Night of the living dead

Analoguesat

Analoguesat

Administrator
Staff member
My Satellite Setup
TM 5402HD
Sky+ UK.
My Location
Scottish Borders
Last night whilst idly keeping half an eye on the waterfall spectrum on sdr# I spotted an out of band "APT like" carrier around 136.650MHz. After a bit of research it turns out its actually Transit 5B-5. Which was launched in December 1964 and abandoned after an on board failure after just 19 days! So its another zombie sat. Sadly its not a new discovery - its quite well known about, but as its only transmitting a carrier with no data most folk dont bother with it. There are a few web pages about Transit 5B-N and the other zombie birds that are out there.

However I found this absolutely fascinating - its reckoned to be the oldest satellite still at least partially operational. Not bad for a satellite almost 54 years old! The pic shows the carrier mid pass tonight about 2155 uk time.

136 650.webp
 
It came over last night so I got this shot as it was overhead, around 12:27 AM PSD




Screenshot-2018-04-27-002742.webp

Some type of data or whatever but nothing to decode.
 
Oscar O-2 is an alternative name for Transit 5B-5

According to one of the lads on the APT group on fb there is some data being transmitted by T5B-5. Sadly no pictures, but some telemetry is being downlinked when its in full sunlight.
 
An almost overhead pass from T5B-5 - and a decent signal. I ran wxtoimg just in case but nada.

However there is definitely something in that signal - so now need to find some software to decode it!

5b-5 strong signal.webp
 
It was after midnight when it went over me, so there must be some battery life left.

And WOW Analoguesat, your noise floor is around -40 dBm, thats noisey, if you look at mine it's around -115.....Maybe that's the background noise floor in your area due to all the junk from the city.
 
Terryl said:
It was after midnight when it went over me, so there must be some battery life left.

And WOW Analoguesat, your noise floor is around -40 dBm, thats noisey, if you look at mine it's around -115.....Maybe that's the background noise floor in your area due to all the junk from the city.
Click to expand...

I live out in the middle of nowhere on a farm - the nearest town is 5 miles away!
 
Hummmmm, I wonder why is your noise floor so high????? Are you using a pre-amp??
 
Im using a Uputronics 137mhz amp on the system to make up for the deficincies of the botched antenna system
 
I keep setting the drawings back on the new MK 10 antenna, I had other things come up.

Maybe I can do up a hand sketch or something to give you a start on a better antenna.
 
Ive checked in on Transit 5B-B. Still chucking out a good signal on daylight passes. Still loud & proud on 136.65MHz give or take a bit of doppler shifting

Capture.JPG
 
18 months on & Transit 5B is still blazing out a strong signal in daylight passes here . Frequency is 136.65MHz & there is a distinct warbling to the signal :)

1727528356964.png
 
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