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View Full Version here: : What do you think people are up to with large 'satellite' dishes?


cometcatcher
06-06-2005, 01:42 AM
Just curious what you think! I don't mean the little Foxtel/Austar dishes you see on the roof, I'm referring to the larger 8-12 foot usually mesh type dishes you see in yards. Not all are mesh, some are solid. Some people even have "cough" a few of them!

I'll post a poll for a bit of fun but answer here if you wish too. Choose multiple options if you wish.

iceman
06-06-2005, 06:21 AM
None around my immediate vicinity - at least that I've seen.. I voted (a) and (b).

Getting all the foxtel channels of course :)

acropolite
06-06-2005, 08:42 AM
Here in Tas they used to have that size dish for Austar, the reception was poor as the satellite was almost on the hrizon. They could also be recieving signals (TV) from other countries satellites; e.g. china. I have a mate in Sydney who does just that. Just as there's a community out there doing astronomy, there's a community doing Satellite TV stuff, including hacking...:D

ving
06-06-2005, 09:19 AM
NFI, but I am guessing that they are monitoring tony's observatory progress, or watching foreign movies :)

cometcatcher
06-06-2005, 09:39 AM
Good answers, keep em coming.

Be sure to give the poll a vote even if you don't respond in the thread body. I've left the voters identities a secret so no one knows who voted what, unless you tell us. :)

Starkler
06-06-2005, 12:14 PM
They could be one of the 1000 Chinese spies in our country :P

xstream
06-06-2005, 03:14 PM
Nah Geoff, It's really the CIA checking on what we're doing. :scared2:

fringe_dweller
06-06-2005, 04:48 PM
:eek: I better get my tinfoil hat on quick then! :scared:

wavelandscott
06-06-2005, 09:03 PM
It is the advance team for the alien invasion...

They were sent with a mission...Discover if there intelligent life on earth...they arrived at Roswell, New Mexico and have since spread around the world.

For the record, they are still undecided...

cometcatcher
07-06-2005, 01:23 AM
Hehheh, okay you would almost have had the poll close to reality if it wasn't for option B. Maybe that was just too tempting to click or you really are suspicious of those with large dishes in their yard. And this coming from people that sneak around at night with telescopes and cameras. :P

Option A is quite rare. I know very few people into radio astronomy, just a couple.

Option B, well the TV pirates are less common than you would think and very little piracy is happening with the large dishes. The large dishes are designed for C band and work very inefficiently on Ku band where Foxtel/Austar live. About the only pirates left these days would be using card sharing and only need a little 2 foot dish. The big dish users are doing something else.

Option C, unless the dish is parked very close to and directly between the TV station and you TV antenna it won't do a think to the normal TV reception. The nearest tree would likely do more to degrade the signal.

Option D is what I do and yes there are forums like this one devoted to what you can get up there. I'll give a little tour in a minute.

Option E the last option in no doubt the winner. There are many ethnic people in Australia or those that speak another language. There are TV broadcasts free to air on C band where almost every other language can be found. Chinese is probably the most common, but you will find Italian, German, French, Arabic, Turkish, Dutch, Russian, Korean, Greek, Japanese, Indonesian, the list goes on.

Why the big dishes? It's all to do with frequency. For a dish to have enough usuable gain on C band (3.4-4.2 GHz) it has to be large. The big advantage of C band over Ku is coverage area. A satellite transmission beam is very wide on C band and will cover Australia as well as Asia where Ku is a much tighter spot and will only cover Australia, if it was pointed there.

It's a hobby for me and many others like astronomy. Plus there are some good legal and free English channels up there.

ABC Asia Pacific has 100% Australian content. It's designed for the Asia region but is still good watching.

BBC World is on Foxtel but you can get it fo free on C band. News on the hour and has some good programs in between.

CCTV9 is from Central China television and is 100% English. The best coverage of the first Chinese Tychonaut came from this channel where the local news had only a very brief report. I got to see the Tychonaut stagger out of his craft live!

Now TV is the channel of choice for gamers!

So with news, sports, music and sometimes the odd movie channel it's quite fun, and it's FREE!

Continued...

cometcatcher
07-06-2005, 01:28 AM
Then there's the feed hunters. These are the RAW broadcasts that we never see or never get to our normal TV screen.

It's ammusing watching your favourite TV presenter having a scratch, a yawn or sometimes saying a naughty word!

But I'm leaving the best till last..

cometcatcher
07-06-2005, 01:44 AM
The pick of the lot, at least for people like us would be NASA TV! It lives on Intelsat 701 3854R sr2000 FEC 3/4. This is a satellite over in the eastern sky for much of Australia. I love it and can watch it for hours until my bum is numb.

They have live broadcasts from ISS, spacewalks, interviews, Mars Rover reports, deep space reports, anything to do with aircraft, space and NASA. It's pretty much the same as the streamed video on their website but the quality on the TV is much better. http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/

Just this afternoon I was watching interviews with the astronauts that are taking the return to flight shuttle mission and watching feeds as they transport the shuttle making it ready for launch.

I highly recommend this channel, I'm sure you guys would love it! Unfortunately it needs the biggest dish you can lay your hands on. 2.4 metres minimum but at times when they power share with data feeds it can require a larger dish.

They will no doubt have the next shuttle launch live.

Astroman
07-06-2005, 06:33 AM
hmm I'm going out and connect all the foxtel dishes in my area to one location and watch NASA TV.

iceman
07-06-2005, 07:14 AM
Poll closed at the request of CC, however please continue discussions in this thread! :D

cometcatcher
07-06-2005, 07:37 AM
Thanks Mike. :)