Es'hail-2 Ground Station
The Es'hail-2 spectrum monitor has been installed at Goonhilly Earth Station, but is awaiting completion of the network connection before the installation is operational.
The dish has been pointed at 26 degrees East (the planned Es'hail-2 location) and tested by receiving signals from BADR-4.
RF
The hardware consists of a 1.3 Metre dish with a dual LNB. The separate horizontal and vertical feeds go to 2 Airspys which are connected to a Linux server.
The indoor LNB Power Unit has been constructed:
The GPS reference is a Leo Bodnar unit programmed to produced 10 MHz (for the Airspys) and 25 MHz (for the LNB, but not implemented yet). The settings for the reference to produce these 2 frequencies were not straightforward (as the 2 outputs on the Leo Bodnar unit need to be linked) but are here for reference:
Server
Hardware
i7-2600 CPU
16GB DDR3 RAM
Intel DQ67SW Motherboard
500GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD
750W Corsair TX Power Supply
Software
Ubuntu Server 18.04
Nginx mainline
airspy_tcp fork (source)
narrowband WebSDR by PA3FWM (homepage)
wideband spectrum monitor (source coming soon)
Network
TBC
Installation
The equipment has been placed on a bench in our allocated room (with AMSAT-UK's FUNcube receiver).
