Looking to track a bird on inclined orbit

[nupdyxa]

Cheers to satellite hobbiest.
I am thinking to build a system with a primitive tracking mechanism for satellite on an inclined orbit. Inclination is +- 1.6 degree in Ku band.
As one of the solutions I thought to use an actuator say from a BUD and affix it to 1m dish so that it would move it up and down. Then set up the control box to send a pulse once in a while, depending on the step of an actuator. Though I do not have any practise with actuators or other tracking gears.
Any other suggessions?
Thanks...

 

[PSB]

Sounds interesting! What inclined satellite are you trying to track?

 

[nupdyxa]

Sounds interesting! What inclined satellite are you trying to track?

Currently T11 has a couple of channels that I am interested.

 

[mkm4]

so that it would move it up and down.

You also need to be able to move left and right.

Sats in inclined orbit move in a figure-8 pattern.

Also are you sure that you can see the transponder on T11? Some point to America, some to Europe.

 

[PSB]

T11 used to be able to pick up a few channels on this satellite at one point!

 

[nupdyxa]

so that it would move it up and down.

You also need to be able to move left and right.

Sats in inclined orbit move in a figure-8 pattern.

Also are you sure that you can see the transponder on T11? Some point to America, some to Europe.

Fair assumption, though if tilt (or skew) on a dish is set right, I believe it would do not exactly 8, but Italic I.
Now, I setup a new dish today. It is elliptical Direcway dish. I chose this one because it has somewhat larger beamwidth in one axis, thus allowing for wider satellite drift. I played with it today, and gotten some discouraging data. The signal was very strong at 6-7 PM tonight, quality jumped to 99% on my Fortec LTU. Then it had slowly started to detiorrate. By 9PM it was gone completely. Any attempts to tweak the dish in az/el and skew axis did not yield any improvement. I tracked it with a Spectrum Analyzer HP8590A The signal just faded completely. Meaning once the satellite drifts up or down it moves the footprint as well. I just cannot understand how much the footprint moves though. If inclinations is 1.6 degree, does not that mean that the reception dish just virtually moves 1.6 degree north/south, say from NY city to New Haven or something??
Any comments?

 

[digiblur]

so that it would move it up and down.
Fair assumption, though if tilt (or skew) on a dish is set right, I believe it would do not exactly 8, but Italic I.
Now, I setup a new dish today. It is elliptical Direcway dish. I chose this one because it has somewhat larger beamwidth in one axis, thus allowing for wider satellite drift. I played with it today, and gotten some discouraging data. The signal was very strong at 6-7 PM tonight, quality jumped to 99% on my Fortec LTU. Then it had slowly started to detiorrate. By 9PM it was gone completely. Any attempts to tweak the dish in az/el and skew axis did not yield any improvement. I tracked it with a Spectrum Analyzer HP8590A The signal just faded completely. Meaning once the satellite drifts up or down it moves the footprint as well. I just cannot understand how much the footprint moves though. If inclinations is 1.6 degree, does not that mean that the reception dish just virtually moves 1.6 degree north/south, say from NY city to New Haven or something??
Any comments?

What degree is this sat at?

 

[Shawn95GT]

What degree is this sat at?

37.5W

Shawn

 

[Cold Winter]

Cheers to satellite hobbiest.
I am thinking to build a system with a primitive tracking mechanism for satellite on an inclined orbit. Inclination is +- 1.6 degree in Ku band.
As one of the solutions I thought to use an actuator say from a BUD and affix it to 1m dish so that it would move it up and down. Then set up the control box to send a pulse once in a while, depending on the step of an actuator. Though I do not have any practise with actuators or other tracking gears.
Any other suggessions?
Thanks...

Look here ( 1224EL ) and scan down for the only solution I know of that matches what your talking about.

 

[nupdyxa]

Look ( 1224EL ) and scan down for the only solution I know of that matches what your talking about.

Thanks for a good link.
I guess I need to read up more on Inclined orbit theory. My understanding was that even though the orbit is inclined, the receive antenna can pick up a signal at any given time of a day (if properly aligned of course). In other words the signal is more or less stable, just dish needs constant alignment. Clearly what I am seeing is not the case. During the time satellite passes over equator the signal is high 12-15 dB over the noise floor. Few hours later the signal is gone completely, not a blimp. Any thoughts?
I used 1m DirecPC dish with Invacom SNF-031 LNB.

 

[Shawn95GT]

I found a good write up explaining the how and why of inclined orbits. Towards the end it speaks to how to track a satellite in an inclined orbit. I found it to be an interesting read.

http://www.ctiinfo.com/SatControl/ComTrack/InclinedOrbitTutorial/satgeom5.htm

Shawn

 

[nupdyxa]

Thanks Shawn!

 

[Krapola]

You should be able to gather orbital predicts from the Sat Controler...This helps in alignment...But a Tracking Rx tuned to the Beacon is your best bet....