Hello,

Just a typical non-technical sw listener, and frankly now next to nothing re
antennas.
But do like picking up maritime and mil stuff.

Was thinking of trying out a new software Inmarsat program for receiving and
decoding Inmarsat msg's.

Apparently the freq. used is around 2 GHz
My NRD 545 wiuth the converter gets up there, I think.

They mention that you need a parabolic dish antenna, and I think it was an L
type downfeed feed.

Think a Discone antenna and reg. coax would pick up "anything", or not worth
the time to even try ?

Thanks,
Bob

In article ,
"Robert11" wrote:

Hello,

Just a typical non-technical sw listener, and frankly now next to nothing re
antennas.
But do like picking up maritime and mil stuff.

Was thinking of trying out a new software Inmarsat program for receiving and
decoding Inmarsat msg's.

Apparently the freq. used is around 2 GHz
My NRD 545 wiuth the converter gets up there, I think.

They mention that you need a parabolic dish antenna, and I think it was an L
type downfeed feed.

Think a Discone antenna and reg. coax would pick up "anything", or not worth
the time to even try ?

Thanks,
Bob

Basically, there are two sets of MIL SAT setups... there is the UHF
Military stuff between 200 - 400 Mhz, and then there is the true Marine
stuff in the Shf bands. YOu can hear some of the Tactical UHF stuff with
your discone, but most of that is now encrypted. The Shf stuff would
require a knowledge of which SATS, and their locations in the sky
relative to your house, and at least a one meter dish for solid
reception, as well as an understanding of Modulation schemes used,
decoder hardware, Frequency, and Polarity. This would not be for the
fainthearted.....

Robert11 wrote:
Hello,

Just a typical non-technical sw listener, and frankly now next to nothing re
antennas.
But do like picking up maritime and mil stuff.

Was thinking of trying out a new software Inmarsat program for receiving and
decoding Inmarsat msg's.

Apparently the freq. used is around 2 GHz
My NRD 545 wiuth the converter gets up there, I think.

They mention that you need a parabolic dish antenna, and I think it was an L
type downfeed feed.

Think a Discone antenna and reg. coax would pick up "anything", or not worth
the time to even try ?

Thanks,
Bob



You probably won't have enough SNR without a gain antenna. Doesn't need
to be huge, but you do need more gain than you get from an omni.

Inmarsat operates in C (3.6 GHz down, 6.4GHz up) and L (1.525-1.559 GHz
down, 1.626-1.661 GHz up ) band, not S band. What you heard about was
using a small parabola and an L-band feed for the downlink (at 1.5GHz)

Inmarsat Mini-M uses a very small antenna, and in fact, has the ability
to talk to a satphone with a small antenna (briefcase sized)