RTE Announce FTA Saorsat service

marclt

Just a note to members to refrain from personal attacks on these boards. I am not going to lock the thread, and I believe that the discussion should continue as there have been some very informative posts.

It's the season of goodwill - be good!

fat-tony

Mayo Exile wrote: »

Defcon 1 means that war is highly likely and prepare for strategic nuclear weapons launch, while 5 is peace, happiness and similar fluffy thoughts........

Thanks Mayo Exile! I couldn't find the irony smiley!
I knew the back-seat modding would break out once our American buddy had penned his magnum opus...

watty

warlikedave wrote: »

still how can we be sure taht the spot beams will operate to ensure limited range and arent the individual spots power effected by the number of spots using the same frequency and the proximity of these spots to each other? (as i said i am not familiar with this spot beam technology besides teh articles you kindly provided watty on boards plus i am not familiar with the rsults of the spot beams employed in the states so....)

Read http://www.techtir.ie/blog/watty/ka-sat-countdown#comment-1004358

Feel free to sign up and comment/ask questions there that I will try to answer. There are lots of things I don't know and things I get wrong. I'm a real person.

I have no idea who this person is. Or why they should make mention of business ventures never described here on boards other than I think these posts in context to explain to someone the risks of becoming an installer.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=69017142&postcount=22
His comment seems to seize on this out of context.

We all know Mr ISAA isn't the strongest on "heterographs" (There/Their/They're and similar). To single out that is an unwarrented personal attack and the forum here is the most valid place in Ireland to promote the ISAA. The mods would have complained long ago if it was not appropriate. The ISAA will benefit all Satellite & TV users.

It's in the rules of Boards that a Commerical person posting must highlight his/her "interest" and thus not be an actual shill. A signature link complying with normal signature rules is allowed for a Commercial poster that genuinely contributes. Some people do think that too much latitude is given. But again it's up to the Moderators and actual "shilling" is stamped on pretty quick.

The ICDG group of forums imported to Boards from elsewhere and rather than a pure web 2.0 of Blind leading Blind there are real Professionals and qualified Engineers bothering to help people.

The user name Semper Fidelis is Motto of US marines. All the Americans and Irish Americans I know are very friendly, helpful people.

Around 1883, the [US] Marines adopted their current motto "Semper Fidelis"

Always Faithful though my Schoolboy latin was never magnus.

Tony

fat-tony wrote: »

once our American buddy had penned his magnum opus...

With that font size it was a .44 magnum .38 for the rest of us

fat-tony

Well stated watty. You are well able to defend your views. As you say, the mods are vigilant to posters pimping their services and stamp it out. Similarly, personal comments are unwarranted in these technical forums - leave it to the denizens of political and after-hour forums! Clicking on the "Report Post" button will alert a mod if folks are unhappy with comments posted, otherwise threads quickly degenerate into a slagging match.

Minstrel27

FRIENDO wrote: »

Your first time to post. A nasty post.

Yes, it does read like something penned by a bitter angry person.

Apogee

PARIS — Russia’s Proton rocket will return to service at the end of December to launch a large commercial telecommunications satellite following a government inquiry that found the vehicle’s Dec. 5 failure was caused by overfueling of its upper stage, Russian and International Launch Services (ILS) officials said Dec. 10.

The state commission investigating the failure, in which three Russian Glonass timing and navigation satellites were destroyed, has cleared Proton’s three lower stages from any involvement in the malfunction. Commercial Proton rockets marketed by Reston, Va.-based ILS use the same lower three stages but a different upper stage, called Breeze M. The Glonass launch used a new version of the Russian Block DM upper stage.

The Russian space agency, Roskosmos, on Dec. 10 confirmed the commission’s preliminary finding that the three Proton stages need not be grounded. A final report is due as soon as the week of Dec. 13.

James M. Bonner, chief technical officer for ILS, said the new version of the Block DM stage — which is built by RSC Energia of Korolev, Russia — features larger propellant tanks.

