Thread: easy signals on the clark belt? uhf

I am operating a ground station for the tracking of amateur satellites on the s-band, vhf, and uhf bands. The antennas a mounted on an AZ / EL motor. I would like to have an easy way to test the calibration of the motors by pointing at a geosynchronous satellite, preferably two of them.

Does anyone know of any uhf or sband signal that I might be able to pickup? Or is everything on the clark belt cband freqs or higher? I was also thinking mounting a small 18" dish on with the antennas should work well for verifying the dbs signals, circular polarization is also preferred, as skew is not adjustable.

Thanks

Don't think there's anything lower than L or S band on the geostationary arc. How about bore sighting a pizza dish? Light weight, etc. Whoops, guess you've already considered this. (I recorded a few ARISAT passes, lousy antenna, scanner) Might find some info here
UHF-Satcom.com - The #1 online resource for VHF to EHF satellite reception and monitoring

but you've probably seen it already.

I think the GOES weather satellites transmit on L-band, if you can put together an antenna for that. Shouldn't be too much bigger than S-band.

There used to be military satellites on UHF, but I don't remember what they were called and whether they were geosynchronous.

There is still milsat sats on the 250 to 260 Mhz UFH band mostly occupied by pirates but you have to catch them when they are passing by. Still worth listening to though,some interesting things ca be heard but still not as good as HF USB.

Never found anything usable in the Clarke belt for aiming I can remember. Would be nice though the UHF yagis are rather sharp, would be perfect for calibrating. A ground source works for azimuth, just kind of winged it for elevation.
-C.

Originally Posted by FaT Air

Don't think there's anything lower than L or S band on the geostationary arc. How about bore sighting a pizza dish? Light weight, etc. Whoops, guess you've already considered this. (I recorded a few ARISAT passes, lousy antenna, scanner) Might find some info here
UHF-Satcom.com - The #1 online resource for VHF to EHF satellite reception and monitoring

but you've probably seen it already.

Do you know of any S-band signals? What orbital positions. I already have a S-band antenna mounted. I also have access to a spectrum analyzer. Thanks for the link, I am an experienced FTA guy getting into ham and uhf-satcom stuff.

From looking at the verified list of frequencies here:
UHF-Satcom.com - S-band reception


. There is nothing west of 62W, my LOS starts at 80W and goes somewhere past the date line. Maybe there is something on this side of the world?

edit:

found this...

2242.500

USA 162 (SDS-3 F2) 2001-046A 26948

US intelligence-related satellite near 144° west longitude, possibly including communications

CW carrier (plus side-bands?)

Reported frequency for satellite in geosynchronous orbit - also reported to transmit at 250.075 MHz, 256.475, 263.225 and 267.550 MHz

Anyways it be nice to confirm a signal from someone in western NA with s-band before i go looking for something that might not be there.