TOP OF THE MONTHWHILE many wi l lbe reading this im-

mediately after returning from a 'big

gathering' at the STTI Can/Am '83

show in Minneapolis, there is a reportin this issue dealing with a much smal-ler gathering. Fewer than two dozenindustry participants gathered in BocaGrande, Florida in mid-May to spendseveral days discussing pressing in-dustry problems, and trying to get ahandle on receiver testing parameters.A reoort in this issue.

THE FCC decision to shove 4 GHzbirds as close together as 2 degrees

,has many people very upset. The bot-tom line appears to be that using con-ventional feeds and dishes, anyonewith a reflector size smaller than 10feet is headed for bad problems; andsome of the 10 footers may not makethe grade either. In this issue, a hardlook at what the new tighter-orbit-beltspacings mean, and who is likely to gethurt.

THOSE who wou ld se l l TVROhardware off-shore have a new prob-lem; the U.S. Department of Com-merce is pushing 'Operation Exodus',a plan to slow down the export of TVROhardware. Coop comments on thislatest problem, and, tells the sad buttrue story of a man who wanted to bethe'Satel l i te King'of Liber ia in his com-ments section this month.

FINALLY, there have been severalnew antennas down on the Provoantenna test range during the past 45days; CSD looks at some of these inthis issue, and notes that more andmore emphasis seems to be apparentin the pre-production engineering fornew antenna models. And, gain is get-ting more impressive all of the time.

PAGE 1/CSD/7-83

JULY 1 983

COOP'S COMMENT page 4TWO DEGREES/OUCH! page 8

ROBS RECEIVER NOISE TESTS... . . . . page 32PROVO ANTENNA TESTS/

May 14-ECl 's 11 FOOTER. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .pa1e 42May 21-CONIFER's 12 FOOTER .. . . . . . . . . . .page 48May 28-USS's 12 FOOTER. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .page 63

CORRESPONDENCE page 72BIRD OPERATIONAL NOTES... . . . . page 79

OUR COVER - Canadian receiverdesign innovator Jon Spisar holdsa full set of gold-metalized 'precious

parts ' to a12GHz (Ku Band)TVROreceiver in his hand. There's a com-plete 12 GHz receiver plus LNA inthe container, which he shared withfellow members of 'ROBS' at BocaGrande, Florida recently (see page321.

cooP'sSATELLITE J

DIGEST \14.

COOP'S SATE LLITE D lG EST pub l ished month ly by West Ind ies V ideo. L td ;a Turks & Caicos Corporation with corporate offices located at Grace Bay,Prov idenc ia les . Turks & Ca icos ls lands (West Ind ies) . U S. o t f i ces aremain ta ined a t F t . Lauderda le , F lo r ida . A l l ma i l inc lud ing subscr ip t ions ,advertising inquiries, reports and letters should be addressed to CSD, P.O.Box 1 00858, Ft. Lauderdale, FL 333 1 0. CSD office hours in Ft. Lauderdale areMonday-Friday9:00 AM to4:00 PM. Telephone (3O5) 771 -0505. CSD is mailedworldwide on or belore the l st of each month, f irst-class (airmail). Annualsubscription rates are $50 (US funds) for USA, Canada, Mexicc: S75 (USfunds) elsewhere. Entire contents copyright 1 983 by West Indies Video, Ltd:Rober t B . Susan T , Kev in P . , and Tasha A Coooer .

Videophile Satellite TelevisionThe possibil it ies of component audio come to satellite video.

Componen t equ ipmen t has becomepopular in the audio field for a lot ofreasons. One reason is that the com-ponent philosophy allows a purist to up-grade any piece oI a system as technologyadvances without having to replace theentire system at once. This basic ideahas ushered in an era of specialty f irmsdedicated to advancing the art of a singlelink in the chain. They succeed becauseall of their efforts are focused on onediscipline, not thinly spread over an en-tire system. EARTH TERMINALS* bringsthis philosophy to satell i te television. Weconcentrate on the single most imporlant,most diff icult element-the microwavereceiver. No other pan of the systemhas such a dramatic effect on picturequality.

QualiU You Can SeeAn EARTH TERMINALS receiver pro-

vides cleaner pictures with less granu-larity. Truer colors that don't smear. Lesssparkling snow on weak programs. Com-plete absence of herr ingbones andwaves . Supe r imposed l e t t e r i ng t ha tdoesn't tear at the edges. ln fact, youhaven't seen video this exciting unlessyou've been in a television studio. lf youown a quality video projector, you'l l beeven more impressed.

Quality You Can MeasureBroadcast engineers are impressed

with the accuracy of EARTH TERMI-NALS receivers too. Our VITS Sin'� Pulseand video SNR test results are incom-

parable; actually the equal of most com-mercial grade receivers. We can alsohandle tough signals l ike Reuters datatransmissions that give other receiversfits. lt 's no wonder then, that after ex-haustive testing, some cable companiesand te lev i s i on s ta t i ons use EARTHTERMINALS rece i ve rs as t he i r ma insource of satellite program material. Theyknow value when they see it.

It's Easy To Live WithAllthis technical sophistication is really

quite easy to get along with. Preciseautomatic fine tuning tuneq every chan-nel the same way every time. You don'thave to be an expert to get perJect

oictures. EARTH TERMINALS receiverscome with a remote control that selectschanne l s i nd i v i dua l l y , ad jus t s aud iovolume at your convenience, and auto-matically signals the rest of your systemto supply the proper antenna polariza-tion through an even/odd channel switch.And it f i ts in the palm of your hand.

Tips On ValueThere are plenty of satell i te receivers

that cost less than ours, but nearly allof them need bigger antennas and moreexotic Low NoiseAmplif iersfora picturefree of sparkling snow. lf you're on abudget, you can save money in otherparts of the system by paying more forour receiver and come out even. You gethigh fidelity video in the bargain. lf you'resimply after the best picture money canbuy, we can make i t very af fordable.Either way, give us a call or write usfor the details.

EARTH TERMINALSDeoadment 103One Microwave PlazaCincinnati, Ohio 45242513-489-6200

Unrctouched Otf-The-Ait SinT Pulse Test

EARTH TERMIilAt.s

PAGE 4/CSD/7-83 SATELLITE DICEST

cooP'sSATELLITECOMMENT

o'Operation EXODUS' Closes In

o'Satel l i te King' of LIBERIA

BOY/ARE WE In Hot WaterFor several years now we have been encouraging people to haul

TVRO hardware out of the United States and into nearby areas suchas the Caribbean (etc) to expand our sales base into foreign countries.We've written about this a great deal, warning those who wouldengage in such activities that there are dangers involved; dangerswith hauling'high technology'equipment into places where perhapsthe local governing regimes are not ready for CNN2 or even PTL.

And for several years now we have followed that intrepid traveler,Bob Behar of HERO Communications, around the globe (literally) ashe has opened up continent after conlinent for 'first-time-ever' privateTVROS. What we didn't know, until very recently, was that we might beencouraging people to break a U.S. law.

It seems that if you engage in the export of commodities there arecertain licenses you MUST obtain prior to shipping the goods. Formost of what might be shipped in general commerce, the exportingpapers are simplistic and straight forward to complete, and typicallyprepared by the freight forwarding agenl you have engaged to handlethe transaction. You know that you do not understand how to ship a'12 foot antenna to Tanzania, for example, so you contact somebodywho does. They tell you how to crate the shipment, how to 'document'

the shipment with papers, how much the shipment will cost you, andwhere to have it delivered, and when. lt's what they may not tell youthat can hurt.

Now it seems that the United States is engaged in a 'technology

war' with various foreign powers. There are certain things we knowhow to do better here which the United States government has de-cided is better kept 'at home'. We know how to build desk top orpersonal computers, for example, better than anyplace else in theworld. And since an Apple ll computer might be used for such un-friendly acts as programming a nuclear fusion reactor, the U.S. gov-ernmenl has put technology such as the Apple ll onto a list of 'high

technology' items. All of the items on this list cannot be simply ex-ported. Not by following the standard export procedures, anyhow.

Now it happens that way back in 1968 or so the United StatesCongress directed the United States Departmenl of Commerce tocreate a list of goods and materials which the DOC considered 'high

technology'. Congress also told the DOC to set up procedures where-by anyone who produced such goods could not export those goodsoutside of the USA (Canada is the only exception to what follows)wilhout a soecial 'license'.

The reasoning, of Congress, was that the exportation of items onthis'high technology' l ist might endanger'National Security ' . Al low meto quote to you a single entry on this very long list. This entry tells youabout an item which oannot be exported without this special exportlicense; and that includes, as we shall see, approval f rom Washington.

"1 520A/Radio relay communications equipment designed toruse at frequencies exceeding 960 MHz, and components, acces-sories and sub-assemblies therefor. . .".

Now you might read this and say "So what does this have to dowith a TVRO terminal". l'll tell you what it has to do with a TVROterminal. This brief description of 'high technology goods'which can-not be exported without a special license describes a TVRO terminal.

You might try to argue that a metal retlector, especially one with nofeed. is not

(1) high technology, and,(2)-f requency sensitive.

. . .You might try to argue that a polarization rotation system is nolhigh technology.

You might try to argue that much of what we now use comes intothe U.S. from Canada, or Mexico or the Far East and when we shio itoul, we are simply returning it to the world market from whence itcame.

None of this will go any good. The Department of Commerce, inits infinite wisdom, has ruled that anything that has to do with a TVROis 'high technology'; and, you may not ship i t outside of the U.S.A.without the appropriate export license.

lf you figure that is jusl another sheet ot two of paper, you arepartially correct. But there is more to it than that.

You must apply for this special export license before you ship thegoods. In fact, CSD learned that you should allow 45 days for approvalfor any shipment that is going to:

(1) Some place you have not shipped previously, or,(2) Include goods (products, devices) which you have nol pre-

viously asked for approval to ship.In other words, you have to anticipate by 45 days to 60 days the

shipping of every order going to someplace outside of the U.S.A. orCanada, and you have to complete and file the request for an exportlicense that far in front. References on who to contact, tor whatassistance, follows.

Now let's suppose you don't bother to do this. Let's see whatthe DOC and the balance of the federal authorities are prepared to doto you.

(1) Let's assume the worst possible situation first; you 'lie' aboutthe contents of a shipment. Let's assume you call the shipment'washing machine parts'. Let's also assume you were trying to beclever and you packed the antenna, or receiver, or LNA or whatever ina box that did not have the word 'satellite' anyplace on it.

So you ship it merrily otf to the freight forwarding company and hetakes you at your word and proceeds to ship out your'washingmachine parts' to some guy in Ethiopia. Only along comes an Inspec-tor from the U.S. Customs Deoartment and he decides to see whalyour washing machine parts look like.

Ooops.Once inside the container he immediately knows these are not

washing machine parts, Your telephone will ring, or you will look upfrom your desk to be face to face with a shiny metal badge announcingthe Customs Inspector. You may wish the guy was from IRS beforeyou get done.

Let me tell you why.The first thing they have the right to do is to confiscate your

shipment. Lock it up. The next thing they have the right to do is to levy a'fine' against you. Now if you were simply 'sloppy' in calling that TVROsystem 'washing machine parts', and they believe that you weresimply sloppy, the fine cannot exceed the U.S. value of the shipment.A $10,000 shipment; a $10,000 f ine.

On the other hand, if they decide that you attempted to beat theregulations 'with malice', they can fine you far more than this.

For example. A well known industry supplier was shipping somelarge antennas plus electronics to a Middle Eastern country. The

SATELLITE DICESTcustom guys got into the shipment and found that no special exportpapers had been obtained. They immediately yanked the $65,000shipment away from the freight forwarding company. Then they wentto the OEM and told him what they had done. A cash 'bond'total ing

more than $1 1 ,000 was requested. Instantly. lt was a case of 'pay it orlose the shipment, forever'. The OEM paid the bond/tine. Now he hadto go to work to get the goods back, and shipped.

First he had to petition the Department of Commerce. The 'petition'

is a lengthy legal document, prepared by an attorney, which explains(or tr ies to explain) why this shipment ended up in the hands of thefreight forwarder without the proper papers atached. As I write this theclock is running on this case, which began in mid-May. The shipmentis t ied up by the Customs people. The $1 1,000 plus is in their hands.Large legal bills are piling up, and naturally the OEM is not going to getpaid for the shipment until it is on its way. We'll come back to all of thisshortly.

For example. Recently a shipment of TVRO electronics wasbeing shipped by a large, well known CATv/broadcaster type OEM.The shipment crossed the border at Laredo, Texas and was actually inLaredo, Mexico when the U.S. Customs people discovered that insidethe shipment was some 'high technology' TVRO gear. They got into atruck, drove across the Mexican border, and brought the shipmentback into the USA. And locked it uo.

In this case the papers had been filed, and they supposedly hadbeen approved. Only as the shipment went from Laredo to Laredo, thepapers were not attached. They were hung up someplace in theDepartment of Commerce. That's all it took. The electronics sat in aCustoms warehouse in Laredo for several weeks while the manufac-turer had everyone from his Washington attorney to his U.S. Senatorworking on the case. The shipment was evenlually released. But thecosl was significant.

Although all of this originates in a 1968 Act of Congress, it has newmeaning these days because lhe U.S. Department of Commerce hasdecided to 'crack down'on the exportation of 'high technology' stuff.They have even assigned a special group of Customs Agents to theproject, and they have given it a name. lt is called "Operation Ex-odus" and the DOC and Customs people are deadly serious.

An LNA, stuck into a briefcase, is being illegally transported if itleaves the USA without the appropriate paperwork. That's the paper-work that requires 45 to 60 days to clear. A TVRO receiver? Sameproblem. A TVRO antenna? Same problem. Even if it won't fit into yourbriefcase!

About four months ago when 'Operation Exodus' got rolling, theCusloms people sent agents around to meet with freight forwardingcompanies, freight shippers, and even OEMs. CSD made a number ofrandom calls to shippers that specialize in overseas shipments inmid-May and found only two out ol I selected from coast to coast whodid not recall being visited by, and warned by, Customs agents. Inparticular, 'Satellite TV Equipment' was singled out; or so severalshippers lold us.

One OEM we talked with reported that when Customs agentsvisited the plant, they explained 'Operation Exodus'to them and thenasked their cooperation. Specifically, the OEM was asked to callCustoms if they noticed some strange products being ordered byinland lolks; such as a Colorado address orderinq TVRO receiversthat operate only on 220 VAC, and/or bought for-'lntelsat' one-halftransponder specifications. The Customs guys warned this OEM thatthere was a fair amount of 'repackaging' and 'relabeling' going on'inland' by people who were shipping an unusually heavy amount of'washing machine parts'to Africa or the Caribbean or wherever. Theywere determined, they said, to crack down on this activity.

One can allow his mind to wander to find some rationale reasonwhy an overtaxed Department of Commerce and an understaffedCustoms Bureau is suddenly spending much manpower and effort oncracking down on the shipment of TVRO hardware overseas. Since Ihave the distinction of being the editor for the industry's trade maga-zine, I have the ability to share my own 'mind wanderings'with you inthis instance.

I suspecl, but have no proof, that COMSAT or in particularIntelsat is behind all of this. We all know, from authenticated reportsoriginating in Ecuador, Venezuela and elsewhere, that there has beenpressure applied to various South American governments to stop the

PAGE 5/CSD/7.83

Anyone who is shipping overseas is advised to write the Officeot Export Administration, P.O. Box 273, Washington, D.C. 20044.Request a suitable stack of copies of the sextuplicate form IT4-622P;Application for Export License. To give you assistance, we urgethat you contact Superintendent of Documents, U.S. GovernmentPrinting Office, Washington, D.C. 2O4O2 and request subscriptioninformation to the 'Export Administration Regulations' includingthe 'Export Administration Bulletins'. Most of the information re-quired, while tedious to complete, is straightforward. ltem l4 calls foryou to spell out 'Foreign Availability' ot the commodity/commoditiesyou are seeking to export. Here the DOC wants to be assured thatwhat you are exporting is not an 'American secret'. One way to handlethis is to provide, as attachments, data sheets from off-shore oro-duced products thereby signaling DOC that you are simply shippingan American version of something already available in internationalcommerce. Finally, item 12 asks for you to explain the 'specific use' ofthe commodities or technical data, by the person/firm you are shippingto. Don't be cute. Don't menlion Ghorizont. Don't mention HBO ortelecommunications. Just stick to the basic description of satellitetelevision reception and stay away from anything specific; such as,'To receive US pay television service in Surinam'!

importation of TVROs. That pressure has come from the lntelsatgang. lt they are not above applying pressure on the importation ofTVRO hardware, one must also assume they are not above applyingpressure to the U.S. government to stop the exportation of hardware.Like I said, I couldn't prove this, but I have my suspicions.

So we are in hot water. So are the freight forwarding firms if theycontinue to accept shipments which contain TVRO hardware (and,they know it contains TVRO hardware) and they ship them on outsidethe U.S.A., without the appropriate export license papers attached.Which leaves us where?

All of this builds into the advance time to be allowed for exportpaper preparation. Courtesy of Doug Dehnert of the United SatelliteSystems, we have advice for those who find allof this very disturbing.Doug's firm has been routinely preparing these papers for quite sometime now and Doug reports that while the routine is time consuming, itis not something to be feared. Doug's advice appears here separately.

In checking with other exporters of TVRO hardware, we learnedthat you should allow a minimum of 45 days tor the approval of ashipment. Sixty days would be better, especially if this is the first timeyou have shipped into a new area, or you are shipping somethingwhich has not been previously shipped (outside of the USA/Canada).Can you shorten the procedure? Yes, and, no.

There are provisions for obtaining an emergency 'Export

License'. But the requirements are stiff, and at ledst one supplier toldus that the governmenl f rowns on granting more than one 'emergency'

Export License to a single firm more often than every 30 days. In otherwords, you can't march in with every shipment an emergency.

A true emergency, and you will have to document the nature anddetails of the emergency, can get you approvals within a week. Butyou'll have to know who to go to in Washington, and have the ExportLicense'walked through'the appropriate places inhand, as i t were, toget five day treatment. That says you will spend $400 or so to hire a'gun' in DC to do the walking through for you for a true emergency.Once you know the ropes, you may even be able to do it by telephoneand FED X shipping of the forms; but don't count on it.

What is an emergency? First of all, they better know who you areand have a file 'history' on you in place. Otherwise you can pretty wellforget about an emergency Export License. A TVRO that is 'down',

requiring an emergency receiver or LNA to get it back operating mightqualify. "The 747 is coming . . . ." probably would not qualify. Like anyother'game' played in Washington, experience counts and knowingwhich string to yank or the proper chain to pull will come only byexDerience.