In what appears to have been a remarkable oversight, the personnel fueling the Block DM stage for the Glonass launch did not account for the larger tanks. That led to loading between 1,000 and 2,000 kilograms more propellant on the Block DM stage than what had been planned for the Glonass mission. Like the U.S. GPS navigation satellites, the Glonass system operates in medium Earth orbit.

As a result of the excess propellant, the Proton’s third stage, suffering from the additional weight it was carrying, underperformed, placing the Block DM stage and the stack of Glonass satellites into a lower-than-planned, suborbital drop-off point.

ILS is owned by Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center of Moscow, which is prime contractor for Proton’s three lower stages as well as for the Breeze M upper stage.

In an interview, Bonner said ILS will spend the week of Dec. 13 in Moscow reviewing the state commission’s findings. After consulting with insurance underwriters and with Paris-based Eutelsat, whose Ka-Sat satellite is ILS’s next Proton passenger, Ka-Sat’s launch will be moved from Dec. 20 to a yet undetermined date in late December, he said.

“We will be there to do our due diligence and to review the state commission’s findings,” Bonner said. “Our assumption now is that this will cause a delay of seven or eight, or up to 10 days.”

Russian holidays the first week of January argue against planning a launch during that period.

The state commission investigating the failure was led by G.G. Raikunov, director general of Russia’s state-owned TsNIIMash space engineering services company. In a statement of preliminary findings that Raikunov signed Dec. 10, the commission says: “[Telemetry] data analyses … show that no issues with the functioning of [Proton’s three-stage] systems and assemblies have been detected .… In view of the above, the Interdepartmental Commission deems it possible to proceed with further technical facility processing operations of [the launch vehicle] to launch … Ka-Sat per the approved schedule.”

http://www.spacenews.com/launch/101210-proton-flight-december.html

lucernarian

I feel obliged to comment on a couple of aspects of recent posts:

The main post by semper fidelis appears to be more concerned with inflammatory language than technical argument. It's not possible to have comprehensive arguments taken seriously when points are backed up with the business failures and the imagined biases of various posters. This is a really poor job of backing an argument up.

It appears that said poster is also not aware of how things operate this side of the water as far as rights etc. are concerned.

It's nonsense to think or purvey the idea that people in Britain are going to invest in large dishes just to pick up Ireland's finest free public service and commercial broadcasting. Furthermore, it's quite apparent from the success of Freesat, the UK's Ku-band equivalent, that rights-holders don't seem to particularly care about minor overspill into other neighbouring countries. It's facetious to say that this is because of language barriers with most of the countries that can receive Astra 2D, as many europeans have reasonable standards of english. Particularly younger people, who would be more likely to watch shows that fetch a high rights premium. Why would most people bother to put up dishes for a satellite service which would only have limited interest for them, when the internet could (albeit illegally) supply them with only the programmes they want and at essentially no extra cost??

Also, I really can't see a proportionate increase in rights costs for RTÉ with saorsat when they already cover half of the population of a part of the UK, as Northern Ireland is referred to as, deliberately with terrestrial transmitters.

I finally would like to point out that I have disagreed with watty about a couple of opinions on these forums in the past but I still would respect his wide ranging knowledge on a technical level. More importantly, were he to disagree with me, he would at least show me the respect of arguing his side with cohesive arguments instead of childish rants.

