Pointing a satellite dish
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- čas přidán 7. 09. 2024
- Sometimes things don't go according to plan.
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Only an engineer can truly relate to this video. I remember a ten minute job of replacing a capacitor in a power supply that resulted in a broken screw head and having to drill out a screw and re-tap the hole. Ya never know when a project is going to go off the rails and it's almost always the "easy" ones that do so.
I’m hoping that I don’t repeat this on 12/12 when I move the main uplink dish.
@@TheBroadcastEngineer Well take along the tools you need because it will be the same if they are the same age. You been taught by the first one.
Great job. A patience job to, but done is done. Look forward to the next one.
I had to laugh. I use the same XR3 sat meter. When he first showed it connected there was only the left hand meter graph showing and it was RED. If on the correct satellite, both left and right hand meters will be GREEN. This way you know your are on the right bird. You just tweak Azimuth, elevation and polarity for best signal levels then go to the NOC for final tweaking with them.
Yeah, he got it done and later in the video you can see the XR3 very fuzzy but there are 2 meter levels showing and a hint of green is showing. He never showed it up close again.
Sorry. I’ll probably be making another updated version of this. I now know a TON more about satellite.
Great video! I feel with you - had similar problems a couple of times. All this could have been much easier with slightly newer equipment ;-)
Yeah, but it’s not always possible to get new equipment. I’m waiting for over a year and a half for some items that will change our program delivery to our O&O stations. Still waiting…
Newer stuff is thinner, so you now also have rusted bolts, but also warped steel as well.
Tip for next time is to take along the drill, and a set of new fasteners. Then also order now a set of helicoil insert tooling for your most common screw sizes, and use them, especially for bolts into aluminium fasteners. This keeps the steel bolts from corroding fast in the aluminium. Do this for all the aluminium you put up, a 5 minute extra job while it is in the office, but will mean that those bolts come loose after years of rain. Then put the bolts in with some aluslip, spray on the thread so you have grease there. For those that are stuck, before drilling out take a MAPP torch and cook the casting for a minute, then spray with water and then WD40, to first cool the metal fast and then to lubricate it. The heat breaks the corrosion. Also for removal left handed cobalt drill bits, they are harder than HSS, and not as brittle as solid carbide.
Broken plenty of screws on aircraft, and there you always simply go get the removal kit, and it moved the broken one out, failing which you get that one guy who can use the big drill kit, who will make a new hole there, and place the correct insert in there.
Oh yes, please take along bug spray, and make a monthly task to slap a spritz into those LNA block fans, to keep the bug population down. Buy a case of it every month, and put 2 cans in the vehicle, and use on every outdoor site. Also a big plastic bucket, with it full of pool salt, for both ice removal on site, and for summer simply scatter around the doors to kill all vegetation. Bug spray also works on AC units. By me ants are the thing, they nest in everything, so bug spray to move them fast, and powder to keep them away. Borax works, and also will do the snow, just buy in big bags.
Plus look into a sun shade for the unit, and carry along some spare front covers, because sun cooks the front cover off, and the sun shade at least keeps the snow off, though here it keeps the birds off as well. November sun fade is 9-11AM by me, I lose signal.
That's some great advice!
czcams.com/video/wAjHfBk-ZeY/video.html
😂
But really, that's some good advice. I've been using commercial off the shelf bug spray for the outside of the site. Really, San Clemente is the one that had the bug problem.
@@TheBroadcastEngineer Well, you never actually asked ahead of time..... But for both your new job, and for the guy who is taking over your excellent work a good tip. Where you are going you really will want to go first and get some snow driving experience, and also you will want to keep both a big bag of salt and kitty litter in the back of the truck or car, both to provide ice removal and traction and extra mass. Just remember where you are going they salt the roads, so if you take a socal car first, before you leave, go get it undercoated with Fluid Film, and wash the underside every weekend if possible, and reapply every spring. Socal cars rust from the top, Co they rust out from underneath.
Hi, when you install the equipment, I would suggest putting copper slip on all the threads. It makes it easier to move in the future.
I’ve never heard of that. I will have to look it up! However, It’s not really supposed to move. But if we ever have to move to another satellite…
Just looked it up. Why have I never heard of this stuff before? Well, that’s going in the kit.
I put it on all the bolts and screws that I install in metal or put bolts on. I have a small plastic food container that I keep the copper slip in, in my tool kit. I have also kept it in a 20ml syringe in my tool kit so I can squirt it into small places or be able to control where it goes. The big tin sits on my shelf in me store room at the office.
Some years ago older LNB's had poor/terrible cross Pol performance, you'd optimise one polarity and the other would be slightly out and vice versa,nasty if trying to receive a mix of strong and weak transponders from the same satellite, things did improve! We've known SES in Europe for many years with their 'Astra' satellites, didn't realise they'd gone to N America.
Yeah SES-3 went up early 2000’s I think. Covers North America.
Hey Marcos I have been doing SATCOM for over 15 years now, mainly with Maritime systems. Nothing like trying to do a cross-pol check on C-Band with a dish on a massive motor stabilized gimbal! But we always just use the SpecAn to look at the beacon CW from the bird. I have never used that magical satellite ID/beaconator tool you had there. But I also wonder if that was part of the problem all along? Either way you guys got it done, and before the deadline which is what counts in the end. I also laughed at the dead modem, I guess that's just a SATCOM thing I swear no matter who makes them (Harris, ViaSat, Comtech, whoever) they are the most unreliable things on the planet.