Operation Exodus is here. Customs fellows have a 'new charter'and they are determined to crack down on abuses of this previouslylittle known regulation. Like it or not, what we have in our hands is

COOP/continues page 82

Hero System 25-H - 7.5 N{derMotorized Antenna

ANTI 'NNA SPECIFICATIONS:I , . [ .F]( 'TRICAL: J Mll ' tF.R

Opcra t ing i r rcqucncy 3 .T to '1 .2 C i HzAntcnna ( ia in a t ,1 ( i t l z 40 .4 c lbI lcanr \ \ ' idth (--3 t lb) I .75"First Sidc [-obc F.rcceds l :C'(] 32'25 l-og 0Ci / ' l ' at 20" L:. lcvation

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What this means to you, the dealer, is simply this. Now you can install al0 foot system where only 13/14 foot system would previously play. Or,now you can install a 13 foot where only a 15116 foot would ppeviouslyperform. This is no small accomplishment!!!

This is such an important breakthrough that now, hard to serve areas suchas the Caribbean can have superb performance on virtually all of the U.S.DOMSAT birds. As important as this may be to your fringe area installa-tion business, there is more good news. The PRICE. Our l0 and 13 footantenna with horizon to horizon motor drive and additional high qualityfeatures is priced less than any other low performance antenna of compar-able size.

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SATELLITE DICEST

ANALYSIS

SOONER Than LaterThe recent, May 1983 issue of CSD, spent some t ime looking at

lhe new generation of six foot dishes, and the various techniquesbeing utiliied by those marketing such small systems to increase the

marklt penetration for home TVROs. The same May issue carried apremature report dealing with the FCC's long expected pronounce-

menl concerning re-assignment of bird Clarke orbit (geo-stat ionary)posit ions in the sky above the equator. One seemed to support the

olher, when we noted on page 52 " . . those worrying about useful-ness of 6 and B loot home dishes in immediate future need not worry,

1990 seems a long ways away " This provoked at least one reader(Dan Phil l ios of the Southern Baptist Convention) to write "For the f irst

i ime as 'TVRO prophet par excel lence' you have been caught withyour pants down."

Phil l ios went on to note "The FCC's new two degree spacingproceduie is going to have an almost immediate effect on many of us

Goodbye to six foot dishes."Maybe yes, maybe no. And if maybe yes, perhaps not lor the

reason's cited. This is a hard look at not only the FCC's two degreespacing decree, but also at some other lactors which may, in the nearterm. h-ave a more direct impact on six and eight foot dishes than theultimate FCC game plan to recarve up the Clarke orbit belt.

WHAT Was DoneWay back early in Fal l of 1981, the FCC said i t was studying the

possibi i i ty of creating addit ional space in the sky by forcing exist ingand futuie satel l i teJ(at both the present 4 GHz'C Band'and thecoming 12 GHz 'Ku Band') to move closer together. That seems l ike areasonable approach on the surface since the Clarke (geo-stationary)orbit belt is a finite resource. Farmers have been doing that sort ofthing for years; they cal l i t ' inter-cropping. ' Between their rows of cornthey plant rows ol some other compatible crop. With the proper

equipment, both crops mature and are harvested from the same plot

of land. The key here, as with the satel l i te 'crop in the sky, ' is having

the proper equipment.When the satel l i tes are moved closer together than their present 4

degree spacing, addit ional 'slots' are created in the sky for addit ional 'nefu, satel l i tes. The 4 degree spacing real ly began as an Americanplan to subvert a 1969 decision formed at the international level; oneihat suggested that al l satel l i tes operating within a specif ic frequencyband (such as 4 GHz) should be 5 degrees apart in the sky As mostreaders know, satellites are assigned parking spots directly above the

equator at an alt i tude of approximately 22,300 miles. The satel l i tes are' identi f ied' by their location; the spot in the sky where they sit is relatedto the longitude of the spot on earth above which they rest. 0 degreeslongitudeis the so-cal led prime meridian that passes through Green-wich, England and other locations are identi l ied by degrees east (east

of Greeriwich) and degrees west (west of Greeinwich). A satellitelocated at 80 west is actually located directly above the equator'almost squarely above Quito, Ecuador.

The 1969 era decision to space satel l i tes at locations along andabove the equator, at 5 degree intervals, would have created 'space'

in space for 360 degrees divided by 5 degree intervals, or 72 separate

PAGE 8/CSD/7.83

TWO DEGREES IOUCH!

birds operating at 4 GHz. That 's around the ful l world.However, ihe same 1969 'accord' also created 'cluster sites' at

three different locations above the world where those internationalclass satel l i tes, Intelsat birds (and later Russian Ghorizont birds) 'would be'protected'from interference by non-lntelsat birds Theseclusters are roughly grouped around 20 west, 1 80 west/east, and 60

east. Respectively, tf'ey serve as 'protected zones' where Intelsatclass satellites can operate to serve Europe/Africa/South America/North America, and, the Pacitic/Asia/North America, and, Africa, parts

of Europe, parts of Asia, and parts of the Pacific. Inspite-of the original5 degree spacing agreement, Intelsat took it upon itself to treat thoseclust"er zones as;sub-assignments'within which i t could re'assign i ts

own birds as its own needs dictated.When Canada launched the f irst ANIK (A) bird, and Western Union

launched the f irst US (WESTAR l) bird, there was plenty of room in the

sky for them to locate. Canada and the US had worked out an

agreement which sub'divided that port ion of the orbit arc which

siemed to have the best ' f ield of view'to serve, respectively, Canadaand the USA. The USA port ion would extend init ial ly from 80 west to140 west, with a chunk between 99 and 119left open for Canada'

Canada's problem was that i t extends well north of the Arct ic circle,and because the earth is curved like a ball, you can get too far north to'see' any satellites located even at the monstrous height ol 22'300miles above the equator. The curvature of the earth simply gets in theway, and satellite signals don't bend around the curve of the earth SoCanada got the firstlelection of spots which was important if those farnorthern Canadian sites were to have any potential satellite con-nected communications. l t turned out that the US also had a similarproblem, with Alaska, but the most opportune location for Alaskanbirds would be due south of Alaska, which fortunately was not theorooer location for Canadian birds. So everyone was more or lesshappy with the arrangement.

And ttren the satel l i te explosion hit . The f irst impact of the

exolosion fel lon the cable television industry. Start ing off with a singleHBO channel in September of 1975, i t was only a matler of years

before the cable industry had so adopted satellite programming thatthe industry was f i l l ing up up lo 22transponders on a24 channel birdand they would have gladly taken the remaining two i l RCA would let

them do so. RCA tr ied to launch a new satel l i te (F3) in December of1979 to provide the cable industry with growth room; and that satel l i tewas losi during the launch phase. That left the cable industry, readywith perhaps another dozen or so new, addit ional, program channels,virtually shut off from additional growth for a couple of years

This 'crunch' on avai lable transponder space sent the part icipants

in several different directions. Some wandered about the WestatComstar birds looking for a home. None were ever very satisfied withtheir interim quarters since the cable system operators knew that thetemporary Westar/Comstar homes were indeed temporary; and thecabie sysiem operators were not that anxious to spend big bucks forwhole new satellite antenna systems to bring in a few additionalchannels that would, one day, move to a new, 'permanent cable bird'anynow.

Still others took their first, hard look at all of the then-planned new

(

Ehannel Mastni.,)

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t ' ,,, ', r .o

IT'S EASIER FOR YOU TO SEttTO PEOPTE THAT KNOW US.They ' re the peop le in suburban and ru ra l marke ts tha t a l readydepend on Channe l Master h igh-ga in TV antennas and ampl i f ie rsfor the best recept ion that they can get. When you offer ChannelMaster earth stat ions to your prospects, the chances are very goodtha t they 've heard o f us and our reputa t ion fo r h igh-qua l i t yrecept ion.

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PAGE 10/CSD/7-83 SATELLITE DICESTsatellites, and they tried to figure out just how many transponders thecable industry, and others, would really need in say 1985' or 1990.That proved an exercise in futility since there was no good dataavailable on what types of groups, or broadcasters, or cablecastersmight emerge as viable business entities and indeed, for their ownuse, require a full or part transponder on a regular basis' But thehandwriting and lhe trails all seemed to point in one direction; duringthe 1980s there would be a far larger demand for transponders thanthere would be transponders. And that caused several groups todecide that they wanted to be satellite operalors.

Which brought the inevitable result; more firms filed lormal re-quests with the FCC to build, launch and operate 4 GHz satellites thanthere were spaces in the sky. ln other words, at the then-in-effect 4degree spacing plan, if every firm that asked to be a satellite operatorwas approved by the FCC, there wouldn't be enough space toaccommodate them all.

It didn't take the FCC very long to figure that one out. Andwhen they heard rumblings from the established satellite operators(RCA, Western Union, Comsat) that they would be requesting new'additional 'orbit spots' themselves for new additional satellites, it alllooked like an entire new approach would be required to make roomfor everyone.

Which nrings us to the lall of 1981 and the Jlotation at the FCC ofthe concept of reassigning the then-in-eftect orbital parking spaceassignments. The Commission put a study group on the problem, andthe study group came back with a recommendation; by assigning theorbital locations in 2 degree, rather than 4 degree, increments' appro-ximately twice as many satellites could be placed into service. Andthat wa-s in December of 1981 . The matter has maintained a relativelylow orofile at the FCC in the interim 16 months. Every now and again'somebody at the Commission would make a comment on the prog-ress of the proposal, just to let us know they were still thinking about it.And then, in January of this year, the 'remarks' became more irequent,and detai led. A decision was coming.

In matters of policy or rule change, the Commission typically findsit must lollow administrative procedures which are designed to insurethat the'publ ic ' has an opportunity to voice their feel ings. The'publ ic 'seldom comments, but the directly affected parties do. Thus we havea scenario where those who would be impacted by the proposed 2degree spacing sit down with their own'experts'and they work out al lof the ways they wil l be 'hurt, ' or 'helped, ' by the proposal. Then theyput this all down on paper, and they attempt to support their'bottomline' 'for' or 'against' position by citing past FCC actions, or courtrulings, or special studies they conduct to help their position' Some ofthe f i l ings, made to the Commission in a situation such as this, run tohundreds of pages of carelully chosen words, backed by hundreds ofadditional pages of support documents. And somebody with the intelli-gence to understand all that has been iiled with them on this matter' atthe Commission, has to plow through all of these comments. And try towork out of the conflicting comments received some consensus olopinion.

Some proposals, such as one floated years and years ago' tomove all television to the UHF broadcasting channels (vacating VHFin favor oi two-way radio), are doomed from the start. Those who are'agin' are simply too strong, politically, to allow something like that tohappen. Other proposals, such as the 2 degree orbital spacing plan'are guaranteed to pass from the start. The only question remaining'once the FCC announces a proposal to do something like this' is'when,' and possibly 'where. '

When the FCC proposed 2 degree spacing, there were mild tre-mors in the earth station industry. Notice we said the earth stationindustry, not the home TVRO industry. In particular, there was con-cern with the radio network systems (now largely converted to satel-lite, and heavily dependent upon ten foot size dishes) and the cableindustry (which today uses many 10 and 12 foot size antennas'especially on those services spread over F4, W4 and W5)' and tosome surprise, the uplink operators who leed programs to the satel-lites. But, significantly, there was not a battle roar of protest. TheCommission read that as a positive sign. Now all they had to do was toawait the appropriate moment to formalize their initial decision. They'dwait at least a year, just to give the decision making process theappearance of being well studied and carefully worked out. That same

year would allow those many firms who were talking about launchingnew satellites to get their own acts in better shape as well. In a year orso. the whole oicture would be much clearer.

For a short period of time, there were genuine concerns aboutwhether or not two phases of the presently constructed satellite indus-try (all of the industry) could continue to function at 2 degree spacing..

1) Unknown were the antenna pattern characteristics of many ofthe then-in-use three meter (10 feet) or 3.7 meter (12 feet)antennas in service in the radio network ARO systems, or thecable network TVRO systems. There was a flurry of technicalarticles in print which alternately 'proved'that 3.0 and 3.7 meterantennas would, and would not, work at 2 degree spacing'

The technical articles, prepared typically by leading professionalantenna manufacturers, usually came to the conclusion that 2 degreespacing was viable if the users were willing to accept slightly more'interference' from adiacent satellites, and iJ there was some commonsense applied to which satellites were allowed to 'sit' next to oneanother. We'll revisit that again before we are done.

Some not so technical articles came out of places like the NCTA(National Cable Television Association) and they said, just as firmly'that 3.0 meter dishes were'al l in trouble'while many of the 3.7 meterdishes would find it tough going. The problem was that nobody debat-ing this was really comparing apples and apples.

2) Equally unknown were the variations in lrequency assign-ments that might be employed, or the variation in modulationformats that might be employed when satellites were adjacentto one another, and as close as 2 degrees.

Way back in 1976, when the FCC was seriously consideringallowing cable systems (and others) to install dishes smaller than 9meters in size (early FCC rules called for minimum dish size of 9meters), lT&T, Antennas For Communications, Andrew and othersthen in the professional antenna manufacturing business devoted aconsiderable amount of antenna test range, and laboratory testmeasurement time to the question of interlerence.' At the time, theFCC ws not convinced that dishes smaller than I meters would work.They were concerned first that the received signals would be 'weak"

and second that wilh dishes as 'small as 4.5 meters or so' there couldbe interference from satellites spaced 4 degrees apart. ITT in particu-lar spent thousands of hours and probably tens of thousands of dollarssimulating satellite-to-satellite interlerence. From that study the Com-mission decided that the then-existing regulations, drawn from 1970era Intelsat recommendations, were overkill.

Under the Intelsat recommended interference levels, if you had adish pointed at Satel l i te'A, 'and that dish was picking up a signal froman adjacent satellite ('B') at a level of signal which was 27 dB or lessweaker than the satellite'A' signal, you were (by Intelsat standards) indeep trouble. ITT showed the Commission that a 27 dB interferencestandard was absurd; that in the case of video transmissions, inoarticular, even the most critical measurement could not detect thepresence (i.e. see an indication) of 'degrading interference' unless theinterfering signal was at least 18 dB lower in level than the desiredsignal level.

The same ITT study went further; it showed that iJ the interferingcarrier level was below (reduced from) the desired canier by 15 dByou have interference which was 'noticeable' by perhaps 10% ol theobservers. In fact, i t took an interfering signal level of -12 dB (i .e. 12 dBweaker than the desired signal) before even 50% of the test observersfound the interference'objectionable. '

Now those were test results for video signals, on both satellites'interfering with one another. The same studies also revealed that il thelower level (interfering) signal was not a video signal at all, but a dataor digilal or SCPC signal, much higher levels of interference could betolerated before the video signal was degraded. Going the other way'there were (however) situations of modulation format by which thedigitalidata/SoPC signals suffered badly when they were subjected toan adjacent satellite with a video modulated signal.

SPACE got into the act, even if only informally, as the Commis-sion's study period was moving ahead. Under the chairmanship ofSPACE's Taylor Howard, a study was prepared which purported toshow that many (if indeed, not most) of the 3 meter (10 foot) antennaswould continue to deliver'adequate pictures' even with closer spacedsatellites. Howard's study was largely built around then-existing

SATELLITE DICESTantehna feeJsystems and we'll see what impact feed systems haveon system performance as it relates to close spaced satellites later onhere.

The SPACE 'comments'were sort of a set of f indings f i led by'anAmbassador without a country'; SPACE, in fact the entire 'homeTVRO industry,' had absolutely no legal status in the proposed rulechange whatsoever.

When the FCC came along in the fall of 1979 and decided thatTVRO antennas no longer had to have FOC-granted licenses, theyalso ruled at the same time that if a gerson or a firm decided to install aTVRO/ARO without benefit of FCC license, that installation wouldhave absolutely no legal standing before the Commission. In otherwords, if you wanted to be able to protest when somebody didsomething to you, you had to be a licensee of the Commission. Byopting not to get a license, you were giving up your legal rights to beconsidered in any future actions of the Commission, or its licensees.SPACE, at thal point in time, was new in the business and represent-ing a group of people who were 'citizens without a country.' SPACEcould have taken just about any position it wanted in this issue; andnobody at the Commission would have noticed.

Nobody worried about 'home TVROs' because home TVROs (witha few scattered exceptions) had no legal status.

And then there were the uplink operators; the people whotransmit programming to the satellite. Most of these folks use relative-ly large 10 and 11 meter antennas; or in the cases of RCA andWestern Union, antennas as large as 60 feet. But, there was a growinggroup of 'portable uplink'operators; people who hauled six meter andfive meter and even 4.5 meter dishes around the countryside toprovide instant uplinking of television worthy events. There were alsoa sizeable number of really small data and telephone link uplinks,antennas as small as 3 meters in size, feeding narrowband services tovarious Satcom and Westar satellites. How would thev manaoe withbirds spaced at 2 degrees?

To understand this problem, you have to realize that we haveantennas on board the satellites which do two things; they transmit a

PAGE 11/CSD/7-83

WHEN THEY'LL Fil l UpSince so much of the unknown part of the 4 GHz close spacing

scenario depends upon the likely operational dates for satellites yet tobe launched, a timeable of likely launch and 'turn on' dates would beuseful. All launches are based upon projected availability of newsatellites, and launching vehicles. Exact dates, more than a month orso in advance, are impossible to pin-point.

Opelalional TypeOrbil Spol Launch Dale Dale Satellile Operalion143W 0perating 0perating SATCOM 5 Video, data

(Alaska)141 Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown139 0perating 0perating SATCOM 1R Narrow band,

data137 Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown134 June 1983 July 1983 GALAXY 1 Video131 Operating Operating SATCOM 3R Video

- 128 Sept. 1985 Nov. 1985 ASCI Video, data125 1984 1984 TS4(.) Video, data122 April 1984 May 1984 SN1 Video, data119.5 0perating Operating W5(-) Video116.5 1985 1985 Mexico 1 Video, data113.5 1986 1986 Mexico 2 Video, data1 1 1.5 Operating Operating ANIK/2(-) Data108 0perating Operating ANIK/B(-) Video, data104.5 0perating Operating ANIK/D(-) Video, data101 Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown98.5 Operating 0perating W4(.) Video, narrow

band96 0perating 0perating D1tzl.-l Video, data93.5 1984 1984 GALAXY 3 Narrow band91 March 1985 Aoril 1985 SN3 Unknown88.5 0perating Operating D3(..) Video, data86 0perating 0perating W3(..-) Video, data83.5 Operating 0perating SATC0M 4 Video, data81 March 1986 April 1986 ASC2 Video, data78.5 March 1984 April 1984 WO Video, data76 July 1983 August 1983 TS1 Video, data74 Sept. 1983 october 1983 GALAXY 2 Narrow band72 Aug. 1983 Sept. 1983 SATC0M 2R Video, data69 Sept. 1984 0ct. 1984 SN2 Unknown67 May 1986 June 1986 SATCOM F6 Unknown'-See present versus re-assignment table for bird posil ion

changes.**-Comstar D series birds being replaced by TelStar birds.