Apogee

Launch date put back a week - 27th to 30th Dec.

semper fidelis

Circle the wagons boys there are incoming hostiles on the way. Somebody has dared to question one of the "family" particularly one of the family Gurus. Let's go to DefCon 127 quick !. It is obvious that razor sharp repartee exists on this forum as my font size is being attacked. For the benefit of you young whippersnappers when you get to my age various things go into decline and not necessarily eyesight although it is usually one of the first. God bless Mr Gates for giving me the ability to enlarge the print face. Don't worry guys you have it all before you. I see,according to Watty's post that he wrote a novel in 10 days - is there no end to this man's genius ? Tom Clancy and Norman Mailer move over. There is a new kid on the block.
Now let's get down to business relative to my last post ( boy I'm beginning to enjoy this. I should have rocked this boat ages ago ! )
The point I made which seems to be lost on everybody in the rush to decapitate me is that some people on this forum are pushing their own commercial agendas and none more so than Watty. Now Watty has replied to my post but nowhere in these replies does he state categorically that he has no commercial connection with Eutelsat. (even with failing eyesight I cannot see any meaningful denial ) Neither does he explain his St. Paul moment when he changed his opinion through a full 180 degrees and went from saying that the RTE spin would never work to his latest idealogy that this is a great idea. His latest "circles in the Sky" might be good for a high school art class but they are pure and utter bolloney as far as practical usage is concerned. Since this whole Saor Sat thing started Watty has been operating in horse's ass territory with his theories but the problem is that these theories are being accepted as fact by people looking in on this forum.
Make no mistake about it Watty is a very very clever guy and is very clued in when it comes to wireless operation in general as I can see from his various posts in that area. Why then, I have to ask myself, is a clever guy like Watty pushing this ridiculous line relative to spot beam capabilities. Does he believe it ? Of course not. He is merely trotting out the company line.
By the way, he asked do I work for Real Digital .The answer is no.
Somebody else in an effort to ridicule me asked why would anybody in the UK want to bother putting up a dish to receive the four Irish channels. You're missing the point sonny. It's not about reception - its about reception capability.

The guys with the pinky rings in Hollywood who control worldwide entertainment rights are not interested in whether anybody actually watches the shows or not. It is the fact that the transmission system makes it such that they are capable of watching these shows and wherever there is a capability there is a number cruncher calculating the population of the area being served by the signal.
My questions for Watty therefore is :
1. Do you have a commercial arrangement of any sort whatsoever with Eutelsat or any of its agents ?
2. Do you seriously believe the stuff that you are posting relative to spot beam technology ?
3. Why did you do an about face in your opinion relative to the availability of the beam over the greater part of the UK ?

Tony

Thanks for reducing the font size, makes it easier to read and much more likely to be read I reckon.

galait

semper fidelis wrote: »

. Somebody has dared to question one of the "family" particularly one of the family Gurus.?

I agree with this ,If any of the boys are questioned or shown in a bad light the thread is deleted by a MOD

STB

Galait,

There is a way of posting on topic without attacking the poster. It shouldnt get personal. In the same way that I could have said that somebody has been living in America too long if they think they can bully their way onto the board in the face of long time contributors.

Mr Big Font Guy thanks for finding the magnifying glass supplied by Mr Gates, we dont all have to use it, so you dont have to post in it.

Secondly, welcome back to Ireland. Yes its all change. I think you may be asking the wrong questions. Thats why you have been coming up with the wrong answers.

One of the gang.

STB Corleone

Tony

galait wrote: »

I agree with this ,If any of the boys are questioned or shown in a bad light the thread is deleted by a MOD

Nonsense, threads get locked when people make abusive and/or personal comments or start threads economical with the truth for malicious reasons. If you have a problem with a mods decison there is a forum to bring your view to. Its certainly not here.

watty

It's a long while since anything deleted. Locked maybe.

My questions for Watty therefore is :
1. Do you have a commercial arrangement of any sort whatsoever with Eutelsat or any of its agents ?
2. Do you seriously believe the stuff that you are posting relative to spot beam technology ?
3. Why did you do an about face in your opinion relative to the availability of the beam over the greater part of the UK ?

Reasonable questions.

1) No. I used to do R&D for an ISP. That was nearly two years ago. I have no vested interest or agenda at all. So strike out the Conspiracy theory, I must either be stupid, or there is something you skipped over and missed. But if I was a Shill, I'd say that anyway.

