General
- Operated by AMSAT-DL in cooperation with Sternwarte Bochum
- Diameter: 20m, Weight: 140t
- a 40m high air dome serves as weather protection
- built in 1965
- ground support for the Apollo missions
- drive systems and RF equipment renovated in 2003 (AMSAT-DL)
- phase-locked receivers fo:
- 2.3 GHz (DSN/ham-radio)
- 5.8 GHz (ham-radio)
- 8.4 GHz (DSN X-Band)
- 10.4 GHz (ham-radio X-Band)
- reference oscillator: 10 MHz Rb-Normal, HP Z3801 (GPS-locked)
- Allen-Variance ca. 1E-11(tau=100 sec)
- complete RX chain down to baseband phase locked
- Reception of VOYAGER 1 (2006-03-31) at ~14.7 Billion km (~99AU)
- Regular (daily) operations of STEREO-A/B space weather beacon since 2009 (upgraded Turbo Coding by AMSAT-DL in 2013) for NASA/NOAA including demodulation and decoding the data before forwarding TLM frames to a central server in US.
- Coherent transmitter on 2.4 GHz (Magnetron, Pout = 6kW PEP, Rb locked phase)
- S-Band transmitter (hamradio): 250W PEP
- Planetary radar echoes on 2.45 GHz at Venus conjunction in 2009 at 42 Million Km distance
- First detection of ISEE-3 carrier on March 2014, primary downlink for ISEE-3 recovery operations
- Reception of deep space probes (residual carrier):
- 2001 Mars Odyssey
- Mars Surveyor 98
- New Horizons
- Rosetta
- Mars Express
- Ulysses
- Akatsuki (Venus Express, Cassini) and IKAROS
- Spitzer space telescope
- Venus Climate Orbiter
- MRO
- Voyager 1&2
Performance
- RX: 2.2-2.45 GHz, 8.4 GHz, 10 GHz
- TX: 2.45 GHz (license limited)
- complete RF chain phase locked to Rb reference or GPSDO:
- Allan variance <1E-11@100 sec
|
Frequency [GHz] |
G/T [1/K] |
3dB beamwidth [deg] |
|
2.4 |
32.6 dB |
0.43 |
|
8.4 |
41.0 dB |
0.124 |
|
10.4 |
42.0 dB |
0.10 deg (estimated) |
- motor control system accuracy: 10″
- precise location of Bochum antenna: N51.426990, E7.192566, 159.65m ASL
- above is elevation axis centre
- knowledge of phase center: 50mm (estimated)
Digitizers at IF:
- USRP (max. 50 MS/s)
- HPSDR (max. 384 kS/s)
- Soundcard (48 kS/s)
- 8.4 GHz frequency control ADC 166 kS/s
- CCSDS standard decoder: work in progress
- Internet connectivity: 10Mbit/s upstream, 100 Mbit/s downstream
Control Room