*'*-Westar 3, last of 12 channel birds, eventually to be replaced with24 channel bird.

relatively 'broad beamed' signal back to earth, and, they receivesignals uplinked from earth. Since the ideal situation for a satellite is tohave a receiving antenna on board that 'sees'the same wide, broad-beamed region that the downlink transmitting antenna sees, we havea problem. lf an earth bound uplink antenna is pointing at a bird at say72 west, and the beam width of the small uolink antenna is broaderthan it might be, there is going to be a sizeable amount of signal alsogoing to adjacent birds at 70 and 74 west. That gives us a direct path,at reduced power level, to at least three birds at once. The aimed{orbird at 72 west gets sutficient signal for the satellite to send its materialback to earth; and the adjacent birds at 7O and74 receive sufficient'sidelobe power'signal to also send the same signal back to earth.

Such sidelobe power signals were not intended tor the birds at 70and 7 4; they are not'paying' to be a part of the systems al 7 O and 7 4,and they will interfere with those that are a part of the svstems at 70and 74.

CRUX Of The ProblemsSo there are at least two, distinct, problems involved when the bird

to bird spacings tighten up. On the ground, antennas that are ,too

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OOPS!/continues page 14

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The dramatic size re-duction of our six-foot antenna com-pared to a ten-foot model is clearlyshown in the graph. You can see whywind loading is reduced to a manage-able level for most applications andwhy consumer acceptance is somuch better.

Horton Townes-Chairman, Satellite AmericaFreasurer and Director of SPACE)Seated.

Dave Fedric-President, Satellite America(Satellite Digest 1981 Man of the Year)

Satellite America leads a new revo-lut ion in smal l dish antenna develop-ment. This major advancement hasdramatically expanded our market bysubstantially reducing retail pricesof quality satellite systems. SatelliteAmerica technology now makes i tpossible for small six- and seven-footantennas to del iver qual i ty video

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Beyond that, our pricing is revo-lutionary, enabling you to realizeeven greater sales and profits. Noone but Satellite America offers suchlow pricing for quantity buyers. Andthis translates into growth -unpre-cedented growth. That's why we askyou to join us.Be a partof thisgroMh.Call today and secure a dealer or dis-tr ibutor relationship for the future.Satellite America will be there lead-ing the way.Sincerely,Il ^ 4 A

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PAGE 14/CSD/7.83 SATELLITE DICESTpresent generation of 10, 11, and 12 foot antennas. We'll look atsmaller antennas, separately, later on in this report.

ANOTHER, More Serious Problem?As nasty as lite may become in the years ahead when the spacings

tighten up, there is a relatively good chance that many of the systemsnow being sold, with good performance, will be in big trouble longbefore the spacings get tight.

Old timers in the industry will recall that when RCA put F3R intoservice late in December of 1981, CSD asked readers to supply'before' and 'after' signal level readings. From those reports we puttogether some coverage maps which depicted receive system perfoimance over most of North America, plus areas of the Caribbean'Central America, and northern South America. We also did directcomparisons between F3R and F1, and we lound that there had been'signal level increases' of from 1 to 5 dB on various F3R transponders.Indirectly, those signal increases have led us to the present state ofthe industry where we have 6 to 9 foot antennas producing decentquality pictures in many areas. At the time we warned readers that allsatellites deteriorate with age; that is, they gradually produce lowerand lower output signal levels. And, since we are depending uponthese "l to 5 dB stronger" signal levels (F3R versus replaced F1) tomake the smaller dish systems play, we have to be more concernedabout satellite degradation now than we were in previous years. A 1dB reduction in signal level on a T loot dish is far more noticeable thanthe same signal reduction on a properly designed 1 0 foot dish. lt is just

that simple.F3R has now been in service approximately 18 months. Some

of us with the proper equipment have been taking regular signal levelmeasurements to plot the degradation now underway. The measure-ments to date paint a picture that is, on the short term, far'morethreatening to the viability of 'small dishes'than the ultimately closersoaced satellites.

Satellites lose available output power for a number of reasons'The most dramatic loss will typically occur in the first year during whichtime the downlink transmitter amplifier stages 'burn in' and developindividualized long-term operating characteristics. Those who havebeen watching the Sat Scene program on F3R (Saturdays' TR18' 2PM eastern) will better understand how this works since we recentlycompleted a videotape tour of the RCA uplink facility on that weeklyprogram. RCA and others claim their individual transponder poweramplifiers are 'flight rated'; a term that describes a burn-in and groundconditioning period all amplitiers are subiected to before being retro-fitted into the satellite proper. At the very least, satellite builders hopethat 'flight rating' amplifiers will cull out any that might develop apremature failure (i.e. quit) prior to the seven year minimum expectedl i fe.

Therefore, if an amplifier rated at 8.5 watts 'saturated power'(maximum output power) loses 1 dB of output transmission powercapability, it will now become an approximately 7 watt power amplilier,When it loses another 1 dB of output power, it will become an approx-imately 5.6 watt amplifier. And so on. The trick is to know just howmany dB, or parts of a dB, the typical transponder power amplifier isapt to degrade per year.

RCA, Western Union, and others of course monitor this factor ontheir own. They are not apt to release their own data, however, since itindirectly afJects their long term relationships with their clients; thetransponder users. There are other ways to get that data; you performyour own measuremenls.

One of the people doing this on a regular basis is Mike Gustatsonot Satellite Receiving Systems(.). Mike is best known to industrypeople for his participation in STTI trade shows; he also was one of theduo (with Jack Trollman) involved in measuring TVRO antennas lorgain back when STTI thought this was an important exercise at tradeihows. Supporting Mike's precision measurements are those routine-ly taken here on Providenciales at the CSD Lab' and others taken lessroutinely by many in the field.

The Gu-stafsoh approach is to take all of the measured C/N (carrierto noise) readings for all of the transponders being monitored and'average'those numbers for each satellite of interest' From this'aver-aging'you can paint a picture ol how the entire satellite (all transpon-Oersi dre faring, as well as look at individual measurements for indi-

OOPS!/continued from Page 11

small' (i.e. have too broad a beamwidth) will be sublected lo interfer-ence signals from adjacent satellites. Just how much interference willdepend upon a number of factors, including:

1) Whether the adjacent satellites are utilizing 'modulation for-mats' on the same transponders at the same time which are'compatible' with the desired signal, or'different than' the de-sired signal.

2) The actual beamwidth ol the downllnk antenna' Just a fewtenths of a degree improvement in beamwidth control might besutficient to make a very large difference in interference levels.Fine tuning of antenna beamwidths will be quite a challenge'

3) The stability of the dish on its mount' Relatively lightweightantennas, the type otten used for home TVRO reception' fre-quently are so designed that you can 'watch' the leed' or theentire dish, 'buffet' (oscillate) in the wind. Because the lrontbeamwidth of the dish is relatively broad, this 'buffeting' maynot translate to noticeable picture degradation with the present4 degree spacing. However, when the birds are moved closertogether, this butfeting will cause the beamwidth of the antennatolump back and forth into the portion of the sky where theTVRO antenna sidelobes bounce into and out of the adjacentsatellite signals. This will produce a 'pumping action' on thescreen; interference that is there, and then gone, as a functionof the oscillation rate of the antenna in the wind. Obviously'super secure, rock solid mounls and feed support systemsmust be developed.

4) Motor drives and controllers that have a plus'or minus 0.5degree re-positioning accuracy will be a problem. Precisere-aiming will be mandatory since a slight mis-adjustment tothe left or right will shift the beamwidth into one or the otheradjacent satellites.

And those are the'opener problems.'And they relate to antennasthat 'might be big enough' to handle 2 ot 2.5 degree spacing; say the

e (

1 3 1 WF3R

lt ,IIf,tI

ANTENNAS THAT BUFFET/OSCILLATE SIDE TO SIDE INT H E W I N D W I L L H A V E " C O M E S A N D G O E S ' ' I N .TERFERENCE AS SIDELOBES WALK IN AND OUT OF AD.JACENT BIRDS.

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)vidual transpon'ders of interesr.

Let's look al the measured degradation for RCA's F4 satellite first.This_satellite began life as a very lighily loaded satellite. Even today ithas tar lower occupancy than other RCA satellites. Therefore we haveless 'raw data' to work with, in comparing the ,soon-atter-launch'transponder by transponder ElRPs, and today's etfective receivedsignal levels.

F4 ResultsRCA's F4 bird, located at 83 degrees west, has an identical

transponder configuration to F3R; 1 8 transponders operating at 5 watt(saturated) power level, and 6 transponders operating at 8.S wattssaturated power level. Both birds therefore have the following powerl ine-uo:

Transponder Bank 1 (8.5 watt) / boresighted CONUS onty.TR 3 SPN

SATELLITE DICEST

1 1

F3R ResultsRCA's F3R bird was virtually fully operational on all24 transpon-

ders.from the day it came 'up' in late December of 1gg1 . Only trans-ponder 21 (The Weather Channel) was not operational duiing theFebruary 1982 initial tests by Gustafson.

Transponder Bank 1 (8.5 watt) / boresighted CONUS only.Transponder Service 2t6tgL CtN 3/18/ffi C7N3 wcN 9 .3 dB 8 .3 dB ( . . . )7 ESPN 12.6 dB 12.2 dB r ' . . \

PAGE 15/CSD/7-83

MTV

HBo/W 11 .3 dB 10 .7 dB

71 1

812162024

NCN (daytimes); Playboy (nights)Not in use

15 CNN219 C-SPAN23 CINE/WTransponder Bank 2 (5 watt) / boresighted CONUS onty4 SPoT/E 9.5 dB 9.3 dB

13 .6 dB 12 .5 dB1 3 . 5 d B 1 2 . 9 d B ( . ' - . )1 1 . 1 d B 1 3 . 1 d 8 ( . . . . . )13 .8 dB 12 .8 dB

cBN 10 .6 dB 9 .3 dB ( . . . . )sHowE 10.1 dB 9.6 dBACSN/HTN 11 .2 dB 10 .5 dB ( . . ' . )crNE/w 10.6 dB 10.3 dBHBO/E 11 .8 dB 11 .0 dB

15 BiznetAmerican Hospital Network (**)Occasional video** - The American Network moved to Westar 5, transponder

20, during June.Transponder Bank 2 (5 watt) / boresighted CONUS only.

4 Nol in use8 Was The Entertainment Channe'|2

Not in use16 Not in use20 Not in use24 Occasional video

Transponder Bank 3 (5 watt) I primary boresight CONUS1 SIN

Not in useNot in useNot in useTrinity (TBN)Not in use

BRAVONot in useNot in useHBO Data Test

Transponder Bank 3 (5 watt) / boresighted CONUS, Hawaii1 N|CK 9.3 dB 8.3 dB5 TMC 10 .8 dB 10 .4 dBI USA 1 1 .3 dB 10.6 dB

1 923

5o

1 31 721

Transponder Bank 4 (5 watt) I primary boresight CONUS2 FNN (daytimes); EROS (3 tate nights)o

1 01 41 822 Galavision

After the initial launch of F4, Gustafson found five transponoerswith regular signals. A year later the growth of F4 activity increasedthat to nine transponders. 1982 (April) and 1983 (March) data isshown.

***-These services added two or more additional (audio/data)sub-carriers during the year period shown and some of thereduction in carrier level can be attributed to the additionalsub-carriers using some of the full available ,power.,

'*"'-These services added one additional sub-carrier during thetest period and a slight decrease in carrier level might beattributed to the addition of that sub-carrier."'**-C-SPAN was operating with less than full uplink power to F3Rduring the 1982 tests, and their increase in C/N ref lects finallvachieving 'saturation' of their transponder at its full rated oui_pur power.

fi**-flgs1gys'backed otf 'their uplink power by 1 .0 dB late in 1 9g2 toallow the addition of the Equatorial Communications ,spreadSpectrum' slow speed Reuters service. Thus their actuai oow-er loss during the year would be 0.3 dB.

Now let's look at how the individual transponder banks did duringthe 13 month period:

Transponder Bank One (9.5 watts)Average ClN 2/92 Average C/N g/93 Loss/ 13 months

_, 13-.3 dB (7') 12.6 dB 0.7 dB average7* - Normalized for C-SpAN being fully saturated 2/g2.Transponder Bank Two (5 watt)Average CIN 2/92 Average C/N 3/93 Loss/ t3 months

10.6 dB 1O.O dB 0.6 dB averageTransponder Bank Three (5 watt)Average ClN 2/92 Average C/N 3/g3 Loss/ 13 months'10.8 dB 10.3 dB 0.5 dB average

Transponder Bank Four (5 watt)Average CIN 2/82 Average C/N 3/93 Loss/ 13 months^ 1 1 .2 dB (8) 10.4 dB 0.8 dB average8* - Normalized for Reuters 1.0 dB back-off for Spread Spec--trum

11 .5 dB 11 .2 dBno data 10.6 dB

Reu te rs 11 .4 dB 10 .1 dB ( ' . ' - - - )MSN 1 1 . 5 d B 1 0 . 6 d B

1 317 CHN21 TWCTransponder Bank 4 (5 watt) / boresighted CONUS, Hawaii2 P IL 11 .0 dB 9 .9 dB ( ' . . - )6 WTBS 11 .1 dB 10 .6 dB ( . . . )

10 sHoww 12.1 dB 10.7 dB14 CNN 1 1 . 1 d B 1 0 . 5 d B ( . . . . )1 822

Transponder1

478't7

1 81 9Z J

Average C/N

4t18182 CtNno data1 1 . 7 d Bno data12.2 dBno data1 1 . 3 d B1 1 . 5 d B12 .6 dBno data

3n8/83 C/1{9 .7 dB

1 1 . 4 d B9 .5 dB

11 .3 dB9.2 dB

10 .9 dB10 .7 dB1 1 . 5 d B12.2 dB

1 1 . 8 d B 10 .7 dBHowever, for the purpose of determining the output power loss

the full year of operation, only those transponders which werettional for the full year (beginning April 1 8, 1 982) can be counted.results in a new average of 11.2 dB. And this equates to a

power-loss of 0.6 dB. That number will come up again.

Mike Gustafson, Satellite Receiving Systems, 1606 Capi-tancillos Dr., San Jose, Ca. 95120; (a08) 268-9935. OOPS!/continues page 18

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PAGE 18/CSD/7-83 SATELLITE DICESTmore than 0.6 dB, in particular, are worrisome since there is a mes-sage here concerning the long term ability of those transponders todeiiver suitable output power levels to the earth below over the full 7year life expectancy. A transponder that drops 1.0 dB the first year(PTL) or 1.4 dB (Showtime west) may well end up way down in themud by January 1 , 1990. So let's see how many in the far right columnmake the 8.0 dB C/N mark, based upon the higher (or lower) lossesactually experienced during year one. Those predicted to be 8.0 dBC/N at the Gustafson lerminal on January 1 , 1 990 now are 3, 7' 10' 1 1 '1 3, 1 5, 1 7, 1 9, 23 and 24. Once again, those that are bold face arescheduled for scrambling. We had 13 transponders that made the1/90 prediction the first time around, now we have but 10. And howmany wil l be 10 dB CiN or better? Only 15, 19 and 23.

Now let's put this into perspective for those who may be using orselling dishes smaller than 10 feet in size. We'll use 70olo antennaefficiency (that's at the very top of the attainable curve) as a bench-mark for antennas that are 10, 9, 8, 7 and 6 feet in diameter. Tosimpli fy the table shown here, we' l l talk in terms ol 'Antenna Banks'rather than individual transponders. You can develop your own tableby simply using a receiver with an accurate signal level meter, andchecking each transponder on each bank in succession; i .e. 3' 7 ' 11 '1 5, 19 and 23:2, 6, 1 0, 14, I I and 22; 1, 5, 9, 13, 1 7, and 21 ; and' 4' 8'12,16,20 and 24. From the table trends shown here you'll create yourown orediction list of when antennas of various diameters are apt tobecome useless in your region oJ the USA.

In the table here, we have to deal with the variations in signal levelfound across North America. Because antenna banks 3 and 4 sharetheir 5 watt power with a sub-reflector spot beam to Hawaii, we havelower available power for CONUS (Continental United States). Be-cause antenna bank 1 is 8.5 watts nominal power to begin with' itgeneral ly tests higher in ground signal level than say antenna bank 2which has an almost identical antenna pattern, but is 3.5 watts lower inoower.

The lirst table (Central California Performance Comparisons)draws on the Gustalson data. And it predicts that in March of 1985 andMarch of 1 987 there wil l be further reductions in signal levels which wil lultimately make even 8 loot antennas useless here (1987).

The second table gives you some insight into where you may be inthe future, given the predicted continued degradation of the transpon-ders. Start by finding your present true condition. 'Noise 1 Bank'means that lo a critical eye, you can detect background noise on atleast one set of transponders (those sets relate to the four sets ofantenna banks, consisting of six transponders per bank). Start oll withthe top 'No Noise' l ine and proceed to the r ight through 1O' ' 9' ' 8 ' ' 7 'and 6' antennas. Go as far to the right as you can truthlully say you canreduce antenna size and st i l l f ind a'no noise' (on any antenna bank)condit ion in your part of CONUS. Let 's assume you can create a'nonoise' condiiion on a 7 loot antenna in 1983. Now go down the 7 footcolumn and you' l l see that by 1984 you' l l have noise in one (theweakest in your area) 'antenna bank, ' whi le by 1986 you' l l have noisein two of lhe antenna banks.

How accurate is this table? You may miss the years shown by amonth or two, but beyond the variations of a Jew months, they arewhere we are al l headed with small antennas (10 feet in diameter anddown) in the years ahead.

What about the newer satellites; those that will be up there at 'peak

operating powel in 1985, Jor example, because they are new at thatDoint in time? Sure, there will be new C band satellites every year fromnow on out. But the ones that cany the home TVRO viewer interest,those with cable programming, are the F3R/W5/F4 set which, as weknow, were all launched in a relatively short, and close-spaced span oftime. And at least one of those (W5) may not make it for the seven yeardesign l i fe anyhow.

And none of this has anything to do with short spaced or closerspaced satellites; the one thing that most people seem most con-cerned about vis-a-vis smaller diameter dishes. This only relates tothe wonderful world of dBs; where we count upon, and depend upon,certain minimum output power from each satellite transponder if weare going to make pretty pictures on earth. Transponder degradation?It is a bigger short term concern than short spacing' because we aregoing to run out of signal long before we run into mult iple-serious shorlspaced problems.

