Photo of Satellite Dish setup feeding the Australian ATC via Satellite stream

[mfahey]

Hi,

Now up 24/7 is my stream of two Australian, Melbourne Centre ATC sectors. You will find the audio here...

http://audio.liveatc.net:8012/au_sat.m3u

The signals I am feeding are received at my home near YSRI Richmond (just west of Sydney) via the Optus B1 satellite. There will occasionally be slight disruptions or a drop in audio quality during the hour or so just after sunset and sunrise in Sydney, or any other time when there is a rapid change in the air temp at my receiving dish. During the Australian day and night the audio should be nice and clear. This is due to the low noise microwave amplifer drifting as the air around it changes temp.

(update August 25 2006 - the satellite ATC feed has now been running for 3 months. Actual observations show that their is very few breaks in the ATC audio during the local sunrise and sunset at the dish site. The method I am using to overcome the drift of the pre-amp seems to be working far better than I ever expected!)

To read more about my satellite ATC setup surf over to my website:

http://www.satdirectory.com/--atcviasat.html

En-route charts covering the areas being streamed are available as free-of-charge downloads via the USA National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) at:

https://164.214.2.62/products/digitalaero/terminals/enroutelist.cfm?charttype=enroutechartscur&country=paa

The charts to download are PAA15, PAA16 and PAA18.

Cheers,
Mark

[mfahey]

Just an update - the satellite feed continues 24/7 however at the moment you might come across periods where the feed is up but no ATC audio heard. The satellite I am receiving (Optus B1) is low on fuel following it going "out of control" some months ago. Optus used up much of the remaining fuel on board regaining control of the bird. As a result the satellite is in an inclined orbit and for a short time moves out of the window in space my ATC dish is pointing at.

A replacement satellite (Optus D1) is being launched in a few weeks. So all will return to normal by the end of October or so. Meanwhile still tune in - Most of the time the audio is up.

Cheers,
Mark

[RatOmeter]

Wow. I had no idea that things like ATC traffic are being retransmitted via satellite.  Guess it's been a long time since I fiddled about with the old C-band sats.

I wonder if you could point me to a source/source of info on generic (not DirecTV, Dish Network) Ku band receivers?

[mfahey]

Hi RatOmeter,

I haven't any experience sourcing non-subscription satellite gear in the USA (as I am in Australia) - but the term used to describe this type of satellite reception is called Free-to-air Satellite. Here in Australia we can receive around 1,000 TV channels free-to-air via C-Band and KU satellites, in USA I'm sure you would get even more. The dish I am using to feed the ATC feeds to LiveATC I previously used to watch local TV from Tahiti. Check Free-to-air Satellite on Google, you will find plenty of info.

Cheers,

Mark
ATC via Satellite feeder.

[Carmelo]

Gday Mark the Sattelite Dish you are using is that the SAT-90 with 75 ohm cable and which LNBF are you using and I am going tu buy all this when I get the information I need & what Radio do you use.

Regards Lino (Cranbourne East Victoria)

[mfahey]

Hi Lino,

Yes a 90 cm dish is fine. I am using a Uniden scanner. Any model & brand of scanner is OK but just make sure it covers Narrow Band FM signals between 980.000 MHz and 1015.000 MHz as the very cheap scanners dont usually go this high.

Have a read here for more info:

http://www.satdirectory.com/--atcviasat.html

Cheers,
Mark

[Carmelo]

Hello thanks for that Mark & I already made some calls to a couple of joints and when I am ready one of the shops said he will look at your website and he will help me out and this is the Radio equipment that I use to monitor the Airbands and I have been in the hobby for 30 years and I enjoy every minute of it.

Regards Lino.ALINCO-DJX2000E,AOR-3000A,AOR-8200MK3,ICOM-R5,ICOM-R20,ICOM-PCR1000,ICOM-R2500,ICOM-R9000,ICOM-R9500,UNIDEN-245,UNIDEN-780,UNIDEN-396,UNIDEN-996,RADIO SHACK-PRO96,REALISTIC-PRO2035,YAESU-VX7R,YAESU-VR500,YAESU-VR5000

ANTENNAS:1/COMET-DS3000 DISCONE,1/DIAMOND-D150 DISCONE,2/DIAMOND-D777 VERTICALS 118.000MHZ-300MHZ,1/GROVE
FLEX 25MHZ-2.0GHZ,1/LF ENGINEERING SKYMATCH 100KHZ-60MHZ,2/ICOM-AH7000 DISCONES,2/RFI-GP3 GROUNDPLANES 118.000MHZ-136MHZ,
1/POLAR DIPOLE 118.00MHZ-136.000MHZ,1/SCANMASTER-B1300 WIDEBAND 500KHZ-1.8GHZ.