A LimeSDR Mini Based Es’Hail-2 DATV Ground Station Uplink
Daniel Estévez has posted on the LimeSDR Mini CrowdSupply blog about his ground-station build for the Es'Hail-2 satellite. Es'Hail-2 is the first geostationary satellite with amateur radio transponders on board. The LimeSDR Mini is a $159 RX/TX capable SDR with 10 MHz to 3.5 GHz frequency range.
The Es'Hail-2 satellite is positioned at 25.5°E which is over Africa. It's reception footprint covers Africa, Europe, the Middle East, India, eastern Brazil and the west half of Russia/Asia. There are two amateur transponders on the satellite. One is a narrow band linear transponder which uplinks from 2400.050 - 2400.300 MHz and downlinks from 10489.550 - 10489.800 MHz. Another is a wide band digital transponder for digital amateur TV (DATV) which uplinks from 2401.500 - 2409.500 MHz and downlinks from 10491.000 - 10499.000 MHz.
Daniel's ground station uses a LimeSDR Mini running on a Beaglebone Black. A 2.4 GHz WiFi parabolic grid antenna is used to transmit to the satellites digital amateur TV uplink. In order to generate enough power for the uplink transmission a GALI-84 amplifier chip is cascaded with a 100W power amplifier. All the electronics are enclosed in a watertight box and placed outside.
