SES3 changeover

[turbosat]

http://microspace.com/satellites/satellite-transition
Good information on the replacement satellite for AMC1 at 103W. The new sat will have skew like most others, and the video on the microspace page above explains it nicely. Can't wait till late August!

 

[Dee_Ann]

Cool beans !

 

[Lone Gunman]

Yeah, will be good to see AMC1 GONE! I can receive some of that off skew mux with my Winegard dish but the Unimesh won't see any of it without rotating the LNBF.

 

[Dee_Ann]

Wait a minute.. Just watched that video and it says that you still will have to have a goofy skew that’s off by 13 degrees.
If you have an HH dish and it’s skew is set to zero for normal HH USALS operation will it be able to see the stuff on 103? Or will it have to be off by 13 degrees as they say?
I don’t understand the reason for setting it 13 degrees off if it’s going to be functioning normally like all the other satellites..

 

[phlatwound]

What they have recommended will work fine but I am kinda surprised they don't say anything about rotating the other 13 degrees/re-peaking the dish again after the transition is complete.

They should have consulted with us.

 

[Balock]

Dee Ann, the 13 degrees skew they recommend is a compromise meant for fixed dishes that you can change to now, still receive the current sat and not lose signal the instant they change to the new sat. They put that out sometime last year (I think) to give their customers time to adjust before the cutover.

For a moving dish, leave your skew set at 0 and enjoy the new sat when it comes online!

 

[Dee_Ann]

What they have recommended will work fine but I am kinda surprised they don't say anything about rotating the other 13 degrees/re-peaking the dish again after the transition is complete.

They should have consulted with us.

Oh man, that’s great! That was what confused me. I couldn’t understand why they would omit the part about AFTER the switch over.

Dee Ann, the 13 degrees skew they recommend is a compromise meant for fixed dishes that you can change to now, still receive the current sat and not lose signal the instant they change to the new sat. They put that out sometime last year (I think) to give their customers time to adjust before the cutover.

For a moving dish, leave your skew set at 0 and enjoy the new sat when it comes online!

Awesomesauce !! I’m so glad this stupidity is coming to an end !!

 

[Pixl]

Once this happens I will move my 103w viewing to my motorized Ku. This will free up a 1.2m fixed dish for something else, probably try for 22w that is too low for my motorized set up.

 

[Jim S.]

I’m so glad this stupidity is coming to an end !!

I'm still puzzled as to why it exists in the first place. The guy from SES who posts on FridgeFTA claims that it was tried as an experiment in avoiding rain fade since the rain would most often be vertical. Huh? Why experiment on a live satellite? A freaking aerospace company should've been able to beg, borrow, or steal enough computer time to run a simulation -- quantum electrodynamics having been understood for longer than we've had launch capability -- but even if not, they could've certainly experimented on the ground.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

So I guess the fight between them and Directv has been settled.


Posted Via The FREE SatelliteGuys Reader App!

 

[Jim S.]

So I guess the fight between them and Directv has been settled.


Posted Via The FREE SatelliteGuys Reader App!

I don't know about that.

Updated Transition Date Information:
SES has notified Microspace that SES-3 will replace AMC-1 on Sunday, August 24, 2014. Per the terms of the Satellite Services Lease Agreement between our firms, Microspace is responsible to give your company at least four months’ notice prior to the transition date. Due to our diligence with the satellite owner, we are able to give you more than a year’s notice of the anticipated transition date, and wanted to share this with you proactively.

They say that they're giving a year's notice of the transition, meaning that that web page was posted last year before anyone knew there was going to be a problem.

 

[Titanium]

I had also had heard the rain-fade explanation for the odd 103W skew and had my doubts. An old-timer commercial technician shared with me that the services techs were told during the NBC service move from the old satellite SatCom K2 at 81w to 103W that skew offset was kept to simplify the dish re-aiming. The problem that I have with this explanation is that the average skew difference between 81W and 103W is not anywhere near 26 degrees.... Throw another explanation out the window! LOL!


The webpage is not dated, so it is difficult to determine if the transition date is accurate. I haven't seen this date in the FCC filings. I believe the latest FCC document is: http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2014/db0404/DA-14-462A1.pdf providing only permission to operate the C and KU beacons, but not the transponders.

IV. CONCLUSION
11.
We authorize SES Americom to operate the SES 3 TT&C frequencies and the two Ku band beacons at the 103º W.L. orbital location. We defer action on SES Americom’s application to operate SES 3 as a replacement satellite for AMC 1 in the conventional C and Ku band frequencies.

 

[Keystone7]

That's great news! Can't wait.

 

[kofi123]

Updated Transition Date Information:

SES has notified Microspace that SES-3 will replace AMC-1 on Sunday, August 24, 2014. Per the terms of the Satellite Services Lease Agreement between our firms, Microspace is responsible to give your company at least four months’ notice prior to the transition date. Due to our diligence with the satellite owner, we are able to give you more than a year’s notice of the anticipated transition date, and wanted to share this with you proactively.

They say that they're giving a year's notice of the transition, meaning that that web page was posted last year before anyone knew there was going to be a problem.

You are correct. http://www.satelliteguys.us/xen/posts/3223040/

The FCC still hasn't fully authorized the use of SES-3. Only the beacons are "legal" right now, with additional authorizations awaiting a resolution of the SES and DirecTV disagreement over the use of the 103°W orbital slot for Ka-band services.

NBCUniversal indicated that they would need about six months to reconfigure all of the downlink antennas at NBC stations across United States to handle the "normal" skew of SES-3. The FCC approval to turn on the SES-3 beacons to help in the reconfiguration didn't come until early April...

 

[turbosat]

That may be one of those things we never know. I always heard that the 103 bird was "different" because of an anomaly when the sat was inserted into orbit. But that doesn't sound right either, a new sat would've had enough fuel to adjust it's inclination.

 

[FaT Air]

The video was posted to y-tube on Jul 25, 2013
Skew - if they corrected the Ku skew with a maneuver, they'd have introduced a C band skew offset in the opposite direction. The odd skew is only on Ku.

 

[waylew]

I too recall hearing that the screwy skewy was from a malfunction,Ku antenna didn't deploy correctly?
As far as the dispute goes,turn on the C,turn on KU,and just leave Ka off till the dust settles.