Re: [amsat-bb] Bounce your signal off Mir (passive satellite)

["Tony Baldwin" <ei2fsb@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>
> In the USA, anyone should be able to hear the reflection from the Navy
> Space Surveillance 80? megaW transmitter in texas on 216.98 MHz.

I have noticed something similar to this on two occasions on FO-20.
Once when the satellite was located between Greenland and Canada I heard the
unmistakable "zzzzing" of radar sweeps on the downlink. The signal was
dopplering down the passband so I assume that it was actually being
transmitted by FO-20 rather than bouncing.
The same thing happened again a few weeks later, but this time when FO-20
was southbound over the Middle East.

The rotational period of the sweeps was roughly 5 seconds (they were
definite sweeps, NOT pings).
My theory is there was an AWACs plane in the area and the radar signals were
being mixed in FO-20's receiver, to produce a signal in the TX passband.  If
it were caused by a permanent ground station I would expect to hear it on a
regular basis and I would have thought that the radar from a military or WX
satellite would be pulses rather than sweeps.

It's certainly more interesting than hearing Spanish taxi FM !

Tony EI2FSB

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