At the Hamfest event at Friedrichshafen held during last weekend, more information was provided about the exciting new Phase 4 amateur satellites presently under construction.

P4A – This is a hosted payload on the geostationary spacecraft Es’hailSat 2. This spacecraft will be located at 26 degrees east. Launch is expected in late 2016 with operations commencing shortly thereafter. This spacecraft will carry two amateur radio linear transponders. One will consist of a 250 kHz wide linear analogue transponder and the other will be a transponder for experimental digital modulation with an 8 MHz bandwidth.

The proposed frequency plan for this spacecraft is:

Narrowband transponder:
Uplinks: 2400.050-2400.300 MHz
Downlinks: 10489.550- 10489.800 MHz

Wideband transponder:
Uplinks: 2401.500 – 2409.500 MHz
Downlinks: 10491.000 -10499.000 MHz

P4B – This is a hosted payload on a US geosynchronous spacecraft. This spacecraft is expected to be initially located over America. The transponder will use digital modulation schemes with FDMA up and TDMA down. In addition, there will be linear transponder facility. Ground station hardware is already well developed and the launch is expected to take place in mid 2017.

The proposed frequency plan for this spacecraft is:

Uplinks: 5655-5665 MHz
Downlinks: 10455-10465 MHz

Further, similar, High Earth Orbit, projects were also mentioned during the meeting. These will also use downlink frequencies in the 10 GHz band in the Amateur Satellite Service.

Geosynchronous Amateur Radio Satellites https://amsat-uk.org/satellites/geosynchronous/

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