Why is it so hard to refer to a bird by its location?

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Fellas, I have a confession to make....


I been messing with y'all......I think the whole name thing is stupid too....I was just trying to be intentionally obtuse just to rag the newbies a bit.....

I apologize to anyone whose feelings got hurt. :)

But there ARE a lot of things in FTA that don't make sense at all...LOL:D
 
We used to use people to farm everything. Then we trained animals to help. Then we made machines.

Oh lets throw out this Internet thingy too. Some guy hosting a 400baud BBS is the way we used to do it. Hey!... how about drums?

Can't forget drums can ya?

BOOmm! Booomm booom! biddy! bbOOOmm! Booomidy b000mmm!!!

That means, "there's a news feed of OGG AND OTHAK HITTING EACH OTHER WITH BIG STICKS on AMC6"

I suppose that could be a sports feed too. They weren't too picky which sub-forum you would post in back in the drum days.

(yes I'm laughing my a$$ off typing this:haha)
 
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It used to be called Price Club.

Then it was renamed to Costco.

Instead, why not refer to it by its street address instead? That way, I won't confuse the Costco on this side of town with the Costco on the other side of town.

But seriously freezy, What do you propose to handle this situation? Require people to include orbital location when referring to a satellite? If not, what then?
 
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As I stated, freezy is exactly right. "hazing" or "rite of passage" is just a lot of unnecessary bs which people use to feel superior to their fellow beings.

It is not analogous to Costco and its street address for the simple reason that there is only one road - the Clarke Belt - and the orbital location + band defines it precisely and scientifically. The corporate name defines NOTHING but what state the corporate machinations are in.

The bottom line is, this kind of thing DISCOURAGES NEW BLOOD, which every hobby needs to survive. Though you veterans might enjoy cackling at how little newbies so far know, you hurt the hobby, you don't engender respect, and you definitely do not impress anyone with your knowledge.

You know, it's really not about this issue so much as it is about all of the other oblique, and over jargonned references made by people.

Get over yourselves and help people out. When you pass to the next world you don't want it said you spoke in code so others wouldn't understand
 
As I stated, freezy is exactly right. "hazing" or "rite of passage" is just a lot of unnecessary bs which people use to feel superior to their fellow beings.

It is not analogous to Costco and its street address for the simple reason that there is only one road - the Clarke Belt - and the orbital location + band defines it precisely and scientifically. The corporate name defines NOTHING but what state the corporate machinations are in.

The bottom line is, this kind of thing DISCOURAGES NEW BLOOD, which every hobby needs to survive. Though you veterans might enjoy cackling at how little newbies so far know, you hurt the hobby, you don't engender respect, and you definitely do not impress anyone with your knowledge.

You know, it's really not about this issue so much as it is about all of the other oblique, and over jargonned references made by people.

Get over yourselves and help people out. When you pass to the next world you don't want it said you spoke in code so others wouldn't understand
I guess you missed this part:
Fellas, I have a confession to make....


I been messing with y'all......I think the whole name thing is stupid too....I was just trying to be intentionally obtuse just to rag the newbies a bit.....

I apologize to anyone whose feelings got hurt. :)

....maybe it wasn't typed BIG ENOUGH???? :rolleyes:

 
Stogie isn't the only guy who does it.

There are plenty out there. In fact, the number of people who try to find any excuse to feel better or smarter than their fellow human beings is huge.

One guy's good natured razzing or apology or kidding around is not a problem.

But so many people, looking for an excuse to diminish others, say like YOUR post, well that just makes me despair
 
One guy's good natured razzing or apology or kidding around is not a problem.

But so many people, looking for an excuse to diminish others, say like YOUR post, well that just makes me despair
Don't despair. I was simply stating how it appeared to me.
That an apology was made, and even after that, the comments continued about everything from going back to caveman "drum beating" times
to "getting over one's self".
I will never diminish anyone here
(well, maybe one, but he's gone and deserved it :eek: )
It just looked to me that the lynching was continuing after the apology, so I will apologize to you Lone Cloud, since I believe us Satelliteguys are above letting things like this get out of control. :)
 
Stogie isn't the only guy who does it.

There are plenty out there. In fact, the number of people who try to find any excuse to feel better or smarter than their fellow human beings is huge.

One guy's good natured razzing or apology or kidding around is not a problem.