.OOPS!/continued from Pbge 15

Now, what do all of these numbers tell us?First ol all, lhere is an average loss spread over 24 transponders oJ

0.6 dB for the test (first) year of operation. One year ago' at the

Gustafson location, there was an average power difference of 1 0 dBbetween the vertical and horizontal transponders; the verticals (large-

ly because of the six 8.5 watt transponders) were stronger. Now, after6ne year, that power 'gap' is widening; 1.2 dB in favor of vertical'

Second of all, you would like to be able to look at these figures forthefirstfullyear and develop some lorm ol prediction which willtell you

when additional degradation will, for example, put six foot dishes inCalifornia out of business. As the power losses continue, the regionwhere six foot dishes will deliver reasonably good pictures will shrinkso that ultimately, long before the satellite is retired from service, noparts of the country will have totally adequate service f rom the satelliteeven if there is no close spacing of the satellites.

Data from Gustafson, RCA, and others indicates that there is atrend for the loss the first year to be the mosl serious. Gustafson's 0.6dB 'average power loss' fits very closely to numbers predicted by RCAand others. In subsequent years there is an average loss expected of0.4 dB per transponder, per year. That means that in March of 1 984'the total loss will have grown to an average of 1 .0 dB per transponder;or, in March o1 1986 the loss wil l be 1.8 dB per transponder. With RCAexpecting to obtain 7 years minimum service out of F3R, we arelooking at a downward curve which will place all transponders downapproximately 3.3 dB by January 1, 1990

Just to drive the point home, let's look at what that might do to

Gustafson's 10 loot antenna system in San Jose at the end of the

design life of F3R. Keep in mind that a home system needs a C/N in

the iegion of 10.0 dB for a' f i rst class picture, 'whi le a picture withmodest soarklies will be seen with a C/N of 8.0 dB.

Actual C/N Predicted C/N Predicled(2ts2l (1/e0)/A (1/s0)/99 .3 dB 6 .0 dB 5 .6 dB

1 1 . 0 d B 7 . 7 d B 7 . 2 d B12.7 dB 9.4 dB 9.1 dB9 .5 dB 6 .2 dB 6 .6 dB

10 .8 dB 7 .5 dB 7 .7 dB1 1 . 1 d B 7 . 8 d B 7 . 9 d B12.6 dB 9.3 dB S.5 d810 .6 dB 7 .3 dB 6 .6 dB1 1 . 3 d B 8 . 0 d B 7 . 9 d B12 .1 dB 8 .8 dB 8 .0 dB13.6 dB 10.3 dB 9.7 dB10 .1 dB 7 .8 dB 7 .9 dB1 1 . 3 d B 8 . 0 d B 8 . 0 d B1 1 . 1 d B 7 . 8 d B 7 . 8 d B13.5 d8 10.2 dB 10.2 dB1 1 . 2 d 8 7 . 9 d B 7 . 8 d B1 1 . 5 d B 8 . 2 d B 8 . 5 d 81 1 . 4 d B 8 . 1 d B 7 . 4 d Bno data 10.4 dB 10.4 dB10 .6 dB 7 .3 dB 7 .6 dBno dala 7.9 dB 7.9 dB11 .5 dB 8 .2 dB 7 .9 dB13.8 d8 10.5 dB 10.1 dB11 .8 dB 8 .5 dB 8 .3 dB

What this tells us is that if predicted satellite transponder power

degradations continue on course ({ound under'Predicted C/N (1/90]

A'6olumn), Gustafson's presenl ten foot system will be below 8 dB

C/N on a l l bu t l ransponders 3 , 7 , 9 , 10 , 1 1 , 13 , 15 , 17 ,18 ,19 '22 '23and 24 by January, 1 990. That's a finely tuned 10 foot system. Oh yes'

those thit are boid faced are scheduled for scrambling over the next24 months. That will leave this system with only B (out of an original 24)viewable transponders. And, only transponders 1 1, 15 and 19 wil l beabove 10 dB C/N (high quali ty reception).

Furthest to the right is a second column labeled 'Predicted (1/90)/

B. 'This means that i f you look closely at the power losses during thefirst year (ending March 1983), you wil l f ind that some of the transpon-ders losl more than 0.6 dB, while some lost less than 0.6 dB. Remem-ber, that 0.6 dB was an average ot all24 transponders' Those losing

Transponder1234

5678

91 01 11 2

1 31 41 51 6

1 71 81 920

21222324

),

SATELLITE DICEST 'AGE 1e/csD/7.83

EXAMPLE TABLE/ CENTRAL CALIFORNIA DEGRADATION EXPECTED(Satellite F3R data only)

Anlenna Size Gain (70%) 19gl Averages 19gb Averages 19g7 Averages

10, 417 d? f'li tr3 i,13 i,1i iil \,: tT ff iil t* tir t:J9 40 .3 dB 11 .2 8 .6 8 .9 9 .0 10 .4 7 .8 8 .1 8 .8 9 .6 7 .0 7 .3 8 .08 ' � 38.4 dB 9.3 6.7 7.0 7.1 8.5 5.9 6.2 6.9 7.7 5.1 5.4 6.17 ' � 37 0 dB 7.9 5.3 5.6 5.7 7.1 l .s 4.8 5.5 6.3 3.7 4.0 4.76 ' � 35.8 dB 6.7 4.1 4.4 4.5 5.9 3.3 3.6 4.3 5.1 2.5 2.8 3.5Bold faced listings are those that have dropped, due to satellite degradation, and/or, antenna size reduction below ,magic, g.0 dB noisethreshold on best of present generation home TVRO receivers. For iranslation to your own locale, see ,Noise Degradation versus Time,table here.

NOISE DEGRADATION versus T|ME TABLE

TNSTRUcIoNS: starr at tog,rl1g !,ruo,1"'.$T'i:1!':gi3?;[ii"1flf:*$:1, antenna which firs your present (today) ,no noise,situation. Discard vulnerable single transponders per antenna bank, such as on 6 bank 4 or 21 on bank 3. ,Nonoise' is defined as no noticeable sparklies on majority (four or more) of the six transponJ"t. on a singte antennabank. Now read 'down' that column lo see when you can expect to see noise on one bank (four or moretransponders in single bank), and left/right in same column under same no noise/noise (X) banks to see whateffect will be on other antenna sizes in same vear.

Antenna Size: 10,f) f10, 9:^^ I 10, e, g^^^ | ro; e, B, 7, I ro, e, 8, 7, 6,No Noise 1e83 | 1983 | 1983 | 1e83 | 1s83Noise/1 Bank 1e9! l l9l9 l9q! | lgqg lgqq 1e84 | reoe reBT isss ioai I rsso 1e8B 1e8z 1eB6 1eB4ilsi::i3B:tll ls36 llsss 1336 l''* tBgB tss8 | iee' tsgs llig | " in. iile jffi jsss

No ise r4Banks : | | | - - - - l

1990.Remember-Read across the 'no-noise' column to the right until you find the smallest antenna in your area thdt is currentlyproducing noise free signals on all transponders (defined as 4 out of six on each of the four antenna oanks). Stop atthat size, for 1 983, and read down to see how that smallest size will fare by 1 990, ano corpaie otrirs in larger sizes lorthat same section of the table.

Now, what about close spacing? Let's tie all of this together interms of satellite power, first of all. What do you suppose is-going tohappen if the satellites move closer together, and, the smallei ant,en-nas have a difficult time zeroing in one two equal powered satellites?'Some interference' is the right answer. Now leis suppose that wehave satellites 2 or 2.5 or even 3 degrees apart, but now we have abrand new one with g or 10 watts power sitting right next door to anolder, tired satellite where the power has dropped ott to say 5.5 watts.Now we have the short spacing being accentuated by a 2 to 2.5 dBpowerditference. Going the 'wrong way' (i.e. the stronger one interfer-ing with the weaker one), your problem with a close spaced orbit beltjusl got bigger. And in the real world, we are going to have a constantebb and flow of old satellites and new satellites in the skv. Thev will runtheir seven to eight year life-span, degrade in power, and ihen belossed away for a new, higher power replacement. Meanwhile rightnext door, on one or both sides, are older satellites in various stages ot'power decay.' The problem, once it begins, will be with us from thatpoint forward. Right away you can tell, before you even learn about theclose-spacing plans, that you are not going to care forthis very much,

,r ight?

OUR DISH Wilt Wort/Hype versus FactThere is only one way to tell that a particular antenna, with a

particular and specified f/D, equipped with a specific feed, will workwith either 2, or 2.5, or 3 degree spacing. you take that package to anantenna test range and you have competent people using sophisti-cated equipment 'test' the antenna for 'sidelobe performance.'

What is that all about?Any type of directional antenna, such as a parabolic dish, has a'pattern'; a precise, measurable 'beamwidth' where the gain of that

I antenna is concentrated. You can make small changes in the shape[of the beamwidth/pattern by modifying the feed, ptaying with the f/D, orJeven placing pieces of metal inside of the dish to break up the dish

-surlace concentric, shape. But, there is only one known way tothe pattern'tighter'(i.e. less wide) everytime; make the anten-

involved here.As the diagram here shows, most antennas have a ,measured 3

dB beamwidth.' That means that the pattern of gain portion of theantenna beamwidth is of a specified width (measured in degrees). lfyour antenna is pointing exacfly at the satellite, you will-recovermaximum power from the satellite (point ,A' on the beamwidth plotshown). lf your antenna is pointed slightly away from the satellite, youhave a reduced amount of signal intercepted by the beamwidth ofiheantenna. When your antenna is pointed off of the satellite, such thatyou are n_ow receiving 3 dB less signal than you would be if you werepointed direcfly at the satellite, this is the b dB ,beamwidin'

of tneantenna. Numbers l ike 1.2 or 1.9 "degrees', are common tor 3 dBbeamwidths in our field. The 3 dB beamwidth is not the beamwidthyou care about. Why?

Well, if it happened that an antenna had a 3 dB beamwidth of sav 4degrees (this is an example, not any specific product), and the saiel_lites were spaced 2 degrees apart, then in our example wnen you werepointed exactly at satellite '1', the gain of the antenna would be 3 dBreduced (from maximum gain) 2 degrees either side of the satelliteyou were pointing at. That would mean that if satellites ,A,' ,B,and ,C'were all of the exact same strength, or power level, you would receivethree completely different sets of signals at once. The desired onewould be the strongest of all, but the two on the side (,8' and ,C,) wouldbe only 3 dB 'weaker,' falling as they would at the ,,3 dB down,' point ofour anlenna beamwidth Dattern.

The beamwidth we really care about is that beamwidth where themain portion of the TVBO/ARO antenna is down an absolute minimumoI say 12 dB (remember the ITT tests recounted earlier?). .12 dB. itturns out, is where 50% of the people will find the interference,obiec_tionable,' Better yet, we would like to be 1g dB down the ,curve,' or offto the side of the peak or main gain, just to be sure that when thesatellites are adjacent to others that are as strong as the desiredsatellite, we won't receive 'noticeable interference' from the non-desired satellites.

dish surface larger. There are some fairly basic laws of physics OOPS!/continues page 22

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PAGE 22lCSDl7'83 SATELLITE DICESTOOPS!/continued from Page 19

b fr A

dM A X I M U M

G A I N3dB

3dBBEAM

LESS GAIN

(r\

/

R E C E I V I N GPATTERN

I NSPACE

TVRO DISH

ANTENNA PATTERN/ENVELOPE TRANSLATES TO ABILI '

TY TO 'SEPARATE' SATELLITES AT VARIOUS SPACINGS

I N S K Y .

Scientific Atlanta (etc.) antenna data sheet for an antenna 'of the same

Si.1 "i-Vort TVRO'antenna. Find the 'certified statement' for 3

Og/haltpower feamwidth on that data sheet, and, "copy it'" Aren't all B

foot antennas just about alike? We'll see'-- lnotfter. wdy to do it is to tind out what a 'good set of numbers'

snoutd Oe, "nd then add a line to your data sheel that uses that

;; ;dr. tne guy making the antenna is proud of i t ; al l of his numbers

"ie 'gooa nrimbers,' so why shouldn't his beamwidth number be'good'also?"

Let's look at what some of the certified antennas claim for their 3

dB or halfpower beamwidths. These are representative of what you

can expect with a brand name, big dollar antenna:

Antenna Sizet c

14'1 3 '12'�1 1 ' �1 0 ,9' �8'�7 'o

3 dB Beamwidth1 . 2t . J

1 . 4t . 3

1 . 6 51 . 82 .0z , J

2.653.0

Now, what about the antennas we have today?As noted, the only way you can be certain of the 'beamwidth' of an

anlenna is to have that antenna, equipped with the exact design offeed, feed mount and f/D as wil l be'sold, 'checked on an antenna testrange. On an antenna test range, the antenna is connected to a set of'plotters'; machines that draw on graph paper the exact recelvlngDattern of the test antenna as the antenna is 'rotated' or turnediowards and then away from a 'test signal source.' A receiver con-nected to the test antenna is in turn connected to the'plotter' and the

signal level received by the antenna is drawn on the plotting paper as

th6 antenna points left ol, at, and right of the test signal source Thesignal sourcd is a'simulated satellite' in the lield, and if you calibrate

luit how last the antenna is moving 'towards' and 'through' and 'away

irom' the test signal source, you have a method ol 'scaling' the

resulting paper piot to represenl 'degrees of beamwidth''This is not a complicated procedure. lt may cost the antenna

manufacturer several thousand dollars (the size of the antenna plays

a part in the cost of the tests). lJ the test range is 'certified' (meaning

the equipment and techniques have 'passed' a test lor quality work)'

then ihe antennas checked on that range can be given 'certified

oerformance statements.'The same test range will also, in the pro-

cess, determine exactly how much 'gain' the antenna has So themanufacturer knows, dhen he is done, exactly what his antenna will

do; pattern, and, gain. He will be able to pass this information on to his

customers as an assurance or'guarantee' of performance Virtually all

of the big dollar, commercial grade antennas are so 'certified ' Veryfew of the home style TVBO antennas are so certitied'

Yet many of the intenna data sheets do publish,'3 dB' (or 'half-

power'; one of the same) beamwidths. Still others reference an FCC

criteria for antenna pattern. How do they find out these numbers if the

anlennas have noi been tested, in the exact iorm they are being

sold?One wav to do this is to locate a copy of an Andrew or Prodelin or

But. isn't half power beam width of only minor importance? lsn't the

real problem wiih tne amount of 'gain remaining'.when you have

rou,j'O Z or 2.5 or 3 degrees off of the center of lhe beamwidthpattern? Right. Now, what happens here?'

The FC- has done most of the engineering homework for you by

specilying an 'antenna envelope' which the antenna must meet (or

e'rceea) io be assured of not having problems wjth close spaced

satellites. Antenna envelope. That's the pattern of the full antenna'

set out so that you can determine with accuracy the gain of the

antenna system at any point from 0 degrees (dead ahead) to say I

deorees or so to either side.--"tn tne tanguage ol the FCC specilication, an antenna to iunction in

lhe 2, 2.5 or 5 de'gtee spacing world must have an-antenna envelope

that is equal to o-r better than ". ' . 29 minus 25 log theta' ' .''

Now before you can determine whether an antenna meets or

exceeds this criteria, you must (absolutely must; no other way) take

the antenna in the exact form that it will be sold and shipped (same

feed, same leed mounting system, etc.) and set it up on a test range'

And then you measure the antenna envelope.Long ago, before the FCC adopted the new "29 minus 25 log

theta" g"uid-elines, they had another guideline; one that they felt was

adequite for 4 degree spaced satellites. That envelope pattern was;;. . -'gz tinr" zs'iog ttrbta." As you can quickly see, it is almost the

same pattern. Only thie f ront number (29 versus 32) has changed But

that change is substantial because it relates to the way the envelope'decays' ( iul ls in.) l t is the 'pul l ing in' on the envelope (narrowing of the

sidel6be'pattern; wnicn gives the antenna the ability to function with

closer spaced satellites.Sidelobe?An antenna pattern is like a balloon filled with water' The amount of

water in the bal loon is f ixed. l f you squeeze in on the bal loon with your

hands, the shape of the balloon changes. Laying by itself, on the table'

i t is mostly a circular glob. In your hands' you can snape l t In many

configurations. Squeeie in at the middle, it grows and expands at the

back-and front. Squeeze the back, and it reshapes at the front'

A sidelobe is gain 'squirt ing out 'of the primary front pattern in any

direction other than 'straight ahead.' lf you could build a perfect

antenna and feed, there would be no sidelobes' All oJ the gain the

intenna was capable of would be 'straight ahead 'There is no such

oerfect antenna. There are always sidelobes. And the sidelobes are

your problem with close spaced satellites' Tirere is a popular belief that sidelobes can be 'told' where to

appear, and where not to appear' That they can.be 'steered ' There is

a'small amount of truth in that. l f you could tel l a sidelobe where to

appear, and where not to appear, then you would tell them not to

aiieat at 2,2.5 ot 3 degrees. Those are the points, away from the

main or major antenna gain lobe ( i .e. 'straight ahead') where there are

or wil l be new satel l i tes. We don't want a sidelobe to 'pop up' or 'squirt

out' dead on a satellite 2.5 degrees ofJ oi the main heading of the

SATELLITE DICESTantenna.

Unfortunately, you can tell a sidelobe not to appear at sav 2.sctegrees, but in doing that clever bit of engineering, you are almostguaranteed that there is likely to be a sidelobe at 2 and 3 degrees inthe process. ln other words, you might be able to elimrnate or steersome of the sidelobes, but when you eliminate or move one. vousimply enhance or enlarge another. Remember the balloon filled withwater? Squeeze in a little 'here,' and you see another point pop out'there'!

There is also a popular theory that people who have desionedantennas in the'even str ing'(10,, g,, and 6;diameter) are in blt ter'shape'than

those who have designed in the odd 'str ing' ( i .e. 11 ,, 9,,andT'). The basis for this story isthat the designers have acceptedcertain 'general sidelobe patterns'or,repeat patterns' by selecting thediameter of the dish. There are certain similarities between all anten_nas of a 10 foot diameter, when we are comparing antennas that havethe same gele-r1l region of f/D. Likewise, if welre dealing wirh thesame.general f/D region, all 7 foot anlennas have similai lookingmain lobe and sidelobe patterns. But there ar olher factors at workhere; factors which go beyond selecting a certain antenna diameterand a soecified f/D.

