Announcement

CrazyCP, your aunt must be very happy.

First of all, there is no 'C/Ku band.' There is C-band and there is Ku-band. Both have their own strengths and weaknesses. Ku is more susceptible to weather and C is more susceptible to microwave and other terrestial interference (TI)

If you have DirectTV/Dish/whatever they call it, you are only qualified to pick up a couple Hughes satellites period. Your dish is tiny because those birds transmit a signal that's 5-10x more powerful than the old ones. BTW, those are Ku.

There's more to it than having a 'big dish.' Note that I said 8-10 foot solid dish. Mesh dishes aren't as likely to collect snow in the bowl or blow over, but don't have as much gain as a solid one. A 14-foot mesh is roughly about the same as a 10-foot solid.

It gets even worse...you see, the C-band satellites ('birds') are all positioned about 2 degrees apart across the horizon. If you're pointed a degree-and-a-half in the wrong direction, you're looking a the wrong one. There's also a lot more TI than there was a decade ago (think: cell phone towers) so even pointing in the right direction might not get you a good picture...especially if the dish was put in a particular spot to optimize the signal / filter out noise for a particular bird in the first place.

So even if you knew the date, time, bird, transponder (which I don't exactly think you'll find in Orbit magazine) and it wasn't encrypted, you still might not get the picture.

I could have just said, "You wish!" but instead I gave you some reasons why it just ain't happenin'.

-'Playa

------------------
The CPlaya 100--6 days, 9 parks, 47 coasters, 2037 miles and a winner.....LoCoSuMo.
*** This post was edited by CoastaPlaya 12/23/2002 2:11:02 PM ***

At what point were you a broadcast engineer? That's a lot more info than I was willing to give!

------------------
Jeff
Webmaster/GTTP - Sillynonsense.com
DELETED!

Ha....I was never even a TVRO much less a broadcast engineer. I was a poor hapless support manager for a computer network that transmitted data over a audio subcarrier.

That's why I'm all too familiar with the travails of the local yokel. Broadcast folks (usually) don't futz with the cheap crap my former clients would.

-'Playa

------------------
The CPlaya 100--6 days, 9 parks, 47 coasters, 2037 miles and a winner.....LoCoSuMo.

Well, I had a huge response as to our background with C-band and Ku-band (I know they're different), but there's no point. I don't like arguing. It accomplished nothing.

Just understand that my dad and I are not "local yokels" in regards to installing/owning/operating a C/Ku-band dish. Of course, this revolves around whether or not Cedar Point or a news carrier actually broadcasts anything, and I wasn't expecting information on a possible broadcast to be listed in the Wild Feeds area of Orbit.

Aaron

------------------
17 straight years of real thrills and counting...

IMHO anyone who doesn't peak a dish with a spectrum analyzer someone else bought them is a local yokel. For a broadcast engineer, getting it right the first time is mission-critical. They don't just miss the Tyson fight--they might miss their next check.

Not that it takes a whole lotta brains to do anyway. It's not that much different than pointing a television aerial until your picture isn't fuzzy anymore. Some of the dimmesl bulbs I ever met site consumer dishes for a living...and yes, they're yokels, too. Double yokels in many instances.

-'Playa

------------------
The CPlaya 100--6 days, 9 parks, 47 coasters, 2037 miles and a winner.....LoCoSuMo.

Not that my our methods are something that would be used in a mission-critical situation, I think it's better than just aiming and letting the receiver do the fine-tuning. We do have something that we attach to the dish to help align it, although it's not a spectrum analyzer (oh, how I'd love one of those!). Can't think of what it's called, though. It provides signal strength while we're outside. So not anything fancy, by far.

Well, to try and bring things back on track to the topic, if anyone catches notice that it'll be broadcast in the clear, if you could let me know, I'd like to at least try and catch it, even though the odds are way, way against me. Or if not, I'm sure it'll be online somewhere for download afterwards.

Aaron

------------------
17 straight years of real thrills and counting...

[Edit] CoastaPlaya, I hope I haven't offeneded you at all. By no means am I saying that we're experts at aligning a dish. There's much more that has to be done for someone like Comcast or Dish Network, or whomever the company would be that's relying on satellite transmissions to occur. If I have offended you, then I apologize.
*** This post was edited by TekGuy 12/23/2002 4:48:51 PM ***

Offend? How? I'm perfectly comfortable with my yokeldom. I knew just enough to do my job back then....which was to get on the phone and somehow to tell the TVRO with years more experience than me standing in front of the installation what he was doing wrong. See why I say double yokel?

-'Playa

------------------
The CPlaya 100--6 days, 9 parks, 47 coasters, 2037 miles and a winner.....LoCoSuMo.

i called the relations office in aug and they said the announcemnt wasnt til the first of the year so i wasnt too anxious but....new news has pointed the announcent on new yrs eve when the clock strikes 12...w/ fireworks and everything

hehe, I hope they call it

"Son of Xcelerator"
*** This post was edited by Draken_LC 12/23/2002 6:30:36 PM ***