But so many people, looking for an excuse to diminish others, say like YOUR post, well that just makes me despair


Alright, against my better judgment, I am gonna comment on this......it is NOTHING about trying to feel superior. NOTHING. Its about making the prospective FNG understand that FTA isn't plug and play, it never was, and it never will be. There ARE no shortcuts, the wild idea of getting cband on your 18" Directv dish with a circular LNB, has been tried before, and it failed. So when a newbie demands that we somehow bend the laws of physics to make it work, we semi-old-guys have already been down that road. We KNOW it doesn't work, it never will work. Because what happens 90% of the time, is someone says they can tune a C band signal on a 90cm dish, a newbie, or somone with a passing interest in FTA, thinks that because HE's never tried it is the reason why the whole world isn't picking DVB-S2 8PSK 4:2:2 HD C-Band signals up on their 1m dish. Physics doesn't change because said new guy can't have a big dish in his yard. It just doesn't. Which is why you get a lot of doubters, FOG's ,who have been down the road, and told you it wasn't going to work even 10% of the time. THEY KNOW. LISTEN TO THEM. AND HEED THEIR ADVICE.

Some guys on this very board have been doing this since the 1970's. They KNOW about this stuff. You (or me) will NOT outthink them, nor outknowledge them. They've been there, done that. ASK your question, get your answer. Don't complain if it isn't the answer you want.

A simple search oftentimes will glean all the info you need. I know folks nowadays can't be bothered with that stuff...but really, it is that simple. I use it almost daily. When I am not bothering some FOG to answer a question or other about the good old days or something else as insignificant....:)
 
"FNG" is a derogatory term see:
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FNG_syndrome"]FNG syndrome - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:Marine_da_nang.jpg" class="image"><img alt="" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/38/Marine_da_nang.jpg/220px-Marine_da_nang.jpg"@@AMEPARAM@@commons/thumb/3/38/Marine_da_nang.jpg/220px-Marine_da_nang.jpg[/ame]
So how would you feel if you were the new guy? Respected? Welcomed?
 
Well I would just as soon drop it except to say Stogie, that it's not necessary newbie training, not a favor, and not educational. And while it may not be a superiority thing for you, I'm sure it is for at least some.

The blunt fact is, a newbie asks for a precise, scientific description of something, and he gets a coded response. And for what? For what some marketing geek decides in the hallway of some office building?

I'll let it go, but I'm in this hobby, have been FTAing for three years, both Ku and C, and naming satellites by their band plus orbital longitude is the right way to do it

have a peaceful day
 
You could help a lot of newbs like myself out a lot by giving up the cutesy Spaceman Spiff names that were given these locations we are trying to lock onto. My receiver doesn't use these. Why should I? My box uses a number and a letter that tells it & me that the satellite should be in one hemisphere or the other.

I know some will come back and say, "but they don't stay in the same place, they move, then what do we call them?"

Uhhh...maybe whatever the new frigging location is relative to scanning it that day.

If it's currently moving and you have a setup that can track it still, sure...go ahead...call it by it's spaceship name

I have tried not to respond to this thread, mainly because this original post seems to clearly be a troll type post intended to start an argument. But since that has already occurred, I thought I'd add a couple thoughts.

This IS a topic that has been popping up in internet TVRO groups as long as those groups have been around, and I must admit to making a similar, but somewhat more diplomatic post about 18 years ago, when the names of some sats that I had been using for years changed, and my receiver no longer had the capability of naming them properly. But the bottom line is that any time anyone suggested some method of referring to satellites other than using their actual names, it was usually based on what would be most easy for HIM, based on the particular equipment he was using, and therefore ended up being a somewhat selfish suggestion.
So, while it may be easier for YOU to refer to things by their longitudes, that doesn't mean that it's easier for everyone. There is absolutely no way some of my receivers could ever use the longitude of a satellite, and the satellite names available to me are generally abbreviations of sats that aren't up there anymore, however it's generally easier for me to relate those old abbreviations to the actual satellites than it is to try to relate them to longitude. On my receiver, I have sat names such as F3, G1, E2, B6, S3, T4, M5, etc, etc, all of which are quite logical to me, and are the easiest way for me to remember what sat I'm referring to. I don't come on groups like this and expect people to follow MY naming convention. Instead, I have learned, what the REAL names of these sats are, and refer to them by their REAL names. If a sat has recently moved, such as T5, I mean Galaxy 25, then I usually accompany the name with a longitude, but if it's been at a location for quite a while, I see no need to do this.
BTW, I am equally amazed that people who own 4DTVs insist on referring to the somewhat illogical group of abbreviations used by that receiver. After all, 98% of us use Lyngsat for finding out where sats are, and what's on them. I see no reason under the sun that people can't figure out the real name of a sat when they're seeing it pop up every time they look up the channels in Lyngsat. We have dozens of different receivers with different capabilities of naming sats and different capabilities with respect to using longitudes, so different people are going to find different ways of naming the satellites on their own receivers. When referring to those sats on a group like this though, the most unambiguous way of referring to them will always be to use their real name, not some abbrebiation unrelated to the sat's name, and not some longitude.

