Es'hail-2 Basic Information

To receive Es'hail-2 at 26E you can use standard satellite LNBs. These can also be modified. (Note there are other standards and new wideband LNBs. We are talking about traditional ones available in 2019). This is intended to be a basic guide, there is more details information on how to modify equipment to improve performance.

Satellite Location

Es'Hail-2 is nominally located on the geostationary arc at 26 degrees East. Here [LINK] is a calculator to work out where to point your dish, or use one of the many web pages like this: http://www.satsig.net/maps/satellite-tv-dish-pointing-uk-ireland.htm or https://www.dishpointer.com/ and many others.

Aligning in the UK based on TV signals is difficult as the adjacent signals from Sky 2 degrees to the East are very strong. The easiest method is to use these strong signals, align and peak on Sky and then move the dish an appropriate amount, in the UK typically ~2 degrees to the South and ~0.5 degrees higher in elevation.

For example in London Es'Hail-2 (26E) is at Azimuth 147.9° and Elevation 26.2° and Astra (28E) is at Azimuth 145.4° and Elevation: 25.4° so having found Astra, turn the dish 2.5 degrees to the South and increase the elevation by 0.7 degrees. The simplest way to do this is using geometry, so for example if the feed arm is 100cm long it needs to move 100 sin(2.5) = 4.4cm to the right and 100 sin(0.7) = 1.2cm up. This approximation will be close enough and generally easier to measure than with a protractor.

The EsHail-2 satellite currently has two operational beacons on 10.706 GHz using Horizontal polarisation and 11.205 GHz using vertical polarisation that can be used for peaking and setting the polarisation offset. The latter is adjusted by rotating the LNB ~20 degrees to look for a null in the beacon on the opposite polarisation.

DC Supply

The basic LNB requires a DC supply fed up the coax. This powers the internals and also selects polarisation. A 12V supply selects Horizontal polarisation, an 18V supply Vertical polarisation. Standard LNBs like the Octagon range have two local oscillator frequencies, 9.75 GHz and 10.6 GHz. The higher is selected by adding a 22kHz signal to the DC supply. For EsHail use the lower LO is used and this 22kHz tone is not required. Some newer wideband LNBs intended for SkyQ are different, so beware.

The LNB needs 12V or 18V supply and returns an intermediate frequency in the range 1-2GHz. For amateur use we can extend this somewhat from about 500MHz to about 2.5 GHz. This means we can use the standard 9.750 GHz local oscillator which translates the 10.489 MHz EsHail-2 transponder down to 739 MHz.