2) Yes. These are not spot beams from different satellites. Did you read 2nd comment here? What is wrong with the analysis? If I post fantasy stuff for fun I put a

3) A normal Ka Spot beam is going to be nearly x2 size of the Ka-Spots. If there is no other signal on same frequency from a different beam on same satellite, you can extend to about x4 or x5 size by having a bigger dish. But Ka-Sat is a bit more complicated than that. It's not like the Hotbird 6 Ka-Spots, or Hylas 1 Ka-Spots or like Astra 2D. Re-read http://www.techtir.ie/blog/watty/ka-sat-countdown#comments I infact argue that the Ka-Sat spots have a true footprint about twice the shown diameter (x4 area). Read the link to see reasoning. The main design requirement is that footprint from adjacent spots of the same polarity band must drop off enough to all low enough "interference" in the "fake" spot circles which are workable service area, not true EIRP footprint contours.

Initially I didn't think of Ka-Sat. When after 20minutes I realised it could only be Ka-Sat they meant, I realised the implications. no matter HOW big a Dish in South East England is, it can't use Irish Spot. There is quite a large part of UK that neither the Irish or the Calais French Spot will work. I imagine on South Coast of UK (Brighton, Plymouth, Hastings, Dover etc) the French spot might not have enough interference from Irish spot.

Of course if there is actually no Broadband service or signal on the French spot mentioned, then the normal larger dish as you move away from Ireland applies.

I have met people from many Satellite companies in the past. Gilat, Hughes, Viasat etc... I have not been involved in the that area for a few years. I also have a colleague that in the past has been involved with commissioning and managing an Earth Station.

There is not just an Issue with imported TV for RTE, TG4 and TV3 over mainland UK, but also home-produced content would be more expensive for the x20 bigger audience of mainland UK

RTE NL / RTE has been deliberately broadcasting for about 25 years into N.I. Cairn Hill is in Longford, but gives very good N.I. Coverage. Holy Hill TX in Donegal is practically in N.I. Mast is on edge of border, excellent coverage for Derry. Clermont Carn on mountain at border and is good reception in most of Belfast. Truskmore in Sligo is as good in SW N.I. as in Sligo/Mayo!

So Analogue covers 55% to 65% of N.I. Population. RTE1, RTE2 and TG4 are also on Virgin Cable and Sky Digital (pay TV) in N.I.

It's part of RTE & TG4 "mandate" to "cover" N.I. So the fact that Irish Ka-Sat Beam is probably pretty good there (might need 80cm in Far North East) isn't an issue.

There are no shortage of people here expert enough to point out when I either spout rubbish or make a mistake. I do make mistakes. There are also people that email me or PM off thread to give a point of view. Or to ask clarification when they don't want to look stupid on thread.

I have no problem with questions or debate.

watty

semper fidelis wrote: »

God bless Mr Gates for giving me the ability to enlarge the print face.

I have 15.4" 1600x1200 screen. I have to upgrade the reading glasses every so often.

On Firefox there is View | Zoom | Zoom text only option and
Zoom in Ctrl +
Zoom out Ctrl -

(I only use that when folks have used stupidly small text like this or I have misplaced my glasses)

FRIENDO

@ semper fidelis

On reading your posts I find that you have mentioned other Tech board.ie users in a negative light.

I have always found the people you refer to as being very honest, helpful, trusting and informative people.

I hope you can take example from the above and possibly bring some constructive and positive posts in the future.

Thankyou

Sam Russell

@ semper fidelis
I find your posts quite offensive.

1. If a poster has a commercial interest does not mean that he is pimping his business, no more than a painter/decorator is pushing his business if he suggest what type of paint you should use to paint your bike.

2. Do you think we are all so stupid that we would not notice if he did push his own business.

3. This is a technical forum that in general is quite genteel and polite, and in general is intended to be helpful to other posters. Your tone and manner displayed in your posts demonstates your total lack of such qualities, and you continued unwaranted personal attacks on long-term posters is both offensive to those posters, and to all posters as it insults their intelligence.

