9242.

All come in but I do lose a couple at night (TP's 22, 23, 26, 27, 30, 31 can sometimes not lock or take a few seconds).

TP Signal

1 71
2 58
3 65
4 65
5 67
6 56
7 62
8 65
9 68
10 53
11 57
12 63
13 66
14 53
15 64
16 65
17 64
18 52
19 58
20 61
21 64
22 52
23 54
24 62
25 61
26 51
27 53
28 64
29 62
30 53
31 55
32 66

lol, go bigger than 1m and see what happens... a 1.2m may solve that problem...

This is what I have in Indianapolis, IN with a 90cm Dish:

TP 1: 62
TP 2: 62
TP 3: 66
TP 4: 70
TP 5: 70
TP 6: 60
TP 7: 67
TP 8: 70
TP 9: 71
TP 10: 60
TP 11: 63
TP 12: 69
TP 13: 72
TP 14: 61
TP 15: 71
TP 16: 71
TP 17: 73
TP 18: 63
TP 19: 69
TP 20: 70
TP 21: 74
TP 22: 64
TP 23: 69
TP 24: 72
TP 25: 74
TP 26: 62
TP 27: 69
TP 28: 73
TP 29: 73
TP 30: 64
TP 31: 68
TP 32: 74

I decided to go the 120 cm Fortec here in Nashville and now find I have pretty solid signals all round. Here are the results in signal strength on the 9242 for the 120 cms. (Note from all my experimentation I have concluded that each dB translates to approx 7 percentage points)

TP 120 cm
1 78
2 69
3 73
4 76
5 76
6 67
7 74
8 75
9 77
10 66
11 70
12 74
13 77
14 66
15 74
16 79
17 76
18 66
19 69
20 74
21 75
22 64
23 66
24 74
25 73
26 64
27 67
28 75
29 73
30 65
31 69
32 77

I'm doubt in the relation '1 dB ~ 7 points' as receivers taking in account signal level and signal quality, we don't know what weight added to each one to get the Dish/Bell scale.

I'm surprised no one has posted this yet...