We’ve had some ones in the past that just never worked right, but this XR3 is pretty nice. Built like a spec an in quality. Used together it’s a great pair. Aaaand I just realized I never took a picture of the spectrum after I locked everything down. I can go back and get that next week.
Clearly you need to carry another 500lb of tools and parts with you wherever you go. 😎
HAHAHA! Right?! I used to carry allllll sorts of stuff when I first had the truck. I was ready for almost anything. But seeing how I didn't use _any_ of it the first several years, I stopped carrying around everything and went down to basically my laptop and toolbox.
@@TheBroadcastEngineer Do what I did and make some toolboxes for specific things. One for all carry, and then another when you know what you will be doing, so for you one for dishes and antennas that has all the get bolt out tools, and spare bolts, and another for cables, and another for fencing or inspection. Just keep a hard hat handy in all cases.....
@@SeanBZA That's what I have kind of done in the past. I had a kit for big coax, the full wrench and socket kit, etc etc.
I've found that the "satellite IDers" aren't really all they're cracked up to be. I've got a Gsertel Hexylon and even with it I still use only the spectrum analyzer and decoder to confirm the bird. Surprised (and glad) to see that only one bolt broke!
This XR3 is pretty slick.
No, both bolts on that part of the mount broke. Was less than thrilled…
@@TheBroadcastEngineer Steel or stainless into aluminium with no insert, I am not suprised. Even indoors and with well lubricated bolts I was often enough sitting drilling them out, so much that I have 2 Ridgid extractor sets and a Mapp torch for just that, plus a set of recoil insert kits that covers M3 to M16. Those are expensive kits, but for a good number of the intermediate sizes all I bought was the tap and inserts, using the tooling for the next size down instead. Plus 2 drill bits for each size for the hole clearing, originals HSS replacements cobalt. Some of the casting holes needed 3 inserts put in them to get thread engagement right, long deep holes into aluminium, and I wanted good thread engagement on the 8.8 capscrews.
Lucky those the capscrews came out unbroken, along with the aluminium thread, after a little chat using a welder and a bolt on top as lever point. The operators looked in horror as I came in with an arc welder and wet cardboard as shields. Then the crowbar once it was turning in the hole.
@@SeanBZA It’s not like satellite dishes are meant to be moved once put into place.
@@TheBroadcastEngineer Yes but they are designed to be serviced, and upgraded, so the aluminium sections will need to be undone. This is not the $10 unit you buy at Wallworld to use for your TV service, but something that should last at least 30 years in service.
Is your new (or old) feed free-to-air? Also we just switched to using SES instead of Intelsat. I found them A LOT easier to work with.
Sure! Just need to get the downlink and symbol rate from us. The PIDs are easy (101, 201, 301, etc).
I know satellite has been used for decades to deliver content, but in this day and age why not cut over to Internet streaming? I'm not saying that as a knock on you in particular, but the industry has a whole since the technology is there now and the quality would be MUCH better.
Ryan, please don't confuse the delivery mechanism and quality. A 64 kbps MP3 stream will sound bad no matter what method you receive it. A satellite is still one of the best ways to deliver a signal to 10s or 100s of locations. A lot of broadcasters still use satellite because they control both ends and no matter what you think, the internet still goes out and backhoe fade (as it is called by satellite people) is a thing. Satellites can also be used to deliver internet to anywhere in the country.
@@TVJAY The thing is, I can add many Internet connections for seamless failover situations, fiber, cable/dsl, 4G/5G, and even satellite. How can one handle that with a single dish? If connectivity is buried underground, it's less susceptible to damage from environmental/weather damage, compared to a dish.
There’s a couple of reasons for satellite delivery. It’s a broadcast method rather than a unicast method. I don’t need to have a discrete connection to every end point. Anyone can put up a dish and receive the programming (basically). The really important issue is the consistency of data (which you can’t get with internet no matter how many connections… more on this later). The timing of the programming is important for network programming. With an internet delivery, you can have varying delay. With satellite it’s a set always known amount of delay.
There are many places in the country where internet is not good and reliable. I’ve been in remote places with cell internet that should have been fast (little to no users) but was molasses slow because of the connection the cell site had back to civilization.
Internet delivery isn’t seamless. Varying delays in the different connections make it difficult and expensive to maintain.
@@1mrhamel you can add all those and each of those have a monthly cost and complexity. Small radio networks (or even large ones) have to factor in their affiliates may not want to spend money on 3 different ISPs when a small dish that was paid for once will work 99.999% of the time. Also, last year CZcams (someone who has WAY more internet connections then anyone) was down more than my TV station was. Broadcasters want maximum uptime and reliability. Satellite brings that 99.9999% of the time at a fixed cost.
Dude, Galaxy 10 hasn't been in service in forever (years). You need to get with the times. It's best to talk about orbital locations (because the names change a lot) - then you don't sound like you're stuck in 15 years ago time. If you have a spectrum analyzer, you should be able to point a dish in 20 minutes AT MOST. 3 Days?? Really??
Dude, last time I pointed a dish was several years ago. I’m glad you have the experience and practice to be able to do it with just a spectrum analyzer. Yes three days. It’s not like I only have this project on my plate. I have that problematic generator I’m dealing with still. Stuff at the studio. I show a very small peek into my time.