Observation 4100544: NOAA 18 (28654)

Regarding Observation 4100544

Can anyone tell me the quality of this observation?

I’ve tried to find other observations of NOAA 18 CW beacons, and the only one I can find is #4104915.

My guesstimation is that the signal present in my observation isn’t the CW beacon, because 1) the signal is drifting, and since the satnog station is correcting for doppler this can’t be it, 2) the signal doesn’t “sound” like CW to my ear, and 3) the data decoded is nonsense characters ( I E IE I EEEE, E EETEII E P EI E E E , etc).

If it’s not the signal, then I should mark it as no signal present.

Any help would be welcome!

The signal is present but NOAA 18’s beacon is actually not CW, The straight line down the middle has 2 slightly visible sidebands meaning its most likely a shift keying based beacon.

On NOAA 15 I know the beacon is PSK at a sort of wacky baud. So this is most likely the same.

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