_ There is, for example, the effect on the sidelobes from the antennaleed support structure, and, the feed itself. professionat antennadesigners look very carefully at the way they will hanq the feed out infronl of the dish. They know that the feed represents a--n obstruction tothe dish,surface,.and energy that comes to the dish direcfly throughthe feed/obstruction is reflected away in a myriad of directions. Someof this energy reflects first from one feed support, and then fromanother, bouncing around the dish surface like a crazed golf ball. All ofthis bouncing and rebouncing has a direct relationship on the sidelobepaltern performance of the antenna. Generally speaking, the effect ofa feed obstruction (the feed itself, or, the fbed supp6rt pieces) isgreate_st for signals that are perpendicular to the feed suppori orfeed. Professional antenna designers have discovered that the mini_mum ill-effects to the sidelobe pattern(s) is created by enclosing theI9"j il " smooth, rhin cytinder. peeds init have big chunks of ir6gu-larly shaped metal out there (i.e. a rotor, a bunch of steel or aluminimplates welded into some type of housing, or platform for the feedsystem) cause the most problems. yes, a nice streamlined, as thin aspossible feed structure, with rounded sides and a lhin profile (justbare_ly larger than the feed itself) is of measurable value wnen you arefighting the sidelobe game.

., When antennas are placed on a test range, the test range looks atthe gain and sidelobe performance of the anienna in two ,plines.' Oneplane.is called the E plane, and that is technical talk tor horizontalsrgnars. I ne other plane is the H plane, and inspite of the letter H, thatis technical talk for the vertical signals. Remember that feeds andfeed support pieces represent an obstruction to the dish surface, andthese obstructions cause the greatest bad impact on the anlenna'ssidelobe patterns when the obstruction(s) areperpendicular to theslg.nal ilself. Thus if you have a set of'siruts'supporting the feedwnrcn are so arranged around the dish that two or more are sayperpendicular to horizontally polarized signals coming to the dish, younave rne worst possible situation for the horizontal signals. lf theantenna employs a tripod (three legged) feed support, an? by chancetwo of those three legs are more perpendicular to horizontal signalsthan they are to vertical signals, it wiil be the horizontal side thit willsuffer.

An antenna on a test range can 'see'these obstructions, and plot

the.patterns created by the oistructions. Ail thl;g;;; as this canmaKe Mo antennas with identical diameter/aperture, feed type (i.e.Scalar horn) and f/D not turn out equal on the iest range. Jus[movinglhe tie-down position of the feed supports can shift the aidelobes of th;

PAGE 23|CSD/7.83

. . Q U A D - P O D ' ' F E E D M O U N T H A S S T R U C T U R A LS T R E N G T H , A N D S I D E L O B E P R O B L E M S .

. .BUTTON HOOK/FIGURE 7 ' ' MOUNT HAS STRUCTURALWEAKNESS (FEED OSCILLATES IN WIND) AND MAYA L S O H A V E S I D E L O B E P R O B L E M S .

D '

antenna (up ordown), and move them into and out of the dangerous 2,2.5 or 3 degree off-boresight headings.

Many of the present generation TVRO antennas were designed bycopying other antennas. The copier was very careful to exactiy dupli

There are other rules of antenna design which enter into theproblem. Generally speaking, antenna designers decide on a dia_Jn9!9!or ape1ure size- Say ten feet. OK, now they have to work to getmaximum gain. That is, afterall,the name of the game. Or is it?

-

Maximum gain, and, mjnimum sidelobes, geinerally do not gotogether. You can select a dish f/D where the gain is nigfi 1.+ to .O ttb;or you can setect a dish design where the sidelobe conirol is best (.2bto .4). Control over the sidelobes, that is, minimizing the sidelobes allthe way down the "32 minus 25 log theta', or ,,29 minus 25 too theta,':lu-"]op".yfug, is a game of selecting both an f/D and a feed?esign.srnce we will always have sidelobes, what we want to do is to be surethat none of the sidelobes we do have extend outside of the maqiccurve created by the 'log-theta'

envelope. At some points along tiatcurve even an antenna that meets the curve criteria will havelide-lobes that nudge right up to the curve borderline. Just a few tenths of adegree away, the same antenna could have sidelobes that are ten orfifteen dB below the curve.

Th.e rules say that you will get maximum gain from the dish whenyou- allow the feed to taper ils own ,envelope' or ,view' of the dishsurface so that the very outer edges of th; dish are seen ,,10 dBweaker" than the center of the dish in front of the feed. That's the trickwith feeds; to conlour or shape their,vision'so that they see different

cate the depth of the dish, the feed and so on. Then in a wild, ,cieativenl' he decided to use a 'quadpod' (four legged) feed supponthan a'tr ipod. 'Or, he simply decided he t iked thb ,tooks'otthe

,nna better with the tripod legs'shifted'20 degrees around. Littlehe know what he was doing to the sidelobes!. OOPS!/continues page 25

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PAGE 2stCSDtT-8,3

OOPS!/continued from page 23

points along the dish surface, away from the center or dead aheadPlll yjlL ygtying amounts of ,efficiency.' you get excetrent gain fromrne overail dtsh when the very outer edge is ,seen' by the feed;t a levelthat is 10 dB lower than the center oi the dish.

Unlortunately, you cannot properly control the sidelobes as well asyou might when the feed looks at the-edges of the distr,10 dB down.,Experience shows that you must change-th" *"y if," i""o tooks at the::9::.91119

dFh (and ail points inward towards the center ,hot spot,)so rnar lor maximum control of sidelobes, the edge of the dish is now'20 dB down.'

20 dB down? 10 dB down?

Now let's jump back to that predictable and totalty unpteasanlworld of degrading satellites. Remember that on theiverage trans_ponder, we saw 0.6 dB of the available or effective power ,go away,between March of 1992 and March of 1993. Also remember that wecan prolect additional losses of 0.4 dB per transponder per year overthe period through 1990.

_ Wjtf, transponder power going down (by nearty 0.05 dB permonth), is this a time to allow ouisetves td iurpoidr,uffy set oui todesign and install antennas that have anything fisiitr"n maxtmumgain? Obviously the answer is we will neei af f 5t tne gain we can get,by 1990, if we want these small dishes to .ontinr"io o"rtorrn.

M A X I M U M G A I N ? F E E D . . S E E S ' ' E D G E S O F D I S H . 1 O d BD O W N ' R E F E R E N C E D I S H C E N T E R .

M I N I M U M S I D E L O B E S ? F E E D . . S E E S ' , E D G E S O F D I S H. 2 O d B D O W N ' R E F E R E N C E D I S H C E N T E R .

PAGE 26/CSD/7-83 SATELLITE DICEST

BEAM WIDTH/HORIZONTAL PATTERNF O R 1 1 F O O T A N T E N N A

u o. On the other hand, we have the sidelobe problem' Today we have

our first three degree spaced satellite in the sky (l]ughes Galaxy 1 at

134 degrees, some 3 degrees away from RCA F3R.at 131 west')'

Very feil antennas, even with the most detrimental design of feeds

andfeed support members, are likely to have serious problems separ-

iting fSn ahb 'Gf in the sky. Well' very tew in the I and 1 0 foot class'

Theie may well be some early casualties in the.smaller antennas as

this is writien and read. lt will be another six months or more before G1

is'loaded' with 12 or more fulltime transponders, so some of the ill

effects on even the improperly designed smaller dishes may not be

apparent until early in igA+ or so' You will start to notice the problem

fiist on those lowei powered transponders on F3R (remember that not

allof the antenna'banks' are created equal, no matter where you are!)

as they sit there 3 degrees in space away from the I watt G1 signals'Remember, a 5 watt s-ignal thathas lost .6 dB or more in its first year is

now a 4.5 watt or lesjsignal. And, a 4.5 watt signal is exactly 3 dB

weaker than a (brand new) 9 watt signal. Right away there is a 3 dBpoweradvantage forthe new G1 signal i f i t ison the sametransponderfrequency as the older F3R signal.'ReJeience

is made to the diagram here, labeled 'beamwidth/

horizontal pattern tor 11 foot antenna.' Note that 3 degrees to the

right from the maximum power peak point on the.envelope' we nave a

relduction in antenna gain of 26 dB. Any signals lrom that pointwill be

26 dB weaker than those dead-ahead. Since even ITT found virtually

no viewer ob.iectionable degradation to signals 18 dB apart' we are

safe here. lf y-ou are looking at F3R with this particular 1 1 foot antenna'

by the way, G1 will be to the right.' Now look at our next diagram; 'beamwidth/vertical pattern for

11 foot antenna.' Do the same thing; look to the right oi the maximumpower peak on the envelope and find the 3 degree point' Now we are

bo*n iz dB. Or less, depending upon how you wish to interpret the

antenna test range plot. Now let's assume in your location you wish to

tune in one of th6 weaker F3R transponders on the vertical side; say

Nickelodeon or The Weather Channel. And let's suppose that on TR1

and 21 of G1 we have operating video, at the I watt power level' The

envelope pattern tells us we have no more than 17 dB rejection from

the s degiee spaced G1 signal. But, with the G1 transponders at 9

watts and the F3R transponders already degraded to 4 5 watts or so'

now we have a 3 dB power difference. Given the worst situation, that

1 7 dB of isolation' between the two provided by this antenna is now 14

dB ol isolat ion. And that 's r ight now, in 1983, before we get to 2 5 ot 2

degree spacing, and while the F3R transponders are relat ively

healthy.Ye! Virginia, .iust as sure as there is a Santa Claus' there are

oroblems ahead.

THE FCC AssignmentsThe FCC began the close spacing decision by noting that iuture

demands tor sat6llite transponders are predicted to exceed all of thepresent orbital space resources in operaton, or planned An FCC

spokesman noted that because of the long lead times involved in

pianning, designing, bui lding and launching new satel l i tes, steps must

be tat<e-n "foui to iive years out front" to insure that when the total

capacity of the (present) system is reached' there will be new capacity

avai lable.

1) Study the 4 GHz table; pg"l l . Notice that between the' western end of the orbit beit (1 43 west) and eastward to 137

degrees, the birds are spaced at 2 degree intervals'

3 Y Y = 1 . 4 5 '

1 z !3dB i

L)

1 5 . 5 d 8

aa

3 . n

z

E t c

3L t auJ

J t oulE

2.5"1 -22 .5d8

3 ' / - 2 2 . 5 d 8 1 1

'- Some confusion whether Galaxy 1, due for launch at CSDpresstime, would be spaced at 3 degrees (1 34) or 4 degrees(135) init ial ly. l f i t ends up at 135 for now, FCC says they planto have it re-spaced at 3 degrees (1 34) 'before end of 1 983'.Problem is with multitude ol multiple feed antennas alreadysold and installed by cable firms, to allow dual-pick-off olF3R and G1. lf feeds can be field adjusted or modified Jor 3degree spacing, without big hassles, 134 will be it. lf not' FCCwill allow G1 to sit at 135 until antenna makers can retroJitthefeeds now out thedoor. Assumption in text, here, was that G1would be spaced at 134 west from turn-on. lf not, facts don'tchange; only' t iming'.

A N G L E

0

SATELLITE DICEST

BEAM WIDTH/VERTICAL PATTERNFOR 11 FOOT ANTENNA

E l t A / - 1 / o

2"1 - 11dB

3 0 / - 1 7 d B I

2) Now flip to the opposite end of the table, and you will see thatstartang at 67 west and going west, the birds are also at 2degree intervals; up to 76 west (with a 3 degree one{ime-onlygap 69 to 72 west).

3) Continue west from Z2 and you see that the birds are nowspaced at 2.5 degree intervals until we reach all the way to 101west. That's a total of ten birds in a row at 2.5 degree spacing.

4) Now jump across lhe Canadian and Mexican mid-arc safetyground and start again at 1 19.5 west; the first space, betweenW5 at 1 1 9.5 and Spacenet 1 at i22 is, again, 2.5 degrees. But,starting at 122 and through 137, all of the 4 GHz birds are 3degree spaced. That's a total ol six birds, spaced at 3 deqreeintervals within the 1221137 region, although closer spiced(2.5 on east end, 2 on west end) 'coming' and going.

There would appear to be a number of purposeful patteins here.Let's ponder why these exist.

. The market pattern evolving betore the FCC got into the act had- virtqally all of the cable television programming sioved into the W5/

D4/F3R/G1 realm. They all sit within i segme-nt of the arc, and thatmeans that those CATV/SMATV, LPTV et al small dish receiving:ystels are by in large ,looking at'a relatively small segment of th6sKy. A cable system with a ten foot dish is in no better shape than ahomeowner with a ten foot dish, of course, And the fCC rdcognizesthis fact. So the master plan was to reduce, but not ,all the wa'y,,thespacings for those birds which appear to be predominanily in ule forsmall (commercial) receiving systems. Now, will this 3 degree ,extrawidlsOacing' hotd for this six--bird-segmeni of the bett?

The FCC- says 'no,' it.will not. Wiat they are doing, for now, isrecognizing that there are thousands of cATVTsMATV eiar smail dishterminals out there. And they see that there does nepd to Oe a peiioJof time during which the users are able to amortize their investments,andil required, upgrade their terminals with larger dishes.

The FCC's Joe Harcaruka noted ,,The fC-C tras adopted anevolutionary approach to 4 GHz assignments so as to not makeobsolete the satellites, and those teni of thousands of terminalsthat use them."

. .This suggests that by the mid 1990's at the latest, we will belooking at 'uniform 2 degee spacing, lor all 4 GHz satellites. At leastILltf'-. ll. Commission plan right now. tt is going to be during thoseInrerventng years that there is confusion in the marketplace. And notall of.the players are being treated equally, Take RCA's less-than-poputar cable bird, F4, at g3_west. First of all, it will eventually moveslightly west; to gg.5 west. Then it will find itself sandwiched in be-tw€en awestar bird (W6) at 86 west and an AMSAT bird at g1 west. ltwilr oe otntcutt for it to continue to carry low-budget, low_appeal CATVprogramming channels to small l0 or 12 foot diahes when it is caughtbetween two newer full p-ower birds (W6 will launch early f g5+;AMSAT will launch early .t986).

. lt is in part the confusing scenario of who will launch, what, whenthatreally makes following the transition ahead a game for computers.tracn ol those yet to launch have their target dates. To make thosetarget dates,. they must get their funding in order to get a satelliteouroef cracking, stay on top of the sateilite buirder to ge1 the bird buirtand checked out, arrange for a launch date years i'n advance (be-cause launch schedules are now being planned and launcn spots arenow. being sold up for five years in the future), and then finaliy figureout how they are going to market their bird's transponOer spac6.

A bird that carries only narrow band communications willcause tess problem for a close spaced bird carrying only video, forexample, than will two close spaced birds Ootn cirr/ing video. Eachwould-be (future) satellite operator has his own announceo gamep!qn; he'says' he will sell nanow band space, or he says he will sellvideo only, or, he says he will sell combinations of the two. Even if hesucKs to that announced plan, the full extent of the Interferencepolential to smaller dishes wiil not be evident untir he actuaily raunchesand gets people onto the transponders; the final assignment of indi-vidual transponders to specific iypes of users will seldom be made farIn advance. Until those assignments are made, and assessed, theextent of the'damage' to 1 2, or 1 1,or 1 0, or 9 (etc.) foot dishes wili notoe apparent.

. Ultimately, with two degree spacing between all birds, we,ll allknow just what will work, and, what will not work. But, for the next 12

PAGE 2TtCSDn-&3

o o

1trI\

i

mJ 2

uJ -'

z

L U -

Eo

2 . 5 0 / - 1 1 . 5 d 8

u l "

t-{ r nJ t vtJ.Jr

3'/ - 13.0d8 I\ /TIIlIIl

A N G L E

0 2 o 6 o 4 0

PAGE 28/CSD/7.83 SATELLITE DICESe[o

years or so, until we reach that 'even-2-degree spacing' plateau of say

i995, h.r. will be different situations for ditferent bird to bird spac-

ings,'related to bird power level, bird age' transponder use, and

trinsponder to transponder polarization on adjacent birds'Ohe of the 'early suggestions'to the FCC was that they alternate

bird assignments sil tnat tne vertical and horizontal polarizations, on

adjacent-birds, will be 'crossed'from one another. For example, place

a Western Union Westar format bird (even channels vertical, odd

channels horizontal) adjacent to an RCA/COMSTAR format bird

ieven channels horizontal, odd channels vertical) Now what would

that do?Well, we all know that at the present time on all of the modern 24

channel birds we have 12 sets of channels that are vertical, and 12

more thaf are horizontal. And that for all practical purposes the vertical

and horizontal channels 'share'the same general 'spectrum spaceThis works, without unacceptable interference, because it is possible

for you, on the ground, to rotate your antenna-leed system to alter-

nately be'verticil' and 'horizontal'' When your feed system 'probe' is

vertiial, in 'phase' with the incoming vertical signals, your terminalreceives oniy the vertical transponders. And vice versa; horizontal'

This is called 'cross polarization isolation,' or simply'cross pole'

lor short. Obviously if you can separate two signals that share almost

the same transponder space by flipping your feed from vertical to

horizontal, you would have no real ditticulty separating two diJJerent

satellites spaced even 2 degrees apart when the vertical channels on

one satelliie corresponded to the horizontal channels on the adjacent

satellite(s). That seemed like such a simple, straightiorward approachto making'better use of the spectrum, that many pushed at the FCC toget it written into the 2 degree spacing plan.-

The FCC could have, of course, mandated this had they wished to

do so. They did not do so' Not at least in 'this round' of spacingassignments. Let's see what the assignments look like when you dothis, nonetheless:

Degrees Bird EVEI{ oDD EVEN oDD G0/N0 G0We-st Are Are Should Be Should Be T0 West To East

143 F5 H141 ?? ?139 F1R H137 ?? ?134 G1 V131 F3R H128 ASCI ?125 D4[S H122 SN1 ?119 .5

'W5 V

V O K ?? V H ? ?v H(?) v(?) ? ?? V H ? , )H v( . ) H( . ) No(?) 0KV H V O K ?? V H ? ?V H V ? , )? U H ? ?H H U ? ?

?')

OK,)

?NO

?')

?OKOK?,)

OK

101 ? ? ? H V ?9 8 . 5 W 4 V H V H ?9 6 T S H V H V O K9 3 . 5 G 3 V H V H O K9 1 S N 3 ? ? H V ?8 8 . 5 T S H V V H ?86 W3 12 channel bird/all are horizontal (..)

MUSICAL SATELLITESMany of the existing satellites are scheduled to be moved arouno

abit, a direct result of thb FCC'snew 212 5/3 degree spacing plan' The

effective date of these moves is still up in the air since the FCC is now

receiving comments on when certain parts of the sky should adopt the

new locit ional plan. There wil l not be one'grand moving day'duringwhich everyone will move. Rather, as new satellites are launchedthose that are nearby, in old positions, will be asked to move slightly to

make room for the new entrants. Complicating this process, slightly'

are lhe older generation satel l i tes (W3, ANIK 2/3, Comstar D112' D3

and D4) whici will, eventually, be replaced by new satellites Finally'

there is the matter of present orbit occupants such as F2 (now shared

with F1 ) at 1 19 west; they will be allowed to continue to occupy spacein the sky unti l new satel l i te launches require them to move' or, be

taken completely out of service. Here is a look at what all of this

moving around means.

