[MilCom] Scanning satcom

[pdgls]

Hi Kevin,
I bough this antenna on ebay http://www.bhigear.com/trivec-av2040-2-satcom-antenna.aspx
The satcom part of the band is a bit noisy here so i think i need the high gain type.    
I also use a radio shack in-line amplifier.  All channels NBFM. I record 
with a Icom IC-R20 with the gain on it set to 5 or 6.  Too much gain and the signals get noisy.  The squelch is set to auto and seems to cut out most of the secure comms.  This leaves the pirates as the biggest problem since i am usually not at the scanner to tend to it.  My thinking now is that since most clear comms by the military are short and not followed immediately by a response in the clear, might as well have the scanner not stay on any freeq for very long.  No delay and a negative delay (force resume) of 4 seconds is what i'm trying now.  That way it won't sit on a pirateted channel for very long in each scan cycle.  This was how it was set when it caught the Jolly activity.  For the Zombie comms, i was at the scanner so i could get the freq and stop the scanner on that channel.  
 
Paul 

________________________________
 From: Kevin O'Rourke <kevin.orourke1 at comcast.net>
To: milcom at mailman.qth.net; wtulknat at yahoo.com 
Sent: Friday, October 19, 2012 11:40 AM
Subject: Re: Conus satcom Sunday through Wednesday
  
I imagine this has been discussed here in the past, but what would be 
the best mode for listening to these comms?  NBFM?  Also, are you using 
any special antenna set-up to catch this traffic, Paul?

Thanks in advance, and thanks for sharing the link to the audio!

Kevin


On 10/19/2012 11:05 AM, milcom-request at mailman.qth.net wrote:
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2012 19:53:33 -0700 (PDT)
> From: pdgls <wtulknat at yahoo.com>
> Subject: [MilCom] Conus satcom Sunday through Wednesday
> To: "milcom at mailman.qth.net" <milcom at mailman.qth.net>
> Message-ID:
>     <1350615213.28682.YahooMailNeo at web164504.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> Sunday
> Zombie 21 calling Zombie 20
> Tuesday
> 258.65 Zombie 12 calling Zombie 10 and 13
> Wednesday. Scanner negative delay was set at 4 seconds so it cut some transmissions short.
> Jolly 61, 62 and 64 calling Jolly ops. One of them reports "Echo Bay? ops normal"
> http://yourlisten.com/channel/content/16921116/Conus_Satcom_1014_to_1017
> Paul, near Sacramento California