Blagovest Series

I tried the Q band down converter on the 1.2m dish. The feed under-illuminates so it's probably equivalent to a 0.6m dish.

I scanned 45E and 12E over a range of 39.2-41GHz with fixed vertical (at 0E) polarisation. I tried wide bandwidths of 1 & 5MHz which would show wide transponders - nothing. Similarly, I could not see anything in narrow bandwidths but did not spend long on that. Q band can describe 38-50GHz so, even if something is pointed this way, I may not have hit the right band.

The paper is a little confusing due to the wording but I think that the only downlinks are in Ka band with the uplink at 43924-44524 MHz. Page 5 has this about the ground stations:

The Ka/Q dual-band irradiation system has the following characteristics:

at signal transmission frequencies (43.924-44.524 GHz) – left circular polarization;

at signal receiving frequencies (19.172-19.792 GHz) – right circular polarization;

and this:

A Ka/Ka dual-band irradiation system has the following characteristics:

at signal transmission frequencies (27.510-27.804 GHz) – left circular polarization;

at signal receiving frequencies (17.710-18.004 GHz) – right circular polarization;

Given that the coverage area is Arctic Russia, I would not expect much signal in the UK. However, I'm sure I've seen low level signals in Ka band E from around 12E.

I can't see any traffic signals on either Ka band. The beacons , presumably with omni antennas, are visible on both 12E and 45E. It's interesting that the LH & RH frequencies are opposite if the 2 are compared.

See: Blagovest 1 & Blagovest 4