Ciel 2 Tracking

I'm currently seeing a signal at 138° West. Attached is a BLSA scan.
Nice work, photoman76!

So it is DBS and circular polarization, and not reverse DBS nor FSS. Must be you can't get a digital lock either because of modulation or a new form of encryption.
 
Nice work, photoman76!

So it is DBS and circular polarization, and not reverse DBS nor FSS. Must be you can't get a digital lock either because of modulation or a new form of encryption.

You can still lock a signal even if it is encryption. Just like when they tested E11 at 138 they weren't using a DVB-S signal for testing purposes.
 
Comparing the E-7 satellite at 119 W to Ciel-2 from a power and spotbeam capabilities perspective is useful. E-7 has a quoted power of 13 kW compared to 10.8 kW for Ciel-2 but one could argue that Ciel-2 being newer is probably more efficient. E-7 has 16 CONUS TPs active at 240 watts and up to 25 TPs providing spotbeam coverage. The CONUS TPs on Ciel-2 are also at 240 watts so one can see what the power limitations are for Ciel-2. Now E-7 could have been designed with a very high power margin but I can not believe that Ciel-2 could have the capability to provide all 16 CONUS TPs and even half of the 145 spot TPs at the same time, perhaps 50 at most.

Some folks might wonder why Dish would have Ciel-2 designed this way. First it does provide backup for the E-10 spotbeams at 110 W. One also has to look a few years down the line when Dish converts everthing to MPEG-4. Besides internationals, there about 215 video channels on Dish not including locals. Assuming all of them were HD (which is unlikely but certainly that would be the extreme), at 7 HD channels per TP, Dish would need about 31 CONUS TPS. For the Western Arc, Dish currently uses 19 TPs at 110 W and 16 TPs at 119 W in CONUS mode for a total of 35, four more than the needed 31. So Dish doesn't really need CONUS TPs at 129 W in the future but they will need a massive number of spotbeams for HD locals. As a side note, I would expect the E-14 satellite which is going to 119 W to either be a satellite like Ciel-2, both spotbeam and CONUS or just a big spotbeam satellite like E-10.

The total E7 downlink load is 5.04 kw with 3.84 kw on Conus and 1.2 kw on spots so Ciel should be fairly robust.
 
I suspect that Dish planed another satellite at 129 to cover the CONUS. Before the failure of AMC-14 and E2 Dish would have this capacity. Now they have to wait for the replacements at 72 and 77.
 
The total E7 downlink load is 5.04 kw with 3.84 kw on Conus and 1.2 kw on spots so Ciel should be fairly robust.

I suspect those number represent the actual power being radiated by the sat. Anyone know the efficiency of a satellite?

If their is spare power on E7, why not run the TPs with boosted power (multiple TWTAs)? Or is E7 not configured for such operation?
 
Quick question is... does anyone have any idea when they will go live with Ceil-2 so we can see if this will help us poor folk out?

Expect Ciel 2 to start transmitting to homes in late January, or early Feb at worst. I suppose the earliest date would be 1/15/09. I'd bet later.
 
I suspect those number represent the actual power being radiated by the sat. Anyone know the efficiency of a satellite?

If their is spare power on E7, why not run the TPs with boosted power (multiple TWTAs)? Or is E7 not configured for such operation?

They do not control (can not use) all the transponders frequencies at 119. If they moved it to a location where all 32 tps could be used, it would increase the load significantly (the Conus transponders are the ones that suck up power).
 
They do not control (can not use) all the transponders frequencies at 119. If they moved it to a location where all 32 tps could be used, it would increase the load significantly (the Conus transponders are the ones that suck up power).

I do know that, but can't multiple TWTAs be put in series on each TP they do have to boost power? Maybe they are already doing that. Just seems like a shame to have a 13kw sat using only 5kw of power. Would be nice if that extra power was put to use.
 
I do know that, but can't multiple TWTAs be put in series on each TP they do have to boost power? Maybe they are already doing that. Just seems like a shame to have a 13kw sat using only 5kw of power. Would be nice if that extra power was put to use.
Any combination of 16 in Double Power or 32 in single power.
 
I do know that, but can't multiple TWTAs be put in series on each TP they do have to boost power? Maybe they are already doing that. Just seems like a shame to have a 13kw sat using only 5kw of power. Would be nice if that extra power was put to use.

The 16 CONUS TPs on the E-7 satellite are run in double power mode at 240 watts. E-7 has the capability to use all 32 DBS TPs but that would be at 120 watts. In terms of E-7 using only 5.04 kW, that is only the downlink load. There is a significant load running the satellite including the attitude control system, computers, uplink systems etc.

In regards to the Ciel-2 satellite, here is a quote from the FCC filing on it"

"The Ciel 2 satellite includes 48 active and 18 spare linearized TWTAs: Of the active TWTAs, 16 are capable of 110W at saturated power and are dedicated to the spot beams; 16 are 130W saturated power and are dedicated to either the spot beams or the Canadian wide area beam, and 16 are 240W saturated power, dedicated to either the Canadian or CONUS wide area beams."

This gives a total of (16)(110) + (16)(130) = 3840 watts or 3.84 kW possible for spotbeams. For 145 spotbeams this would only allow about 26.5 watts per spotbeam. I was under the impression that DBS spotbeams usually take about 50 - 65 watts each but perhaps they can be done with less or maybe redundancy was built into the satellite with extra spotbeam TPs. I am surprised that the 240 watt TWTAs can not be used for spotbeams as well.
 
The best thing goings is that it's going to be a big number , both for Conus and spotbeam and the West will no longer be a stepchild.
 
TWTA Output vs Input Power

The power figures (120 Watts, 240 Watts, etc) being quoted is OUTPUT power from the TWTA’s. I guessing the TWTA’s are about 50% efficient, so for 120 Watt OUTPUT, the required DC INPUT power will be 240 Watts. If the total output power from all the TWTA’s is 5kW, the DC input power from the batteries and solar panels needs to be 10kW. Assuming the total output power of the solar panels is 13kW, that only leaves 3kW to run the other systems on the satellite (uplink receivers, TT&C transponders, on-board computers, attitude control, etc). Not a lot left over.
 
Just took a look at tonight's TLE update and nothing new popped up. That's 15 days since the last one. Ciel should start moving on to 129 anytime now.
 
Whelp... I have a service call into Dish to repoint my 61.5 to 77 to pick up my HD locals (minus FOX...Bummer...). Going to hook up the 129 LNB Sunday when they arrive to see what happens... Will report the results..
 
Whelp... I have a service call into Dish to repoint my 61.5 to 77 to pick up my HD locals (minus FOX...Bummer...). Going to hook up the 129 LNB Sunday when they arrive to see what happens... Will report the results..

Everyone should be able to check out the signals on 129 from Ciel-2 once it is at 129 and lit up, right? If so what TPs to look for?
 
Whelp... I have a service call into Dish to repoint my 61.5 to 77 to pick up my HD locals (minus FOX...Bummer...). Going to hook up the 129 LNB Sunday when they arrive to see what happens... Will report the results..

I highly doubt they will transfer traffic before then.

Everyone should be able to check out the signals on 129 from Ciel-2 once it is at 129 and lit up, right? If so what TPs to look for?

Watch the uplink report for any shuffling of channels. They are going to move them out of the way for the spotbeam testing.
 

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