Monitored a New Satellite Downlink

While doing some scanning in the shack had a digital signal pop up on 465.9875 MHz. After some additional research I found out that this is a downlink from the EUMETSAT Metop and NOAA polar orbiting weather satellites used to communication with Data Collection System platforms in the 401 MHz area.

There is even a software decoder produced by my good friend Bev-Ewen Smith.
http://www.coaa.co.uk/argos3plotter.htm

BTW Bev has a done of monitor related decoding software packages at

This includes his very popular Planeplotter ADS-B software at
https://www.coaa.co.uk/software.htm  (Be sure to tell Bev that N5FPW Larry sent ya).

Anyway the 465.9875 downlink was very strong and should be easy for anyone to hear even on simple equipment.

Space-X Dragon downlinks

Our good friend PJ Marsh posted the following to the Hearsat newsgroup.

"Here is a quick summary of the downlinks detected so far from Space-X / Dragon (All freqs in MHz);

2205.5 Mhz Dragon narrow band telemetry

2216.0 MHz TLM downlink via directional s-band antenna 20W, FFT http://pjm.dyndns.org/twtr/spacex.jpg

2265.0 MHz Dragon wide band telemetry FFT http://pjm.dyndns.org/twtr/spacex4.jpg and
http://pjm.dyndns.org/twtr/spacex5.jpg

2287.5 MHz Reflection of ISS uplink to TDRSS, presumably off Dragon.

The 2287.5 signal is interesting to watch in FFT as you can see significant phasing effects, probably due to the multitude of reflections since the antenna on the ISS will be pointing up to a TDRSS."

Thanks for sharing Paul.

Chinese Lunar Orbiter Downlink

Paul Marsh reported the following on the Hearsat-L newsgroup:

I think I have re-found the Chinese Chang'e-2 lunar orbiter downlink. I've been monitoring it for a few hours, and can see both Doppler inversions as it orbits the Moon.

http://pjm.dyndns.org/sdr/change2a021110.jpg shows the signal, downlinking on 2210.800 MHz nominally.

I also caught this fft http://pjm.dyndns.org/sdr/change2a021110a.jpg showing the Doppler inversion.

Can someone else with S-Band facilities try to track this orbiter and report back its signal strength etc?

Also Nils in Germany confirmed Paul's observation:

I can confirm the Signal on 2210.816 MHz from Moon with upward doppler direction
at ~ 12:30 UTC. The Moon is about to set here currently, the following FFT was taken at 3°Elevation only. This is using a 1m mesh dish + EME103B LNA and Winradio Converter into an ICOM IC-R7100 with SDR-14 on the IF out.

http://www.bildercache.de/anzeige.html?dateiname=20101102-143010-148.png

Thanks gentlemen for sharing your observations with the rest of the monitoring community.