QO100 Reception Report.

Today was mostly listening to QO100 with the new set-up with the IC-R7000 receiver.

Compared to the previously used AR-8600 this is a pleasure to use. I now have the inclination to tune the band to listen for signals.

The S-meter readings of the IC-R7000 is much more conservative than the AR-8600, and probably much more accurate. Signals have a good quality audio, and in spite of the 100Hz tuning steps all signals are sufficiently well readable.

Today became a test of the receiver sensitivity:
OE7DBH was running QSOs on the satellite, running just 50mW, and the signal was not strong, but fully readable. During a few QSOs I heard him reduce power further, down to approximately 5mW, as he said, to test the receiver side. His 5mW signal was just audible, with a few words just readable in the noise.

Running my simple system with the reference input modified LNB and the back-end receiver, with a 60cm offset dish, I consider my receiving system adequate. I do have a larger dish, but I would probably use that for the transmit side, as I expect to have just 2W from a BU-500 transmit converter. It will be possible to increase that to about 3.5W with a Chinese "8W" amplifier, and then place the transmit converter indoors.

The second LNB, in the mast, without dish, is now connected , supply voltage ("Bias-Tee") and all, to the AR-8600 receiver, so I can listen simultaneously to the satellite and the simple set-up for local beacon and rain scatter monitoring in the narrow band segment of the 10GHz band. As usual, the local beacon about 36km from here is always audible.

Update: I just added receiver #2 for QO-100. From the signal splitter there is one more output available. This is intended to be used with a RTL-SDR receiver, so the band spectrum as such can be monitored visually. Yes, it is possible to add a speaker to the computer. Is it is necessary? That remains to be seen, I might want to use one of the wideband receivers tied up by the system, for other bands.

I continue my slow progress in the microwave bands. Only drawback is the cold and rainy weather, not fun for outdoor work. Better for indoor work, and there is more than enough to do.