AMC-8


AMC-8, also known as Americom-8 and Aurora III, previously GE-8, is a C-band satellite located at 139° West, covering the United States, Canada and the Caribbean. It is owned and operated by SES World Skies, formerly SES Americom and before that GE Americom. The satellite, provides critical telecommunications services to AT&T Alascom which occupies most of the satellite's capacity. AMC-8 was launched in 2000 as GE-8, and replaced Satcom C-5 in March 2001.
AMC-8 was used by thousands of terrestrial radio stations for network feeds using ground equipment from Starguide, X-Digital Systems, Wegener and International Datacasting. Major tenants were Cumulus Media Networks Satellite Services, Skyview Networks, Orbital Media Networks, Premiere Radio Networks, Dial Global, Westwood One, Learfield Communications, The Free Beer and Hot Wings Show, and others. However, these were moved over to another satellite, AMC-18. Audio network transmissions on AMC-8 ended as of midnight June 30, 2017.
Since AMC-8 is past its design life, it will soon be decommissioned. As of July 1, 2017 there are no plans to put another satellite in AMC-8's orbital slot.
It carries 24 36 MHz G/H band transponders, with 20 watt SSPA amplifiers. Its amplifier redundancy is 16 for 12, and its receiver redundancy is four for two. It carries two beacons, one broadcasting on a horizontal frequency of 3700.5 MHz, and the other on a vertical frequency of 4199.5 MHz.