02/11/2019
Thursday, February 14, is Teleport Inauguration Day in Qatar, celebrating the opening of the new Es'hailSat teleport and the official opening of Es'hail-2, which carries the first geostationary Amateur Radio payload, a German P4A package. Es'hail-2 launched last November from Cape Canaveral. The two Amateur Radio transponders onboard what's now known as Qatar OSCAR 100 (QO-100) also will be made available on February 14 for general operation by radio amateurs within QO-100's footprint. Emceeing the opening ceremony will be Qatar's former Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiya, A71AU, who chairs the Qatar Amateur Radio Society (QARS) and is a satellite patron.
A delegation from Germany - AMSAT-DL President Peter Peter Guelzow, DB2OS; Achim Vollhardt, DH2VA, and Thomas Kleffel, DG5NGI, of the P4A team - will be in Qatar to set up and commission the ground segment of P4A at the QO-100 ground station. In addition to LEILA and the DVB-S2 DATV system, this also includes a club station, which will operate under the auspices of QARS as A71A. A backup station is installed at QARS headquarters in Doha.
An AMSAT-DL ground station at the Bochum Observatory in Germany is also ready for reception and transmission via QO-100, with later radio operation via the satellite carried out using the call sign DL50AMSAT. AMSAT-DL has requested that radio amateurs refrain from attempts to transmit via the new satellite until commissioning is complete.
On opening day, a video of Es'hail-2 will be transmitted in an endless loop in DVB-S2 format on the DATV beacon of the wideband transponder. Beacons will be transmitted via the narrowband transponder.
Stations located outside of the QO-100 footprint or lacking 10 GHz receive capability can monitor the proceeding using online WebSDR resources. In cooperation with AMSAT-DL, the British Amateur Television Club (BATC) will operate a WebSDR for the narrowband segment, and a spectrum viewer for the wideband (DATV) segment. The Goonhilly Earth Station is supporting the project, providing hosting[1] at the facility in Cornwall, United Kingdom. The IS0GRB Es'Hail-2 SAT 26E WebSDR receiver[2] on Sardinia Island, Italy, can be accessed too.
The satellite is now in geostationary orbit at 25.9ř E. AMSAT-DL has posted Es'hail-2 narrowband[3]˙and wideband[4]˙Amateur Radio transponder operating guidelines and Es'hail-2 Amateur Radio information[5] online. - Thanks to AMSAT News Service via AMSAT-DL
[1]
https://eshail.batc.org.uk/
[2]
http://websdr.is0grb.it:8901/
[3]
https://amsat-dl.org/en/p4-a-nb-transponder-bandplan-and-operating-guidelines
[4]
https://amsat-dl.org/en/p4-a-wb-transponder-bandplan-and-operating-guidelines
[5]
https://amsat-dl.org/en/eshail-2-amsat-phase-4-a
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ţ Synchronet ţ Whiskey Lover's Amateur Radio BBS