I know this is a long dead thread, but with talks of spectrum auctions and such, is 4.5-4.8 still viable? Or was it auctioned off as well previously?
as far as I know, there's capacity in that band on 4 satellites that cover North America:
- Hispasat 6 @30W (not 100% certain, and I have never seen any info of it being used)
- SES6 @ 40W (it was being used at some point, but not seeing anything listed at this time)
- Amazonas @ 61W - according to PortalBSD there are data transponders
- Eutelsat 65 WestA @ 65W - dozens of mostly Brazilian channels
Note that I'm not able to receive it so this information is based on what's on Lyngsat and PortalBSD
So it looks like it's alive and well, but not growing. It's also clear it's not aimed at North America, we just happen to be included in the footprint, at least partially
I don't know if that band is licensed to satellite use in North America, so it might not even be an option to be actively used here.
On the technical side, with a regular C-band LNB with LO=5150 MHz, the 4.5-4.8 band translate to 350-650 MHz, which is of course too low for regular satellite receivers. So I have hooked up an SDR dongle to be able to look at the spectrum. While most LNBs filter that band out, I have an old Norsat that does not, and was able to see at least part of the transponders on 65W. I tried adjusting the LO frequency in the LNB, but could get only minor adjustments (about +/- 10 MHz), far from what would be needed