If all you were using is a Ku dish with a DVB receiver capable of USALS, then yeah, a longitude might be simple way to make YOUR life easier, but not everyone here is using a USALS receiver with a DVB receiver. Many longitude slots have multiple sats on different bands, and sometimes sats that are inclined, and some that have spot beams. If you just use a longitude, you aren't distinguishing between sats on C-band, FSS-Ku, DBS-Ku, Ka band or other bands, and it isn't distinguishing between geostationary and geosynchronous-inclined sats. It's not distinguishing between sats with spot beams to one area vs beams aimed at other areas. So while using the longitude of a sat conveys a lot of info, it is not complete in and of itself. For the same reason, just giving the sats name isn't always complete in and of itself either, but the thing is, we aren't always talking in terms that can be expressed just by a longitude. We often discuss how footprints or power of sats, or frequency plans have changed for sats at a particular location, and if for the sake of simplifying your life you have chosen to remain uninformed about the actual names of the sats, you won't be able to communicate very well. A large part of ANY hobby is the history of the hobby, and if you can't communicate in terms of actual sat names, it is completely impossible to communicate about the history of the TVRO hobby. I mean, you might talk about having listened to telephone communications on 125, but then 125 was replaced by 125, so 125 moved to 123 along with 123 on Ku, but then 123 died, and was replaced by 123, but 123 was still going strong, but later 123 moved to 127 and 123 was replaced by 123, but then 127 died, and was replaced by 127, however in the meantime, 125 also died, and it was replaced by 125, but 125 only lasted a couple years, and got replaced by 125, and was finally joined by 125 on Ku, and about the same time 123 replaced an aging 123. Maybe you're right, things might be more clear if we just used longitudes.

Anyway, the use of the actual satellite name is a common point that people with different equipment, different interests and different capabilities can all relate. Since we all have lyngsat as the dictionary to translate what we're talking about, it is the only nomenclature that allows us to communicate without ambiguity. Anything less reminds me of the old Prisoner series where people were referred to as number 6, number 7, etc.... who is number one anyway?

If you want to simplify things, just subscribe to DTV or Dishnet, and you won't have to worry about the name of the sats, or even the frequency of the transponder or SR or anything. If you want to participate in a hobby and understand what you are doing, then I really think that the goal should be to learn the vocabulary of that hobby, and try to learn the history of the hobby.

Just my opinion.
 
You could help a lot of newbs like myself out a lot by giving up the cutesy Spaceman Spiff names that were given these locations we are trying to lock onto. My receiver doesn't use these. Why should I? My box uses a number and a letter that tells it & me that the satellite should be in one hemisphere or the other.

I know some will come back and say, "but they don't stay in the same place, they move, then what do we call them?"

Uhhh...maybe whatever the new frigging location is relative to scanning it that day.

If it's currently moving and you have a setup that can track it still, sure...go ahead...call it by it's spaceship name
Very well said, B.J! The bold parts of the quoted original post had me thinking the same as you. The post looked like while asking a question, the language also suggests a bit of "stirring it up" was intended too. That is all I have left to say on this matter. Have a good day. :)
 
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It's like trying to communicate in hieroglyphs. Luckily, there are means of translation. I wasn't trying to stir things up. I was merely trying to communicate a very frustrating part of this hobby. The indifferent/tongue-in-cheek reaction, "tough nuts kid we all had to learn it" would appear non-sympathetic and exclusionary. Not exactly what someone expects to hear on the greatest satellite support forum in the world.

Even if a former hacker were to come looking for help, would you kick out an alcoholic at your AA meeting because he called a cola "Pepsi" when all you had was "Coke"?

Your poll showed a great leaning toward noting a birds location.

Where did that go?

I'm done ... and Thank You Stogie , feelings weren't ever hurt, I have been well Razzed
 
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