4. You claim superior technical expertise in satellites than your quarry. Well lets hear it. What is your background? When were you in space? Were you well placed in NASA? Or was the nearest you got to a satellite was when you were at the top of a ladder as you screwed in a bolt to hold a dish to the wall?

5. Not everyone on this side of the pond is driven solely by money. Nor are they driven by a wish to make their own viewpoint the only one allowed to be expressed. Open discussions are normally not conducted as a diatribe of invective of a personal nature directed at particular posters with no corresponding evidence to back up those views.

I have refrained from joining in so far because I thought that others would have put you right, but alas no. You do not understand soft language.

MACHEAD

This is hotting up nicely now! Mmmm! for some strange reason that wonderful incidental music from 'Mississippi Burning' keeps comming to mind after reading this. So who's going to be the Gene Hackman character? Or maybe we should draw out more of an 'Enemy Of The State' analagy, given the 'hi-tech' content, all those satellites and all! Oh! there's the Gene Hackman thing popping up again.

watty

Lyngsat now showing 1012 end or 110118-31 i.e. between end December 2010 or after Russian Christmas Holidays (Christmas is 7th January in Russia).

lucernarian

I call bull**** on a number of facets of semper fidelis's subsequent post.

In a hyperbolic attempt to rebut the core of my last post, I don't see any proof or effort to show why exactly those in Hollywood will want more money for broadcasting rights here. How do you know the methodologies behind these decisions and where is your proof for this hypothesis? Because that's all it is really. I illustrated how RTÉ already intentionally broadcasts into Northern Ireland as a longstanding arrangement and is mandated by law in this country. This would at least implicate that the rights issues for this have been previously dealt with and copyright holders would be aware of this coverage.

There was no attempt to deal with the particularly salient example of Freesat working off a fairly significant Ku-band spot beam which can cover much of Western Europe with a larger dish.

Also, I believe there must be a method behind RTÉ's supposed madness and I'm skeptical about there being a desire in the broadcaster to commit to another transmission method which would increase the costs of programming permanently, on top of the somewhat hefty transmission costs.

There has been an inadequate response to the reception capability in the UK discussion. I would like to hear what exactly Semper Fidelis' expectations are for coverage when Ka-sat launches next year.

Finally, does the aforementioned poster feel satisfied with Watty's response in relation to commercial agendas? I am alarmed at the ascerbic and personal criticisms of a number of posters here without corresponding evidence to back those charges up. Only after repeatedly claiming that Watty has personal dealings with Eutelsat do you take a moment to actually ask the question again. And solely because you didn't like the clarity of the first answer. I think it's only fair on a public forum that those who ask questions should be questioned too, so could you clarify any commercial agenda(s) you may have?

galait

Tony wrote: »

Nonsense, threads get locked when people make abusive and/or personal comments or start threads economical with the truth for malicious reasons. If you have a problem with a mods decison there is a forum to bring your view to. Its certainly not here.

Well what happened to the thread a couple of weeks ago comparing prices on satellite.ie to vanjak.com?, It was deleted

Apogee

watty wrote: »

Lyngsat now showing 1012 end or 110118-31 i.e. between end December 2010 or after Russian Christmas Holidays (Christmas is 7th January in Russia).

Interfax are reporting a possible December 26th launch. IME Lyngsat is not reliable for launch dates.

galait wrote: »

Well what happened to the thread a couple of weeks ago comparing prices on satellite.ie to vanjak.com?, It was deleted

Any chance this irrelevant sh*te could be posted elsewhere and this thread not be dragged off-topic again?

Tony

galait wrote: »

Well what happened to the thread a couple of weeks ago comparing prices on satellite.ie to vanjak.com?, It was deleted

I've not seen the thread you mentioned but perhaps it was because Vanjak are not retailers perhaps? Ask yourself why anyone would start such a thread.

