AlphaSat Aldo Paraboni Experiment Q-Band Receiving Station in Rome (Italy): Upgrades and Preliminary Scintillation Measurements

The Alphasat Aldo Paraboni Experiment is a radio propagation experiment in the Ka and Q bands started in 2013 with the launch of the Alphasat satellite. It consists of two CW beacons transmitted from the satellite to a large area centered on Europe. Sapienza University, in cooperation with Istituto Superiore delle Comunicazioni (ISCOM) and Fondazione Ugo Bordoni (FUB), joined this experimentation from the very beginning with the installation of two receivers, one for each band. In this article we will show the last technology upgrades made on the Q-band receiver of the Rome AlphaSat receiving station. Particular attention will be put on the custom tracking system based on ephemeris, its realization, specification and performance. A comparison between measured data before and after the installation will be given. At the end we will analyse clear air scintillation data acquired by the upgraded station to prove the quality of the whole system.