The Es’Hail geostationary satellite has (in the last few minutes) been made operational. It includes an amateur radio linear transponder (13cm up 3cm down). If you have 13cm capability you could give it a try by using the webSDR here:QO-100 / Es'hail-2 Narrowband WebSDR
I understand people are having success with as little as 500mW to relatively small antennas (yet to be confirmed). SOTA?
My understanding from was that the turn on date was not until Thursday (14th)
Es’hail-2 / QO-100 Teleport Inauguration Day February 14 | AMSAT-UK
OK Just announced on AMSAT-DL - open for EXPERIMENTAL use.
73 Ed.
It’s good to see it working as I’ve been following the commissioning. Many years ago (1999) I spent some time and money getting ready for AO-40. Then I moved house and by the time I had the house sorted enough to have time for radio, AO-40 had a nasty accident and was rendered inoperable.
This time I’ve waited till it’s up and running before spending any money… well apart from £5.99 for an LNB which is peanuts.
Lots of people on it including a PY1 that lots of people are chasing for a contact.
I listened in on SSB for about an hour last night, mostly interested in the equipment used. It seems something like a classic VHF/UHF all-mode radio (TS-2000, FT-817, etc) + transverter and dishes around 1m are pretty typical. A few watts seem to be enough to get up there but I’ve heard people using up to 60W.
The most interesting setup was uplink from a Adalm Pluto SDR driving a WiFi amplifier (1-2W) into a high-gain WiFi antenna and downlink via WebSDR. It looks like with these cheap SDRs (Pluto, HackRF, LimeSDR etc) and repurposed WiFi gear it’s really easy to get on the air.
Instinctive thought:
Pick up a little 13cm handheld.
Subsequent thought - I’m not sure these even exist, and the mode will be SSB/CW anyway.
Next thought:
Pick up a suitable transverter for the 817.
Evil thought:
That’s the TX sorted … just use the webSDR linked above on my smartphone for RX… 
I would wait for a few months as I predict there will be plenty of only-slightly-used Es’Hail-ready equipment on the second-hand market.
Good thinking.
The first FT-8 has just been spotted on Es’Hail.
Now you’re talking!
I’m thinking about ordering the 13 cm transverter from Hristiyan. I am very satisfied with the 23cm version, as well as the recently released 20W PA.
There was loads of FT-8 testing yesterday. People were pushing up with one computer TXing through their 13cms gear and decoding with another computer from the SDR downlink.
The ability of several proven web SDR downlinks is wonderful in enabling you test your uplink. Regular 23/13cms SOTA activator Andrew G4VFL was copying himself using his SG Labs 2W transverter and 12 ele Yagi.
It won’t be long before an Es’hail transverter appears I think. 2m=>13cm TX and LNB IF freq => 2m RX. I expect SG Labs will produce one.
Not a 70cms IF Richard? They have that for TX already.
Which I believe was the reasoning behind setting up the WebSDR at Goonhilly, so that people could concentrate on the TXVertor plus antenna.
I wonder how long before we see a firmware upgrade to a 2.4GHz WiFi router so that it can produce a few milliwatts of SSB or CW (created and driven from a PC) DD-WRT-HAM ?? Add amp and antenna and away you go …
(the PC software generating the SSB/CW/Digital modes, also acting as an WebSDR client for receive).
73 Ed.
Don’t DB6NT - Kuhne electronics already have one … Yes here we are:
Upconvertor from 2m to 2.4 GHz plus down convertor LNB from 10GHz:
https://shop.kuhne-electronic.de/kuhne/de/onlineshop/EsHail-2/
Its in the wrong place…
Yes or 70cm.