Orbit Spol Satellites NotesPlesenl Ult imatelyPlesent Ult imalely143W 143W F5 F5139W 139W F lR F lR134W 134W G1 G1131W 131W F3R F3R127W 128W D4 ASC1 ACS1 scheduled November

8 3 . 5 F 4 H V H8 1 A S C 2 ? ? V7 8 . 5 W 6 V H HT 6 T S H V V7 4 G 3 V H H72 F6/F2RH V V6 9 S N 2 ? ? H67 F2R/F6H V V

H

H

H

H*-Galaxy 1 (G 1 ) can afford to be same polarization as bird at 137

west since spacing is 3 degrees to 137.**-Although present assignment at 86 is to Westar 3, last of the

US 12-channel birds, space wil l be occupied by newer 24channel Westar bird sometime about 1986. Notice that H/V'coordination' is thrown into a cocked hat by this bird's present12 channel (horizontal only) format, and the problem is onlyaggravated when it becomes a typical V-even and H-offassignment bird in the Juture.

So perhaps there is a small , br ight si lver l ining to the cloud after al l !Yes, there is some hope that by al lowing for the ' intel l igent use' ofalternate bird assignments adopting cross-polarization formats' thatperhaps the nastiness associated with too small dishes lighting toseparate signals too close together in the sky wil l not be thetremendous upheaval many have suggested. lt all boils down towhether or not when al l of the birds l isted here f inal ly take f l ight wewill have at least an attempt to alternately cross-pole adjacent birds.The problems won't go away (witness the 88.5/86/83.5 anamoly), butthey can be far less threatening than originally envisioned.

Let's run back over why this is the 'good news' side of the story.lsolation. lt means that you can somehow adjust your antenna so

that it does not intercept signals that you don't want, at the same timeyou are intercepting signals that you do want. The 4 degree spacebetween satellites now is a form of isolation.' Every degree inspace, overthe equator, for most ol us isjust over 450 miles to the nextdegree. Even at two degree bird to bird spacing, there is more than900 miles between them. They won't rub solar panels in normal f l ight.

One way we build 'isolation' into the antenna system is to designthe dish and the feed so that it has sutficient forward directivity (asuff iciently sharp beamwidth) so that the dish does not 'see'adjacentsatellites in the sky. The beamwidth or envelope of the main power' lobe' is a form of isolat ion. '

So too is 'cross polarization.' Even when the signals are comingfrom the same satellite, on almost the same frequency, we can adjustour antenna feed 'probe'to isolate the signals on one polarization fromthe signals on the 'opposite' polarization.

???OKOKOK?,)

125W 125W none

123W 122W W51 19W 119.5 F1tF2

114W 111.5 A2tA3109W 108 A/B1oo* 104.5 A/D

98.5 W496W 01tD293.5 none91W W3

88.5 none

87W 86W D3

83W 83.5 F4none 81W none79W 78.5 W2

'85

D4 wil l move here unti l TS4is launched

SNI scheduled May 1984Probable move MaY 1984

Anik D2 scheduled la te '85

Probable move early '84

TS4

SN1W5

99W95Wn0ne91W

n0ne

New AnikNew AnikA/D

W4TS2U J

SN3

Probable ear ly '84Sometime middle '84

P r o b a b l e m o v e t oMarch '85

D3n-S3 Probable move JromMarch '85

W3 Probable move fromMarch '85

86W

87W

9 1 W

F4ASC2W6

Probable move March '85

ASC2 scheduled APril '86

W6 scheduled APril '84

o o

taken, and with the advent of a huge and still growtngtranscont inental microwave telephone relavsystem, finding another site can be impractical ifnot impossible. Consequenfly, most dollar_

Terrestrial interference (Tl) is fast becoming a 1rqlgleconomic consideration for the installers anO operat6rsof TVRO earth terminals. Thousands of dollars, evenhundreds of thousands, may be at stake when the earthstation is turned on - only to discover that Tl isdegrading or altogether preventing reception of desiredsatellite signals. At this point, conlentional wisdom us_ed to advise packing up and moving to another site. Butnow, with many of the available Tl-clean sites already

What ls ASTI?

conscious installers and operators would ratherstand and fight Tl than switch to another site

The purpose of this volume istegrate two practices - avoidancesuppression - into a logical, unified ap-proach that can be effectively applied inthe planning and installation of anvTVRO earth station system. Conslcientious application of ASTI - theavoidance/suppression approachto eliminating Tl at TVRO earthstations will reduce thepossibility that Tt wiil bed i s c o v e r e d a t t u r n - o n ,enhance the probability thatunavoidable Tl can beeliminated, and increase the ef-fective operating quality of theTVRO system.

The authors of this handbook, withyears of experience as designers of RF andmicrowave filter networks, have had ample oppor-

Gontents Include:The Tl Avoidance/Suppression Approach; Why

Sate//ites; How Your Earth TerminalWorks; Tl Sourcei;Tl Symptoms; Se/ectrng the Antenna for Least Tl; TlS_usceptibility of Other TVRO Components; How toSe/ect a Sfte; The Pre-tnstaltation Slte Suvey; Defensivelnstallation; Use of Artificiat Shietding;

'Fittering the

TVRO; Filtering Speciat TVRO Syitems; S-UefVTechniques; Standard TVRO and Sitettite Data: For-

mulas and Derivations...

About the Authors:Glyn Bostick is the founder, president

and chief engineer of MicrowaveFilter Company, Inc. He has

been designing filters forthe suppression of in-

terference in cable TVsystems, industrial and

defense communicat ionsequ ipment , and sa te l l i te

earth stations since 1 967.Mr. Bostick has' written a

plethora of technical articles fortrade publications, holds several

patents and is a senior member ofthe IEEE.

John Fannett i is MFC's seniortechnical consultant and head of the

company's new Field Service Division. He

Call now!

to in-ano

has 30 years of engineering and earth sta-tion troubleshooting experience, including 7

^years as president of JDF Communications, aCATV consulting and TVRO installation firm.

William Johnson, chief engineer of researcnand development, is MFC's ,,voice" and travels

around the country, upon request, to deliver ASTI_

tunity to test the ASTI approach-it works! Measuredover a period of time, the costs involved in the ASTI ap_proach have proved to be substantially lower than anyalternative, especially in terms of dollars saved whenthe initial site was made operable. Furthermore, bothcost and complexity of filtering to eliminate Tl arelowered considerably when all essential aspects of theASTI approach are conscientiously employed.

type lectures at various industry gatherings. In histechnical capacity at MFC, Mr. Johnson is the desion

engineer in charge of special developmental projectJ.He earned his BSEE at Syracuse University and is cur-rently engaged in graduate studies there.

Use our toll-free number now to order your copy of the ASTI Handbook andit's yours for $99 - that's a savings of more than 2oo/o off the posl-publicationprice of $125. Your investment-today in the ASTI Handbook Cun "uu" yo,money - big money - ar every TVRO instailation down the road. rf you thinkyou can't afford to buy today, think again - you can't afford not to!

E FiITE? CON?ANY, 'NC. 1-goo-448.-1666

PAGE 30/CSD/7-83

In effect, when we have transponders on the same bird operatingon vertical polarization, and horizontal polarization, we really have lheequivalent of two completely ditferent satellites sitting in the exactsame spot in space.

Now, since cross pole isolation gets us someplace in excess of 20dB of isolation in even the most mundane of feed system (25 plus ismore typical), and we know from past FCC filings made by ITT andothers that 18 dB of isolation'is the goint where even the mostperceptive people just start to see 'interference,' how much can wereally expect when we have the good fortune to be combining (1) 2degree or more spacing, and, (2) cross-pole 'swapping' betweenalternated assigned birds in the sky?

From our antenna plots we see that even in less than ideal situa-tions, the example 11 loot antenna offered 11 dB of isolation'orbeamwidth envelope rejection of a signal 2 degrees off of 'boresight.'

Add to that the 20 dB we get with a ho-hum feed, and we are nowabove 30 dB. At 3 degree spacing, the same 1 1 foot antenna worst-case sidelobe was down, or 'isolated,' from the main pattern by 13 dB.Add to that the same 20 dB cross polarization isolations; 33 dBisolation.CAVEATS

Since we started out this report with alot of negative data, it is bestto end the report with a fair appraisal of the situation developing.

Fact one: We are presently in a period when we have a bunch ofbrand new, more powerful than before, satellites. Their 8.5 and 9watt transponders are a 3 to 5 dB step upward from the'old days'back in 1 980/81 . However, we already know that we will see thosenew transponders degrade or deteriorate by a total of approx-imately 1.0 dB the first two years and an average of 0.4 dB eachyear thereafter.Fact two: Satellite power loss, over the lifetime of the satellites, ismore than sutficient to wipe out the etfectiveness of any 6 or 7 footdishes on virtually all of the 5 watt power (when new) transpon-ders. Only the higher power (8.5 or 9 watt) transponders will endup at end-of-satellite-life looking good enough that customers willnot be ready to hang the dealer from the feed horn. T[is 'effecf willvary as satellite EIRP (footprints) varies across the country.Fact three: We are counting on a rationale, sane selection byeither the FCC or by the satellite operators themselves, of 'polar-

ization formats'for the full orbit belt. We know what some of theformats will be because the birds are.already in place, or, they areassigned to satellites that have an established 'pattern' to their

SATELLITE DICEST

satellite oolarization schemes. However, there are ten satelliteswith questionable polarization schemes still to be 'counte4' at 4GHz, and a less than persistent FCC or an inational satelliteoperator could destroy the 'potential isolation' available by simplyselecting the wrong polarization scheme. With a few problemareas 188.s/86/83.5) aside, there is at least the potential, andhope, here that we may not be in as bad trouble with smallerdishes as we had originally thought.

WHO'S Responsible?You, the-OEM, understands the potential problems. You' the

distributor, understands the potential problems. And you, the dealer'also understands the potential problems. Now, who is going to beresponsible to the consumer if a system is sold, installed and madeoperational in 1 983; and it falls apart, because of satellite degradation'or, satellite close spacings, in say 1985 or 1986?

There is ample caselaw concernlng this. A seller of a productwho knows of a product dellciency but who tails to tell the potentialcustomer about that deticiency can be held legally liable by thecustomer, in many states. Consumer protection laws are all about us'and while no two states have the same identical laws, there are manysimilarities.

Misrepresenting a product, telling the consumer it will do some-thing that it will not do, is clearly fraud. In most states, faillng to tell theconiumer/customer that there is a likelihood that his TVRO systemwill not functlon as well (or not at all) in a few years is also fraud.Even if you, the dealer, are not aware of this problem, the lawpresumes that you do know about the problem since you areconsidered an 'expert' in this field of endeavor.

The antenna manufacturers may be the most vulnerable in thissituation unless they can satisfy consumer protectionists that therehas been an effort to inform each segment of the distribution chain ofthe 'limitations' of the (small antenna) product. One approach beingconsidered is to clearly label the antenna with a ditficult-to-removemetal or laminated plate which spells out the minimum operatingconditions of the antenna. Such a plate might read:

"This 8 toot aperture TVRO antenna, manufacturedby XYZ Manufacturing Gompany, is designed foluse an areas with minimum EIRP footprints of 34dBw, or more, with satellite to satellite spacings of 4degrees or more. Reception quality in lower foot-print areas, or at closer satellite spacings, is not

IDEAL CROSS.POLE/ADJACENT BIRD SCENARIO

w5/119 .5

f:{!f,

LIV-ODDH-EVEN

sN1 /122

l - l

V.EVENH.ODD

D4t125

L.|

V .ODDH . E V E N

ASCl /128

ia-.

]J

V-EVENH-ODD

F3R/1 31

V-ODDH-EVEN

G 1 / 1 3 4

,A

IJ

V-EVENH.ODD

APPARENT CROSS.POLE/AJACENT BIRD SCENARIO

w5/119 .5 sN 1 /122IAt--.LI

V.?H.?

ASCl / 128 F3R/1 31

LJ

V.EVENH-ODD

V.ODDH.EVEN

V.?H.?

V.ODDH.EVEN

V.EVENH.ODD

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2800 MHz. Stability is maintained at a remark_abte -.- 1 MHz overthe entire _30. to + 50"Ctemperature range. So you can installthe down_converter out of doors, at the dish, without con_cern for frequency drift caused by temperature

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DX also provides the DSA-541 BlockDownconverter. lt features a highly stableceramic resonator, with a fixed irequency of

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tems in Japan and around the woild. DX-alsoprovides line amplifiers, power dividers, andother block downconversion_compati ble

PAGE 32|CSD/7.83 SATELLITE DICESTThere is, however, a seven to nine year cycle at work here; a cycle

created by the new-bird launch-schedule. We are riding the crest of a'high sign'al level wave'which wil l , ul t imalely dip into.a trough l t is atttt6 Oit iixe surf boarding; when you are at the top or leading edge ofthe wave, the ride is fine. Somewhere ahead is the beach, however.And to complicate matters, a storm is brewing off to the side which willbring strong waves towards the surfer from the side' possibly beforethe board ieaches the beach. The storm (closer spaced satellites)looks less ominous at the moment than the beach ahead. l t 's a gamblethat the surfer will reach the beach before the storm hits. A 'wipe out' isat least a 50-50 possibilitY.

guaranteed and use under such conditions is notrecommended bY manufacturer.

Of course, betore any antenna manufacturer can 'safely' hang

such a plate on his antenna(s), he had best get the antenna to a test

range where the actual gain, sidelobe patterns and 'E' and 'H' plane

envelooes can be measured!

Summary-Recent trade shows have produced an increasing number of small

dish packages built around antenna diameters between 6 and I Jeet'

Such packiges seem 'viable,' today, because their appearance in the

marketolacd has coincided with the recent launch of higher power

satellites.

ROBSRECEIVER

NO NOISE ls Good NewsDuring the month of May the Royal Order of Bloodsuckers (ROBS)

met in Boia Grande, Florida to evaluate one aspect of TVRO receiver

design (see Coop's Comments, this issue). Uti l iz lng equipment pro-

videl on loan by Hewlett Packard, along with HP field applicationsengineer Mark Davis, the ROBS group spent two long days workingoui a series of test programs for future, in-depth, industry wideappraisals of TVRO receiver system perlormance.

The purpose of the May testing was not to develop hard, 'quot-

able,' numbers for receiver units submitted for test; rather it was anattempt to arrive at appropriate testing procedures which could beemployed in the future in the eventual side by side comparison ofreceivers in the marketplace.

Approximately 20 TVRO receiver manufacturers were contactedby CSD, with the iequest that they provide, on loan for ten days or so, a

current production model unit . Eight of the 20 suppliers cooperated byproviding a unit for test. As promised to those providing receivers, nopublishe-d results of the test ing wil l appear here There was no'best 'receiver, and no 'worst' receiver in the eight. Each receiver offered theROBS group, and the HP f ield engineer, di i ferent opportunit ies to'

anive at 'standardization testing systems' for future all-industry re-ceiver tests to be sponsored by ROBS and CSD.

Receiver testing might break down into a number of areas ofconcern. For example, in the complete analysis of receiver perfor-

mance, the following areas must be measured:1) Downconverter linearity (flatness)2) Downconverter noise f igure ( i .e. stand-alone threshold)3) Downconverter gain4i Downconverter match' to the LNA ahead of it, and the de-

mod/receiver lollowing it5) Receiver linearitY (flatness)6i Receiver noise f igure ( i .e. stand alone threshold, in the lF

range)7) Receiver gain8) Receiver match (to the cable feeding signal from the down-

converter, and through the cable, to the downconverter itself)

NOISE TESTS

11) Receiver video bandwidth and phase purrtyt2) Receiver clamping (abi l i ty to el iminate energy dispersal

waveform)Additionally, a series of tests to evaluate recelver audlo recovery'

and a series of tests to evaluate performance of the entire package(downconverter plus receiver), would have to be developed Ult i-mately, from al l oi this test ing procedure i t would be possible to look at

both iomplete packages and parts of a system's performance' Evenreceiver ;radiaiion' (the undesired emission of the local oscillatorsignal, out of the receiver into the surrounding area, by whatever path

it might take) would be checked and measured lt is' to say the least'

an u"mbitiors project requiring thousands of man hours and plenty of

donated t ime and equipment. A special note of thanks to HP's MarkDavis, and the company itself (Hewlett Packard) for agreeing to workwith us to get the project underway. Having a few tens of thousands of

dol lars in lest equipment, and a man int imately famil iar with runningthat test equipment, on ' loan'for a few days is no small investment byH P .

Our initial tests were more for the experience than the hard num-

bers that might result. While 8 manufacturers did supply receivers'many otherstid not so the entire spectrum of receivers could not be

evaluated. That was probably good since one of the first things we

discovered was that each receiver package often requires an entirelydif ferent 'set-up' of the test equipment interfacing (the 'Goes-into' and'Goes-OufoJ' connections), and we were not as prepared lor all of thepossible variations as we might have been. What we learned here is

ihat there are very few 'standards' in force Jor connectors, powering

schemes to the downconverters, and the gain and noise figure'targetranges' of the original design engineers.

DOWNconverter Noise FigureThe most repeated testing dealt with the measurement of the

noise figure of the downconverter units. Our rationale here was sever-al sided.

1) While i t is true that the noise f igure of the system is set orestabl ished almost total ly by the noise temperature (or nolsefigure) ol the LNA (low noise ampli f ier), there are (or can be)s6me'subtle degradations of the 'system noise temperature'

q l

10)Receiver lF bandwidthReceiver threshold for both static and moving video

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caused by the design parameters chosen for the downconver-

ter. We wanted to-see what the real world impact of those

design variations might be on system performance'

2) We ilso wanted to see what'patterns'might emerge wnen we

measured the downconverter noise figures, and then com-pared that table against a simple and objective off-satellite

Evaiuation of the r6ceiver packages ln theory, a very badly

designed downconverter c6uld degrade the performance ot a

ty.tEt "u"n though the LNA is supposed toestablish much of

tlie system 'perfoimance' rating. Might not there be a simple

paral[el between downconverter design/performance' and sys-

iem pettormance, that even tracked with small variations in

downconverter Performance?

3) There is a considerable amount of confusion around concern--' inq iust now much cable you can utilize' and the type of cable to

utii'ze, Uetween the LNA output and the input to the down-

.onultt"t (typically RG2131214lype cable),.and, the output of

the Ao*n.b'nuertei and the input'to the receiver (typically RG-

SS typ" cable since the downconverter output is at 70 MHz in

SATELLITE DICESTmost systems). We wanted to compute the tradeoffs going on

here i[the hope that we could help dealers better understancl

the design constraints they were facing when they elected to'modify' the receiver manufacturer 's recommended cable

lengths while making an installation..While irost of those attending the sessions had at least a basic

oraso of the downconverter function, and the noise figure and galn

i"itr U"ing conducted' we relied on HP's Mark Davis, John Ramsey

of Sat-fed, Jon Spisar from Canada and John Figura from lntersat

to keep us on the iorrect'heading.' All have considerable engineering

i"r"niJ i"o between Ramsey' i quick wil l ingness to jump into a

rli"ngl i.."""r with a soldering iron to make aconnection that would

"iio*-r. to interface to the telt equipment, and Spisar's carelully

reasoneO logic, we were able to resolve the interfacing problems with

all but one of the receivers sent for test.

