[amsat-bb] Fixed Elevation LEO Orbit figure

Robert Bruninga bruninga at usna.edu
Mon Mar 12 05:37:07 PST 2007


To help clarify the elevation discussion, I have added a drawing
of a LEO orbit passes relative to a station's antenna to the web
page:

http://www.ew.usna.edu/~bruninga/rotator1.html

It clearly shows how most satellite times are below 30 deg, and
10 dB more gain is needed to work satellites at those near
horizon angles compared to above 50 degrees where satellites are
10 dB closer and spend less than 5% of their time.\

I think the visualization helps a lot in these discussions and
shows how only a simple TV rotator and small beam is needed for
all LEO's..

By the way, I am not pushing the rotator interface indicated in
the web page above.  That web page is over 6 years old, and I
only keep it on-line to encourage all other Satellite Tracking
programs to add the same simple 2-bit TV rotator interface that
would make LEO satellite operation so simple and innexpensive,
that it would help newcommers join the satellite operations at
minimal cost.  There just is no need for a "typical OSCAR array"
for LEO operation.  We do ourselves a disservice by only having
tracking programs that can only control $1000 rotators when a
simple $70 one will do perfectly for LEO's.

Bob, WB4APR




More information about the AMSAT-BB mailing list