Geostationary Amateur Radio Satellite

Geostationary Amateur Radio Satellite

Most of the amateur radio satellites are deployed in low earth orbits (LEO) so that they pass above you more than once a day. You have to track their location using online trackers as discussed previously. They are available for contact in a particular location only for a short period during each pass. Geostationary satellites on the other hand have a fixed location and are accessible throughout without having to track them. They are located at a much higher altitude than the usual low earth orbit satellites.

Qatar OSCAR 100 was the first geostationary amateur radio transponder, which became operational in 2018. It is a joint project between the Qatar Satellite Company, the Qatar Amateur Radio Society (QARS), and AMSAT Deutschland which provided the technical lead. Qatar  OSCAR-100 is hosted on Es’hail-2, a Broadcast Transponder Satellite owned by the Es’hailSat Qatar Satellite Company. It is now in a geostationary orbit at 25.9° E.

Qatar OSCAR 100 covers a wide area from Brazil to Thailand. Uplink is in the 2400 MHz and downlink in 10450 MHz band. 250 KHz bandwidth linear transponder is intended for conventional analogue operations. 8 MHz bandwidth transponder is for experimental digital modulations and DVB amateur television. One can hear the activity on the Qatar-OSCAR 100 Web Receiver Project at https://eshail.batc.org.uk/.