We were also indebted to Steve Koogler, Chief Engineer Jor

efecironic Oesign at the R.L. Drake Compiny who willingly opened

il hi.;;gi""*in'g notebook to CSD to allow us to better understand

tfL Oisi-gn equati6ns and planning that go into the world ot selecting

PAGE 34/CSD/7-83

CALCULATING NOISE FIGURE

NOISE FIGURE = 1 .50 dB- - . - - . - 15dB

NOISE FACTOR - 141275 - -__-31 .65

F: 2

DOWNCONVERTER

DEGRADATION CAUSED BY CABLE ATTENUATION

8 d B MOST TYPICAL INSTALLATIONF,.= 31.65 + 6.31 - 1 = 31.724

200( t2.81 = 15.014d8

F,r= 1.!1275-+ 3,1:1?4 - 1 = 1.41 35100,000(/2.5)

F , . d B = 1 . 5 0 3 d 8

H F , 4cHZ4GHZ I \

al 1x4 >>-213t214l r '

l,/

GAIN/ATTEN. lOO,OOO( + 50dB)

112.5( - 4dB)

200( + 23dB)

NOISE

1 t 2 . 8( - 4 . 5 d 8 )

F I G U R E D E G R A D A T I O N- 0 .003d8

4cH1hl-'o"o*l-p9)1,-_-f;Xq r'' rffi;ll/.

o*L "oYt*tt1f'oo,

GAIN/ATTEN. lOO,OOO( + 50dB)

1 t2 .5 200( - 4 d B ) ( + 2 3 d 8 )

N O I S E F I G U R E D E G R A D A T I O N = 0 0 3 d B ' o r 3 o K

WORST CASE INSTALLATION(NO COAX LOSS AT 70MHZ)

F^"31.65 + 6 .31 - 1 = 31 .677'" -2OO = 15.007d8

F, ,= 1 .41275 + -3 !677 - 1100,000( 1 /31 .5)

= t . 4 Z Z 1

c . l a - 1 q ' l . l F {

."Y*hL,iirffi!'i@l./

*1 "o**5'

GAIN/ATTEN. 100,000( + 50dB)

1 t2 .5 200( - 4 d B ) ( + 2 3 d 8 )

N O I S E F I G U R E D E G R A D A T I O N = O . O O 3 d B

LONG TOMHZ COAX RUN

F - " = 3 1 . 6 5 + 6 . 3 1 - 1 = 3 1 . 9 8200( 1 /1 2.5)

= 1 5 . 0 5 d 8F,21.41275+-91 i98- - 1= 1 4135

100,000(1 /2 .5 )

F , rdB = 1 .503

1 t 1 2 . 5( - 1 1 d B )

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PAGE 36/CSD/7.83 SATELLITE DICESTthere is no RG-59 interconnecting cable, or a very short piece

of such cable) and 'al l of the cable loss' is found in the RG-213/4 cable that connects the LNA to the downconverter' This is the'worst' situation because the receiver system is designed ior( i .e. intended to compensate for) some loss in the small-cableRG-59/U l ine. By el iminating that l ine, and the loss that goes

with i t , the instal ler unknowingly causes himself some de-graded performance. And here you thought no cable or very-very short cable runs were best!

3) 'Lohg 70 MHz Coax Run,' which is the exact opposite ofhaving the downconverter and the receiver 'on top' of oneanother. Here we have 1 1 dB of RG-59/U loss, or about 400feet of cable.

Based upon Koogler's notebook, there is a relatively narrow range

of system noise figure performance change in any of these three

scenarios. He calculates the change in LNA Plus downconverternoise f igure to be on the order of 1 .5 to 1 .53 dB in the 'worst ' case while

the back end of the system (downconverter plus demodulator/receiv-er) varies from 15.007 dB to 15.03 dB (noise f igure).

ln the process of testing the downconverters for noise figure, we

came across a pair of units (neither was a Drake!) which had an

interesting design 'problem.' In one case we had a pair of identical

receivers (downconverters) from a relatively small manuiacturer'When we checked the first one, we found the downconverter had a

noise l igure of 28 dB. That 's astronomical ly high. Everyone was

scratchiig their heads for a few minutes. Then we decided to do the

same ch6ck on a second unit from the same supplier ' This one

measured 19 dB. That moved Ramsey and Spisar to want to take the

case apart to see why the unit should have a noise Jigure so mucn

higher ihan a typical receiver (most are specif ied in the 13-17 region)'- What they found inside was the expected double conversion

, D O

JOHN RAMSEY chuckles when he sees the noise f igure of thedownconverter on the test bench. The laughter ceased when helound his own unit had a higher noise f igure!

downconverter and receiver operational design goalsBorrowing a few pages from the Drake engineering design book,

these thoughts from Koogler. " l agree that i t is certainly importantto properly choose the LNA and to use the proper cable lengthsto obtain optimum performance (from a system). We have tried toel iminate any confusion in this area by including a table in ourinstruct ion manual which relates maximum al lowable cableattenuation to LNA gain. We recommend using an LNA with atleast 50 dB of gain. ln addit ion, the ESR24 is purposeful ly de-signed so that i t wi l l not operate with signal levels below a mini 'mum level. This insures that i t is not possible to instal l a cablewith enough attenuation to degrade the system noise figurenoticeably. lf too much attenuation is present, it is no longerpossible to obtain a meter reading on the signal strength meter.At this (f lagging) point, the picture very noticeably degrades i f theinput levels go below this factory set minimum."

This is spel led out in a diagram here labeled 'Calculat ing NoiseFigure Degradation Caused By Cable Attenuation" Using datasupplied by Drake's Koogler, you wil l see that the noise f igure isapproached f irst as the combined noise f igure of the LNA plus down'converter portion of the package, and then as the combined noisefigure of the downconverter plus the receiver (demodulator) properportion of the system. Three different types of installations are cov-ered:

1) 'Typical ' instal lat ion where there is 4 dB of cable loss betweenthe LNA and the downconverter (roughly 20 feet of RG-213cable, with connectors), and then 4.5 dB of cable loss betweenthe downconverter and the demodulator (roughly 150 feet oiRG-59 U type cable. and connectors).

2) 'Worst Case' instal lat ion, where (surprisingly) the down-converter is mounted direct lv to the receiver/demodulator ( i .e.

L"_.-

COVER BOY ... Jon Spisar of Canada makes a small powerdiversion modification in a Doug Dehnert downconverter so itcould be checked lor noise figure.

I

THE ECHO IIDIFFERENCEThe Best Performance, Eyer.

system; first the input signals (3.7 lo 4.2 GHz) were taken into the

input. Inside the box, they were mixed with a local oscillator (see

diagram) and converted to a relatively high lF (frequency) range' This

outiut was then ied directly into a'gain block'device that amplified the

output of the mixer at the (high) lF (frequency). Now, inside the same

box and barely inches from the first mixer/conversion stage' was a

second mixer stage with its own LO. Finally the output of this mixer' at

70 MHz, was sent into the cable to head for the receiver'

PAGE 38/CSD/7-83

THIS DOUBLE CONVERSION SYSTEM HAD VERY BAD

SPURIOUS SIGNAL OUTPUTS: SEE TEXT.

SATELLITE DIGEST

004 +24.0 dB +24.0 dB +24.0 dB 12.0 dB 13.5 dB 13.0 dB005 + 17 .5 dB + 18 .0 dB +17.7 dB 13.7 dB 13.2 dB 13.7 dB0 0 6 + 1 5 . 2 d 8 + 1 7 . 0 d 8 + ' 1 5 . 1 d B 1 7 . 6 d 8 1 5 . 8 d 8 1 7 . 5 d 8007 +20.0 dB +20.7 dB +19.8 dB 15.9 dB 15.3 dB 16.0 dB008 + .18 .6 dB +18.4 dB + 18 .7 dB 13.8 dB 14.1 dB 13.9 dB

As you can see, after tossing out the unusual (that's being charitable)design of units 001 and 002, we have the lollowing variations in gain andnoise figure:

'l) Highest noise figure measured - 19.0 dB2) Lowest noise figure measured - 12.0 dB3) Highest gain measured - 24.0 dB4) Lowest gain measured - 12.5 dBNow, since there are some substantial variations here, how can you as

an installer 'protect' yourself lrom making a poor installation when youknow (from the manufacturer's specifications sheel, for example) that

Because both of the local oscillators were in the same box, withoutbenefi t of any'shielding, ' there were large quanti t ies of unwanted andundesirable LO product 'harmonics' coming out o{ the downconverterat 'both ends.'

When you attach a downconverter to the HP test set system' youmeasure noise f igure by alternately turning the noise source on and otfat a rapid rate. ihe noise source is inside of the HP test equipment.Normally when you turn it off, the noise figure of the downconvertercan be 'read' on the meter. Not this time. There was so much un-wanted signal coming out ol the downconverter, at lrequenciesspread across the entiie region from approximately 800 MHz to wellover 4,200 MHz, that these unwanted 'spurious' signals 'fooled' thenoise ligure meter into thinking that the downconverter had a very high'noise' ievel. lt did il you consider the unwanted spurious signals to be'noise'; they certainly were not contributing anything to the perfor-mance of the downconverter!

Oh yes;we lound one other receiver in the group with a'spurioussignal' problem; a situation where the unwanted, and non-contributingharmonics from the receiver's local oscillator (LO) were getting intothe HP test set via the output line, and causing the HP test set to'lalseindicate' on its assigned task; to give us a true noise figure reading forthe downconverter.

When we saw problems such as this, we were reasonably surethat unless we had a 'lemon unit' on our hands, we were really lookingat receiver units which had been designed without benefit of appropri-ate test equipment, or testing procedures.

The downconverters tested displayed a reasonably wide range of( l) noise l igures, and, (2) gain. Without identi fying which units hadwhat characteristics, here are the bulk of the results:UnilDesignation DownconverlerGain DownconverlerNoiseFigure

3.7 GHz 3.95 GHz 4.2 GHz 3.7 GHz 3.95 GHz 4.2 GHz001 ( - ) -1 .2 dB -1 .3 dB -1 .4 dB 26.5 dB 28.0 dB 27 '5 dB0 0 2 ( . ) - 1 . 4 d B - 1 . 2 d B - 1 . 8 d B 1 9 . 3 d B 1 9 . 3 d B 1 9 . 3 d B003 ( - ) + 13 d8 + l3 .2 dB + 12 .5 d8 18 .6 d8 18 .5 d8 19 .0 d8

*-These units all had measurable spurious signals (harmonics olthe local oscillator) present which could not be 'bandpass

filtered out'of the test system to allow an 100% accuratereading of true receiver (downconverter) noise figure. UnitsOO1 and OO2 had a pairof mixer (downconversion) stages in thedownconverter, with approximately 12 dB ol gain tucked be-tween the two mixer stages. Lacking adequate gain at thehigher lF, there is no way the second mixer could performadequately to create a usable system noise temperature'

CALCULATING DOWN CONVERTER NOISE FIGURE

CONTRIBUTION TO SYSTEM NOISE TEMPERATUREBY VARYING COAX LOSS (LNA TO DC)

COAX (LOSS) DOWN CONVERTER

G = 5 0 / 3 0 d 8 L N A T O F - 1 2 d 8F = 1 5 d B D O W N C O N V E R T E R

G , G , G 3

F, F2 F3

EXAMPLE ONE(50d8 LNA, 1 .5 dB

F r = F , + F r - 1

N F , 5 d B C A B L E

+^I":1\ f r + u2

LOSS TO DC)

F r = 1 . s d B + 4 + !50 45

= 1.5 + 0.08 + .24F r = 1 . 8 3 d B

EXAMPLE TWO(sodB LNA, 1 .5d8 NF, lOdB CABLE LOSS TO DC)

F r = 1 . 5 d 8 + 9 + " l l50 40

= 1 . 5 + . 1 8 + . 2 8F r = 1 . 9 8 d 8

EXAMPLE THREE(30d8 LNA, 1 .5d8 NF, 5dB cABLE LOSS TO DC)

F 1 = 1 . 5 d 8 + 4 + 1 130 25

= 1 . 5 + . 1 3 3 + . 4 4Fr = 2 .07dB

EXAMPLE FOUR(3OdB LNA, 1 .5d8 NF, 10dB oABLE LOSS TO DC)

F r = " l . s d B + 9 + 1 _ 130 20

= 1 .5d8 + .30 + .55F ' = 2 .35d8

SATELLITE DICEST

COMPARING CHANGES IN DOWN CONVERTERNOISE FIGURE

COAX (LOSS) DOWN CONVERTER

-F-Z+F&cAtN = 50dB

t r - 1 q d R

G ,F ,

EXAMPLE ONE( 5 0 6 8 L N A , 1 . 5 d 8 N F , 5 d B O A L B E L O S S , 1 2 , a n d

and 25 dB NF DOWN CONVERTER)

1 2 d B N F D CF r = 1 . 5 d 8 + 4 +

50

P r = 1 . 5 + 0 . 0 8 + . 2 4

F r = 1 . 8 2 d 8

1sdB NF DCF r - 1 . 5 d 8 + 4

50t r - - 1 A r f l O R +

F r = 1 . B g d B

1 8 d B N F D CF r = 1 . 5 d B + 4

50

F - - 1 q + n n R +

F r = 1 . 9 6 d 8

25dB NF DCF r = 1 . 5 d 8 + 4

50

t r - - 1 A r O O R +

F r = 2 . 1 1 d 8

where the 'antenna noise temperature' is an important factor to all thatfollows. Then the entire system all the way through to the last lF amplifierstage has to be 'manied' into the calculations so that when you finish youwill have the effects of all parts of the system under consideration

WHAT We LearnedObviously not all downconverters are created equal. You can gel

yourself into trouble by not giving proper consideration to such things ascable lengths and types (i.e. the loss contributed by cables) You can getyourself into trouble by eliminating the cable between the LNA and thedownconverter (we'll see why in a subsequent issue), or, the cable be-tween the downconverter and lhe receiver. You can also get yourself intotrouble that seems impossible to cure by simply selecting a receiver thatdoes not do an adequate job of insuring that 'harmonics' of the localoscillator (LO) stay out ol the input and output ports (connectors) at either

PAGE 40/CSD/7-83

\r2

F' 2

G . V A R I A B L E

u 3

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USS's Doug Dehnert (right) and host Tom Harringlon inspect ahigh grade type 'F' f itting which Dehnert designed for his MasProreieiver line system. Harrington, the industry's weatherprootingsealing expert (COAX SEAL) approved.

gains are either low or high, or, noise figures are either low or high?With the assislance of John Ramsey and Jon Spisar, we have prepared

a pair of diagrams here. The first is labeled'Changes in OownconverterNoise Figure.' What you see here is a comparison of what might happen toyour installation if you elected to use a receiver package with a wide rangebf noise figure(s). In each case, the LNA is a 50 dB gain LNA with 1 5 dB(120 degree) noise temperature. There is 5 dB of cable loss (approximately25teelot 2131214, plus connectors) between the LNA and downconvener'Four ditferent downconverter noise figure 'benchmarlqi are provided; 12dB, 1 5 dB, 1 8 dB, and then to catch the sloppy guy at thelop of the list' 25dB.

The number to study is the Ft appearing at the end of each 'case studyI tvar ies f rom 1 .82dBfora 12dB no ise f igure 'DC' up to2 .1 1 dBfora25dBnoise figure'DC.'Yes, there is measureable loss in system sensitivitywith a higher noise figure downconverter. No, it is not quite as dramatic as itmight be.

The next study is headlined 'Calculating Downconverter Noise Fi-gure Contribution to System Noise Temperature By Varying CoaxLoss (LNA to 'DC').' That simply means, what happens when you changethe loss (cable length or cable quality) between the LNA and the down-converter, or, you elect to use a lower gain LNA (30 dB gain is sampled hereas an example)?

Once again the number to watch is the Fr at the end ol each'example'system. Starting with a 50 dB gain LNA' 1 5 dB (120 degree) noise figure'and progressing through 5 dB and 1O dB lengths ol 2131214 LNA to 'DC'

cabling, down to 30 dB gain (still 120 degree/1 .5 dB noise figure) LNAs' welind th;t the Ft varies from a low of 1.83 dB (best case) to a high of 2 35 dB(worst case).

This is not the full story, but it is a start on a very complex subject Toreally understand the full noise temperature/figure contribution of the fullsystem, you really need to start way back at lhe antenna surface and feed

+ 1 1i F

.38

+ 2 3A R

53

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PAGE 42losDl7-83 SATELLITE DICESTend of the box. lf those unwanted spurious signals do nasty things to an HP

t,est set, you can imagine how much good they do tloating into your TVRO

demodulator, or your LNA Not much!ll you are a regular walcher of TR22's Saturday 'Sat Scene' show' be

on the lookout for a videoape report of the ROBS receiver noise Iigure testslate in July (exact scheduling not set at time of publication)' Between thisreport and the Sat Scene report, we guarantee you'll have a new apprecia-tion lor the problems faced by receiver designers in this field'

PROVOMAY 1Ath

ECI 'S 11FOOTER

WALTER GREBIS and his 11 foot .3 f/D dish with Seavey feeo.Standard mount, according to Grebis, is by South River. Forstability in windy area, we do NOT recommend singular polemount used here!

middle of May and this is a report on the antenna's assembly andperformance.

ECI's Grebis is an industrial design engineer' Tooling, metal lab-

11 FOOT/ .3 f/DThere has been a well supported view for all of the years there has

been serious interest in TVRO (and ARO) systems that if you want tocreate a dish with maximum gain, you stick to shallow dishes with arelatively long focal length to diameter relationship. Pioneering workdone in our field by Steve Birkill (the Scalar/Ring Feed, first reviewedin CSD in February of 1980; page T9) led to increased prime-focusantenna design gain when the then-common 'horn' or 'button hook'feed was repliced with a Scalar configuration' Birkill's approach to theScalar feed was motivated by both a desire to increase antennasystem etficiency, and, his unique Intelsat receiving situation in theUnited Kingdom.

It remained for Taylor Howard and Bob Taggart, setting up shop inJune of 1 980 under the brand new name of Chaparral Communica-tions, to commercialize the Scalar feed. First announced in the June(1980) issue of CSD, and subsequently first shown at the San JoseSPTS event that July, the 'teed market business' would never be thesame agarn.

