hi

k guya here is what i´ve found:
http://www.qsl.net/kc2hax/ao40/ao40.htm
it´s the amateur Satellite "AMSAT OSCAR-40"
and if you check the liks on the left side you will find "AO-40 Spacecraft Antennas", click on it and you will see this page: http://www.qsl.net/kc2hax/ao40/ao40hard.htm
with pictures of an wonderfull S-Band (2.4GHz) Antenna!!!!

so what do you think of it?
does we really need UMTS and Satellitephones or does we only need WLAN with better antennas, more output power and voice over ip?

CU AssetBurned

AssetBurned:
Sorry, you'll never gain access to AO-40 with WLAN cards, wrong portion of the "S" band, and wrong uplink to the bird as well.
AO-40 uses "L" band and UHF for uplinks and S-band for the downlink. The other barier to your use is a ham license, and the mode of operation too. You'll need SSB/CW to hear and work this bird, plus, your uplink should be at least 100 watts ERP(Effective Radiated Power), so there again, you have difficulty with anybody hearing your flea-powered signal/s.
L-band: 1.2 Ghz. mainly the lower end of the spectrum is used for satellite work, generating adequate power amplification is affordable with solid-state and the ubiquitous 2C39A triode in a cavity amplifier.
S-band is once again, even MORE difficult in generating effective power, the cost is greater, components are costlier and WLAN cards do NOT support fixed or variable frequency operation with single sideband or cw as you MUST track your downlink and uplink through doppler correction,
so you can toss out your Orinoco cards and ALL WLAN cards for this area of experimentation.

You must also have a current table of Kepplerian "elements" to be able to track when the "bird" is within range of your station, as well as the squint angle of your antennas pattern/s.

For antenna construction hints and kinks, I suggest this book: The ARRL UHF/MICROWAVE EXPERIMENTER'S HANDBOOK from the ARRL at 225 Main Street, Newington, CT. 06111
That book is over 400 pages of information, theory and applications relating to ATV, SSB, repeaters, satellite ops, construction, antennas for microwave ops with yagis, helices, parabolas and more!
This is a "MUST OWN" book for anybody seriously interested in making their RF gear operate better and more efficiently as well.

73!
DATA, KA9UCE, A.E.C
www.geocities.com/aec9823

hmm all frequencyguids i found about the AO-40 say that it use the S-Band for up- and downlink.
http://www.amsat-dl.org/p3dqrg.html

license? just for a test... who cares? same like the pringels antennas they are not legal here but we use it sometimes :-)

but you are right that there are some problems.
the main idea wasn´t really to use the AO-40, it was only to show up that S-Band is used to communicate with a satellite. so it might be possible, if you have a very strong signal, to use the satellite as relay for a WLAN.

I agree on the ARRL book...I believe you can also pick this up at www.arrl.org...

73 to fellow hams on the boards...!

Hi,

I think the round trip delay would be too much for the 802.11b spec to handle. dont forget it's 2 * 36000Km's - i.e. uplink and downlink. Plus you would need a transponder bandwidth of at least 2.2Mhz for 1mbps communications. Also the uplink power needed to give the required s/n ratio would be high. etc etc

AssetBurned,
You wrote: "license? just for a test... who cares? same like the pringels antennas they are not legal here but we use it sometimes"

Just a friendly suggestion: Hams tend to be very protective of their frequencies and the usage of those freqs, at least in the US. I can't imagine that they are any less so in Germany. You might get away with it once, maybe twice, but I would bet by the third time there would be all sorts of radio geeks with directional gear outside your place. You're a smart guy, I've seem enough of your posts here to know! If you are going to use the Ham freqs, get a license. :-)

73,
Thorn
KB1CPS

...a government surplus S-Band transceiver on Ebay for $10,000 Ruples. LOL

Tron Of Borg

To correct my post of a few days ago.

I have not been active in amateur radio for about 6 months now, and the last use was for UO-14.
Maybe AMSAT has activated portions of the bird's transmitters for regular use perhaps?
Last I heard was the S-band TX was inop right after launch, same thin with the VHF TX....both inop.
This was mentioned shortly after launch of AO-40 on the AMSAT BB.

Thorn is correct, most computer folks dislike software thieves, hams hate frequency bootleggers, same thing but in reverse.

Copying of software and hijacking frequencies is a MORAL issue and should never be taken into any court for hearing, IMHO that is!

Those that dislike my eavesdropping on their conversations over their "cordless" phones shouldn't be mad if they expect me to ignore their "eavesdropping" on our licensed frequencies then (I love my IFR 1500 service monitor).

<rant on>
Cellphones are simple to listen to, as are many 900 Mhz. phones, once you know the "channels" and sequence they use.
Random tuning can also garner these as well, it all takes time. Eavesdropping may be harmless to most of us, and we'd really never know any differently, but would you appreciate knowing that every word you spoke was being recorded by some ill-minded butthead for his/her own benefit?
I doubt that very much, so use care and caution when using unsecured comms. </rant off>.

I have no use nor need to hear what my neighbors are talking about, so I don't tune in to listen, but I also know they aren't interested in what I have to say either, so we mutually agree by non-use to not listen to each other, therby ensuring privacy of one another....simple!

If the mode wasn't enough to make WLAN card use on AO-40 impossible, the round-trip travel time would preclude the use.....*Hey!, where's my packet of data"?

I surely do not wish to make enemies here, just state my thoughts and ideas, and also accept criticism from others as well, otherwise, how do we all learn?

Thank you!
DATA
www.geocities.com/aec9823