Taken from Wikipedia, Es’hail 2 (a.k.a. Qatar-OSCAR 100 or QO-100[4]) is a Qatari satellite, launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on November 15, 2018. Es’hail 2 was built by Japan’s Mitsubishi Electric company, and operates at 26° East longitude along a geostationary orbit to provide direct-to-home television services in the Middle East and North Africa region. The satellite features 24 Ku-band and 11 Ka-band transponders to provide direct broadcasting services for television, government and commercial content distribution. In addition to commercial services, the payload of Es’hail 2 includes a linear transponder with a bandwidth of 500 kHz and 8 MHz for the amateur radio satellite service, with uplink on 2.4 GHz (13-cm band) and downlink on 10.45 GHz (3-cm band).
With some of our members “on the satellite” here at SRS we decided it would be a good idea as a club to “give it a go”. First up was Tony M0SAV who acquired kit from DXpatrol of Portugal which prompted the club to invest in one of their Ground Station systems. Our kit is continually being developed and being portable in nature we are able to operate both at our central Stockport HQ as well as out and about at places such as the Runway Visitor Park, Manchester Airport and Avro Heritage Centre, Woodford.
Please listen out for us on the satellite using callsign G(X)8SRS as well as our members Peter G8BCG, Carsten G0SYP and Tony M0SAV. Our club on air activities can be followed by clicking on the button below.
Please see below links to various websites of interest including DXpatrol. There is also a link to a YouTube video of a presentation delivered to the society by Carsten G0SYP/DL1EFD in which he describes his home setup. Our own setup as of March 2023 is described in another YouTube video filmed one cool Sunday morning in March 2023 at our Walthew House HQ.