Receiving Oscar 100 DATV signals

Oscar 100 has an 8MHz wide band transponder dedicated to Digital Amateur Television.

The transponder spectrum can be monitored using the online spectrum monitor: https://eshail.batc.org.uk/wb/ However, to receive and decode the signals you will need to set up your own receiving station

Setting up the receive station

A typical DATV receive system will consist of the following:

Dish

To receive the DATV signals you will need at least a 90cms dish and preferably 1m or larger - see this guide as to how to align your dish on the Es'hail-2 satellite: https://wiki.batc.org.uk/images/5/5d/Getting_ready_for_Es%27hail2.pdf

LNB

Just like any consumer satellite system, you will need an LNB at the dish to convert the 10GHz Ku band signals down to L Band which can then be decoded by the satellite receiver. Whilst any modern Ku band satellite LNB will receive the BADR4 signals, it is recommended that you use a Phase Lock Loop LNB to receive the Es'hail-2 amateur signals. This is because the frequency stability of a standard DRO unit will make it difficult to receive the Narrow Band transponder SSB signals and Reduced Bandwidth DATV (RB-TV) signals on the wide band transponder.

The most common unit is the Octagon Optima PLL OTLSO LNB (Beware there are a number of other Octagon units available which are standard DRO LNBs – ensure you buy the OTLSO PLL unit).

See this page for more details: https://wiki.batc.org.uk/Es%27hail-2_LNBs_and_Antennaes

Note that the DATV receiver will need to be capable of providing 18v DC to the LNB to select horizontal polarisation required for the wide band transponder or position the LNB 90 degrees offset and fed 12v.

What receiver to use

There are a couple of options you can use - however as the frequencies in use are not standard satellite frequencies and the bit rates we use for ATV are lower than commercial satellites the choice is limited.

Standard satellite receivers

To receive the wide band, horizontally polarised DATV transponder you will need a DATV receiver capable of receiving 741 MHz to 749MHz.

Unfortunately this is outside the normal tuning range of a consumer digital TV Set Top Box (STB). You will either need an additional up converter to shift the IF frequency up to be in the tuning range of the STB at L-band between 950 – 2150MHz or modify your LNB to produce an IF output above 950MHz.

Also, you will not be able to use most (95%) of consumer STB to receive the Reduced bandwidth (RB-TV) signals which are typically 333Ks on Oscar 100.

MiniTiouner

However there is a USB tuner designed specifically for Amateur TV use which natively covers 143MHz to 2450Mhz and is suitable to receive Es’hail-2 and a number of amateur bands with no modifications or additional up-converter.

MiniTiouner hardware is available from the BATC and other sources and are used with the MiniTioune software developed by F6DZP to receive and decode the signals. See https://wiki.batc.org.uk/MiniTioune for more details.

The other reason why MiniTioune is the preferred solution to receive the DATV transponder is that most amateur TV transmissions are using Reduced Bandwidth DATV (RB-TV) with a bandwidth below 1 MHz. A standard consumer STB will not receive these RB-TV signals but MiniTiouner has been designed to receive RB-TV signals with less than 100 KHz bandwidth. Note - there is a DATV beacon transmission running on Oscar 100 at 2Ms which can be received using a standard DVB-S2 receiver and appropriate up converter.

SDRs

Standard SDR software and hardware will not receive DATV signals - there are 2 programs for the advanced user which may work at some symbol rates:

SDRAngel: https://github.com/f4exb/sdrangel

Lean SDR: https://github.com/pabr/leansdr/tree/work

Setting up your receiver

You will find it a lot easier to tune to the DATV signals on Oscar-100 if you put your LNB offset in to your receiver rather than try to enter the IF frequency such as 739.5MHz directly.

Most LNBs have a 9750MHz local oscillator - when 9750 is put in to your receiver offset (on MiniTiouner it is the white box directly below the frequency box) you can then just enter the 10GHz freq shown on the spectrum display directly into your receiver.

Tuning to the signals

Once you have the system set up and you have successfully received the DATV beacon on 10492.5 MHz 2MS DVB-S2 you will be ready to receive DATV signals.

All signals should appear on the channels listed in the bandplan: https://wiki.batc.org.uk/Es%27hail-2_DATV_Bandplan

Because you need to know a number of parameters before you can start to receive a signal, BATC has set up a dedicated chat line beside the spectrum monitor https://eshail.batc.org.uk/wb/

When you see a signal appear on the spectrum monitor, check the chat and enter the frequency, symbol rate (SR) and DVB-S or DVB-S2 mode in to your receiver. Once you have received the signal make sure you let the station know you have received them!

If you have the correct symbol rate set for a signal, you may find the receiver AFC may pull your receiver on to the frequency. Therefore you may find you receive the beacon on 10492.5 MHz when your receiver is tuned to 10495MHz.

For more details on how to use MiniTioune see this page https://wiki.batc.org.uk/MiniTioune_software

Further information

There is a lot of information published on this wiki and also more discussion on the BATC forum here: https://forum.batc.org.uk/viewforum.php?f=101

Typical receive results

Oscar 100 DATV beacon - 10492.5 MHz, DVB-S2 2Ms

Measured using MiniTioune V0.8s and with DVB-S2 (not auto) selected.

Dish size	MER rx'd	Comments
1.8m	10dB
1.2m	8dB
1m	6dB
80cm	5dB

Dish size vs received stations

SR	Dish size	MER
Example	Example	Example
Example	Example	Example
Example	Example	Example