Take it up with a mod for an explanation this is not the place for it.

watty

Apogee wrote: »

Interfax are reporting a possible December 26th launch. IME Lyngsat is not reliable for launch dates.



Any chance this irrelevant sh*te could be posted elsewhere and this thread not be dragged off-topic again?

1) Agreed. 26th to 29th ish They don't want to go into Jan.

2) Agreed also. People should not make personal replys to personal attacks, there are Moderators.

Apogee

Eutelsat have released a new footprint map, minus spotbeams.



http://www.eutelsat.com/satellites/9e_ka-sat_popd.html

enda1

How narrow a spot beam are we talking here that RTE will be using?

Y'all think the range will extend to any of GB or further to continental Europe?

watty

No.


The reason why is a bit different to "ordinary" satellites
http://www.techtir.ie/saortv/saorsat-coverage (re-written on 17th Dec 2010)

The actual spot is up to 400km/600miles diameter or more depending on dish size. But the usable service area is about 1/4. Read the article.

Possible Saorsat reception

• Anywhere in Ireland that can "see" 9E satellite
• The IOM and N.I. are probably OK on a fairly normal size dish.
• A big dish in parts of Western Isles.
• North West Scottish Highlands is Dubious.
• Welsh & Cornish coasts might be more likely on a TV aerial!

Reception unlikely anywhere else if Viasat/Tooway/Eutelsat have any Internet customers on "lemon" coloured spots.

BTW, the above "all in one" map isn't a conventional "foot print" map at all. It's areas with "Tooway" Internet access

Apogee

enda1 wrote: »

How narrow a spot beam are we talking here that RTE will be using?

Y'all think the range will extend to any of GB or further to continental Europe?

Reception is likely to be limited to a relatively small area over Ireland and Britain. In truth, we won't know how much of GB will be able to receive the service unless/until it's all up and running and people start checking with their own dishes i.e. proper, firsthand reception reports.

The lack of up-to-date technical data doesn't help matters and footprint maps are only indicative at the best of times.

watty

It's also likely that if someone in Birmingham receives it initially (which would be outlay of separate dish and Ka band LNBF) due to lack of a service on the Calais Spot, that they would later lose it completely.

Anyone outside the Island of Ireland would do well to wait and see (maybe a year) what the uptake of serivces are on Ka-Sat, assuming it works at all.

Basically it's not the same situation as Astra 2D. With Astra 2D the "out of service area" folk are mostly not having English as main language and the UK broadcasters have Rights for Ireland and UK usually. That's nearly 70m potential viewers?

RTE NL expects to Broadcast to under 5M viewers. So using Astra 2D with it's perfect UK reception and extended European reception isn't plausible

Official and un-official Footprints of Astra 2D
(Most Freesat / FTA channels for UK/Ireland)

The "Real" Ka-Sat foot prints are certainly much bigger (depending on dish size) than the tiny circles. But ALL 80+ spots come from the SAME satellite. Probably spots using the SAME polarisation and Frequency are from the same dish (one of four) using different offset feed.

So once you are far enough at right angles to tangent between two "same spots" the interference increases till you lose the wanted signal, if the other spot is actually got services running that overlap in frequency. Like the interference is too much before half way. The dish size doesn't matter.

We don't know exactly where between pairs of "matching spots" that the ratio of Wanted / Unwanted signal is too poor. I've made some educated guesses in the article.

The reception reports from Wales as you move from coast inland on line between Irish and Calais French spot will be very interesting. Especially when Any French Internet services are runnning and if people have gear to report the real BER or Eb/No, not just a "quality" % on a set box.

OTH if no-one buys any Internet on Ka-Sat, a big dish in France might work fine. Nothing stopping Tooway/Eutelsat/Viasat transmitting dummy data on all the empty bandwidth. The electricity is free.