Maximum gain, we are told, is achieved with a dish in the region of.5 f/D. That meins the distance between the center of the dish surlaceand the feed's focal point location will be .5 or 50% of the diameter (D)

of the dish. A ten foot diameter dish would have a 5 foot (out front)focal/feed point. The best antenna 'pattern', that is, an antenna lhathas been designed to produce the best rejection of signals'otf axis'(such as from adjacent satellites in the Clarke orbit belt)' occurs not inihe region ol .5 VD but rather down in the .25 to .3 f/D region. A dishthat iJso designed typically compromises some of its gain capabilitylor improved pattern.

These harie been general 'design rules'of parabolic antennas formany decades. The rules are now apparently being bent' a little bypeople who wonder what you might have to do to modify the feed itselfin oider to preserve good gain with a dish thatwas initially designed forbest rejection of interfering signals.

Those who attended the iust completed Can/Am '83 show had theopportunity to see and learn about the latest generation of dishes;antennas with l/Ds in the .3 region, but equipped with'new generationfeeds'which claim to give gain equal to or better than traditional Scalarfeed systems dishes with .4 region f/Ds' The subject becomes espe-cially ielevent now because of the recent FCC determination thatsatellites will over the next decade become closer and closer together(see report page 8, this issue of CSD).

Engineerel Communications, Incorporated (ECD ot NewBrunswick, N.J. is one of the newer entrants into the TVRO antennafield, and their approach with an 11 foot diameter dish is to optimizethe system for maximum reiection of interference, and, using the latestgeneration ot .3 tlD feeds, maximum gain. ECI's Walter Grebis6rought one of his antennas to the Providenciales test range in the

@) SATELLITE DlcEsr pAGE43,csD/7-83

rication, and packaging are his strong points. His interest in TVROsbegan because he decided he wanted a terminal of his own' Heresearchbd the available professional literature, and without anyawareness that there even was a viable home TVRO industry' fol-lowed MIT and other library reference literature to the eventual paperdesign of his present antenna. lt was only after he had designed theantehna for his personal use that he discovered the plurality of pro-ducts already in the field.

The first models did not work very well. That puzzled Grebissince he knew with his background that the surface was extremelyaccurate ( + 15,000ths) and the dish was capable of performing betterthan it had. He was using a standard Chaparral feed at the time, andwas not yet aware that you don't stick a feed designed for a wide rangeof J/Ds (but more specifically, for an f/D in the .4 region), and obtainmaximized gain with a .3 f/D dish.

Grebis chose the .3 design because the literature taught him thatthis was a desireable thing to do it you were going to be using theantenna in a region that was likely to have heavy terrestrial interference, and noise sources. With a dish in the .3 region, all ol theliterature pointed towards considerably improved rejection of Bell andother interference. There are plenty of Bell microwave circuits in thenortheast, and he knew that he didn't want to end up losing a bunch ofchannels to Bell Tl. The lack of gain was perplexing.

As luck would have it, his path crossed that of John Seavey.Seavey is a teed designer with more than twenty years of experience.He began building optimized leeds for microwave antennas inside theshop of a major commercial antenna manufacturer back in the 60's.Eventually he went out on his own and began contracting feeds fortirms such as Microdyne/AFC. Seavey was looking at the special feedproblems associated with dishes in the .3 region when he and Grebiscrossed paths.

Seavey teeds have always been very'stout'and very well built. Inour industry they would be considered expensive and perhaps beconsidered 'structural overkill'. Seavey wanders about in the sameschool that puts antenna systems in the Artic or other hostile environ-ments. This shows in his products; you could run over a Seavey feedwith a tank and it would probably still retain shape, and function.

Armed with some proto-type 'special' Seavey feeds for a .3 sys-tem, Grebis went back to work on his gain problem. He saw animmediate improvement in the 1 .0 to 1 .5 dB region. Now he felt he wasgetting closer to the gain which he had hoped to achieve. Best of all'from Walter's point of view, the antenna had the designed-in-ability tofunction even close by to strong Bell microwave circuits.

The 1 1 loot ECI antenna, with a companion .3 Seavey feed (equip-ped with a polarization rotation system built into the leed) and ancompanion Microtenna Associates, Inc. 'Star-chaser' drive and con-troller system were brought to Providenciales on May 12th. Grebissuggested that approximately 25 of his antennas had 'gone out thedoor' at that point in time, making it plain that this was a brand newproduct with only limited field experience.

i,ttt'#

PAGE 44/CSD/7-83

SEAVEY feed looks different, inside and out. Inside are 'dipole

resonators' which Seavey claims improve feed efliciency lor .3feed system.

SATELLITE DICES

+'+EIGHrREFLECTOR panels in all, each of which is broken intothree sections, resulting in 24 separate 'curved' panels for fulldish.

To save on excessive freight costs to the Turks and Caicos, the'normal' mount system supplied with the ECI 1 1 foot antenna was leftbehind in New Jersey. We substituted a 4 inch diameter steel pipewhich is fine for test but for long term stability would probably be a littleon the risky side; especially in an area wilh high winds' The standardmount is a South River Product, very similar in an design to the mountwhich many users of the Harris Delta Gain (for example) employ.

The antenna consists of a set of I pre{abricated reflector panels' afeed supporl, and a Polar Axis elevation assembly. Less the beefySouth River mount, the entire package weighs in at around 100oounds.

The industrial design experience of Grebis shows in both thepresent generation of instruction manual, and, the way the antennaassembles. While we were pouring a suitable concrele pier in a holedug in the sand adjacent to Provo's lsland Princess Hotel, Grebis wentto work on the assembly of the 8 panels. Close inspection of thepanels reveals that the expanded/extruded surface is 'laminated'

inside ol a specially designed aluminum sandwich. There are no metalscrews or clips to hold the surface in place; it is 'pressed' and fitted intoplace in such a way that it cannot move once 'laminated'.

Each of the 8 panels is sub-divided into a trio of sub-sections. Thismeans that while you have 8 total panels to handle, you are actuallyassembling an antenna that has broken the 1 1 foot diameter surfaceup into a total of 24 (8 x 3) reflector panels. One way to get better gainwith any sectionalized dish, or course, is to break the surface up intoas many 'small ' , essential ly f lat ( in the circumference direct ion),panels as possible. That's why dish antennas with many panel sec-tions usually out-perform those with fewer (essentially flat) panels;theoverall dish comes closer to being a replica of the ideal paraboliccurve.

Grebis placed the eight panels onto a llat piece oJ concrete patioand we timed him in getting the tull surface assembled; 56 minutesand ten seconds. Not bad. By now the concrete was poured but hardlydry so everyone knocked off until the following morning.

Assembly of the Polar Axis Elevation Assembly took another houror so and in another five minutes the dish was on the mount. Frompacking crate to'people on the screen' a total of about 2.5 hourselapsed. Again, not bad.

Since the system is installed on a round piece of pipe, the align-ment of the system is quick and straight forward, using techniquesworked out more than a generation ago. First you use an inclinometerto set the elevation angle to the appropriate angle that correspondswith your location. The next step is to adiust the motor drive (or handcrank) so that the system has the proper'look angle'that correspondslo a known bird location; in our case, 20 degrees elevation for F3R.Now loosen the bolts that secure the antenna to the mount and rotatethe antenna on its own axis. You should find the desired bird almostinstantly. We did and sure enough the polar axis support was zeroedin on true north.

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ECI supports the feed out in iront o1 the dish with a mounting pole

that fits thrbugh the dish center plate to a fine tuning adjustment

system at the riar of the antenna. Grebis then anchors the leed to the

dish, in the tront, with four clip-on 'guy wire anchors'that are turnbuck-

le adjusted.

sources, you are also gett ing a better than even 'break'with reject ion

of 'earth noise'; that tloublesome problem that always enters 'the

picture' when you are down under 20125 degrees with your (small)

dish.Lacking a fully calibrated antenna test range' there is no accurate

way to 'meisure' the apparent 'earth noise contribution' f rom a dish as

lhsantenna zeros in on satel l i tes that are closer and closer to your

horizon. Our F3R elevation angle' for example, is 19 4 degrees, while

out F1 (Galaxy 1) look angle is 16.7 degrees F5 is just a tad over '10

degrees. For comparison purposes we did simultaneous tests on the

Hair is Delta Gain, a Paracl ipse 12 foot and the ECI 11 foot on F3R'

Pure 'carrier' (i.e. received signal level) was almost identical on the

Paraclipse and ECI antennas (the Harris was lower) Pure 'noise" a

difficult measurement wnen you don't take the time to swap back and

torth the identical LNA and cables, was lowest on the ECl The net

result, by a small margin of a few tenths of a dB, was that at this low

look angle the ECI ploduced the best CNR (carrier to noise ratio)'

However, when the Paraclipse and the ECI were taken to F4, a

bird with a relat ively high look angle here (over 60 degrees)' the

situation reversed; now ihe carrier was about equal on the two while

the noise was substantial ly lower on the Paracl ipse. Net result? On thehighest look angle birds, the Paracl ipse had a noticable ' lead' in

system picture performance.- lf this is confusing, you've not been paying close attention to the

trade offs that go into any antenna design. Noise' contributed by the

feed system, a! a function of the feed's illimination pattern, is still al i t t le bit in the 'black magic area.Practical Problems

The ECI antenna is exceptional ly well designed as a structure' l t

appears to maximize gain, minimize unnecessary weight and possible

ooints of antenna lai lure due to weathering. l t obtains the high gain

Derformance because it has a feed which is designed to complimentine Oisf,'s f/D. Placing a standard Scalar feed on it would be a

mistake.The manual, and remember that no more than 25 antennas had

been produced at the time we tested the unit and received a manual, is

exhaustive in the step by step assembly instructions Generous,well-drafted drawings iead you through the step by step procedures

reouired to assemble the antenna proper, and mount the feed' Both

en-ground and roof-top mounting are detailed.However. there are shortcomings with the manual ln particular,

there is no manual attention to step by step dish alignment proce-

dures. We ran into an 'anamoly'with the part icular Seavey feed that

came with the dish. Grebis was there to sort it out' but he had not been'

an experienced hand would have analyzed the situation and done the

exact opposite thing to correct problem. Grebis knew from past experi-

ence what to do with the Seavey feed;that information needs to be in

the manual. Furthermore, the manual makes no mention of the feed

since the dish is sold without a feed' Someone picking up the manual

might assume that any normal Scalar type feed would work; indeed

thidrawings depict aieed that looks exactly l ike a standard Scalar '

Since Greb-is himself admits that the dish will not perform well with a

normal Scalar, this needs to be pointed out in the manual as well '

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The 'centering-fine-tuning' is an interesting system. At the veryrear of the feed support pipe is a ring through which the rear of thesupport feeds. The r ing is larger than the support pipe' and to securethe feed inside of the support ring there are three stainless steeladjusting screws. By alternating the adjusting screws in and out, youfrave an accurate method of setting not only the optimized focallength tor the dish but the exact center in front of the dish for the feedsysrem.

All of the hardware on the dish and support system is stainlesssteel. The mount is ful ly galvanized. Since the mesh surface attachesto the B panels/24 sub-panel sections with a' laminated' process, thereare no ihrough the mesh pieces of hardware present to turn bad onyou after the antenna is in the f ield for a while.

PerformanceWith a wide range of other test antennas in and operating, cross

checking the performance ot the 11 foot antenna system is pretty

routine (.). Here is what we found.Equipped with a 100 degree LNA, and feeding an AVCOM 28

receiver. the oerformance of the EC1 1 1 ioot antenna system was plus

or minus 0.5 dB with the Paracl ipse 12 foot mesh antenna, and i taveraged nearly 1.0 dB more gain than our Harris 10 foot Delta Gainreference antenna. That puts the ECI antenna in the top performanceclass.

The .3 f/D design, if Mr. Seavey has done his homework correctlywith his optimized .3 f/D feed system, shquld be exceptional as you getlower and lowertowards lhe horizon. By designing the dish and feed toreject terrestrial interference arriving at the dish from terrestrial

* - Antenna tests are conducted using known LNA and receiverelectronics. Inside the United States, where footprints are more evenand signal levels higher, it is difficult or impossible to properly assesssystem performance without a long and drawn out'test range' proce-dure. That is not true in the fringe areas, such as the Turks and Caicos,where even .2 dB changes in system performance, on selectedtransponders which ride close to or just below threshold on normal1 1 -13 foot antennas, can easily be identified even without test equip-menI.

** - The 'Starchaser' drive and controller, although not broughtdown lor a ful l review, merit some discussion. The unit set up properly,accepted an 'emergency' extension of 40 feet of cable without hiccup-ping, and stayed operational after set-up. The instruction sheet leavessomething to be desired, however, since it apparently refers to anearlier version controller with a different panel configuration. lt is nowin dai ly operation close to the Caribbean, on the beach, and the realproof wi l l be how well , and how long, i t continues to function. We'l lrevisit it in 90 davs or so.

o o

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Volume contro l can be reassigned to contro l polar i ty skew wi thopt ional Polarotor 1 c i rcui t board.

By connecting our MSS mount control to your Drake you ob_tain all the infrared control functions l istej above, plus theadded convenience of wireless motor drive control. Thissystem offers all the control you need to change satell i tes,channels, and polar i ty f rom your easy chai r .

Vector Systems offers a wide range of actuators from Saginawand Bur engineering. All conversions come *itt .rry to followinstructions and diagrams.

Contact any of the Distr ibutors l is ted below:

TNTERNATTONAL VTDEO;L i t t t e Rock , AR ; 501_771_2800E C H O S P H E R E ; E n g t e w o o d , C O ; 8 O O _ 5 2 1 _ 9 ; g ; ' 'NATI oNA L sATE i L I TE; Latham, r\ i; sdo-_6is -a+asH E R_o_coIvtMUN I CAT| oNS; H ia I ea fL, i i; sordeili zos14! glgryAv E E N rE R rAr N M e nr rJ doo " e, ir-c idoo"_qs e_ooq+SATTRON; st i i lwater , OK;405-37i_3si r

' ' - ' - - -

I4IUAR TECHNOLOGIES; Bernardsvitte, NJ; 201-766_4408MU-LTIVtStON; Oa kridse, rt\; SOO-SSr _3ObdVf A CABLE; lngram, Tl; 512-367_5741OUAR L ES E LECTR lC; Greenwood, SC; 803_229-3638

Vector Systems Infrared Circuit Board

I'

il

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.Drake is a t rademark of R. L. Drake. Inc.

As a new entrant in the'already overloaded antenna supply field'the ECI 11 footer is a good start towards optimized performance' Inparticular, the antenna should be appealing to those who have tomake rooftop mounts, or those who have uncommon amounts ofterrestrial interference in the area. In areas such as the northeast'where low look angles are often married to high terrestrial problems'

the ECI 11 footer should be a very viable antennaDistribution. ECI currently has something ol a distribution prob-

lem. The antenna was original ly to be otfered through a single' nation-

al distributor. lt was the distributor who was packaging the antennawith the leed from Seavey. That may, or maynot, be the way it is as thisappears in print. Regardless of how it is done, the antenna without a

special .3 f /D feed is nothing special and therefore buyers are

cautioned about buying the dish alone'Packaging. While we were testing the antenna, we had a tele-

phone cal l from a chap on Grand Cayman lsland.who had beenadvised that some testing was going on He was hoping that theantenna would be the'equivi lent of a 16 footer ' ; something he hadbeen told by a person other than Walter Grebis. We told him that was

not the case. Shipping ol the antenna is something that needs someadditional work. Since you have 8 pre-assembled segments to the

antenna, and they are in their portion of a parabolic curve, you can't

simply ship the parts knocked down/laid down 'flat" This meanstheie' is a sizeable container, although a l ight container, involved l t

won't go UPS, and that puts it into the truck system. Air-freight' to

loreign-dist inations, wi l l be a'cube' pricing situation since the size olthe c-ontainer will exceed the weight classification. When you add to

this the intended South River mount, you may have a pretty substan-tial freight bill betore you get all done. lf you worry abour such things'

vou are advised to check on what the costs will be before you have the

SATELLITE DICEST

*"fu

MOUNT.is galvanized, hardware is 'stainless steel. ' The t imeclock is running, barely 75 leet from the ocean beach.

antenna shipped.ECI/ Engineered Communications, Inc. (7-B Jules Lane, New

Brunswick, N.J. 08901 ; 201/828-5009) has an excel lent performing1 1 foot antenna system with one approach to getting the best of bothworlds;antenna pattern, plus, antenna gain. l t wi l l be interesting to seeif others also follow into the .3tlD area, and just where this leads us asan industry towards better control of antenna sidelobes and ultimately'perhaps, fewer worries with close spaced birds or terrestrial interfer-ence.

PAGE 48/CSD/7.83

,/

PROVOMAY 21st

MORE Than An AntennaHard on the heels of the ECI antenna tests over the weekend of

May 14th came George Jones of the Coniler Corporation with theirlatest antenna; a 1 2 foot dish that arrives in a sizeable shipping carton.Inside the carton are 16 dish panels, a mount, various pieces ofstructural hardware, a 4 inch chunk of pipe and the motor drivemechanics.

What we did not realize when we initially talked with Georgeconcerning the antenna, in Las Vegas, was that Conifer has, l ike manyothers, adopted the 'package concept'; that is, they are now into thecomplete package that includes every nul and bolt, every piece ofwire, even the Coax Seal you need to secure the installation againstthe weather. In other words, i f you are a dealer, you can order the 12foot system from Conifer and then sit back and wait for its arrival.There is no chasing around for cables, modulators, drives, or even aninclinometer (one comes with each antenna package!).

People have been packaging equipment, at the distributor level,lor a year or more. However, other than the recently announcedIntersat lQ-160 system (which includes everything but an LNA), thiswould appear to be the first time that so complete a dealer-readysystem has been packaged. That's nice, but as we shall see, there are

CONIFER's 12FOOTER

warnings here as well .Jones is no stranger to the TVRO field. We first met George at a

Chicago CES show back in the late spring of 1980. He was trying toget a new company off the ground at the time. He wanted to package acomplete TVRO system, down to the last nut and bolt, and he wantedto back it up with a national marketing program. George was aboul ayear too early, and it took National Microtech to finally get that type ofindustry distr ibution off the ground and running. In the interim he hasbeen trying to sellothers on his concept, and for the past two years orso he has been working with the Conifer people in Burlington, lowa.

Conifer, other than being an advertiser in CSD, may not be familiarto everyone. A l i t t le background is in order. Conifer is a 'spin off 'ofWinegard. Everybody knows about Winegard; they are the people inlowa who have been bui lding home television and FM antennas,amplifiers and accessories for some 30 years or so. John Winegardfirst appeared on the front cover of a Coop publication in 1960; at thetime he had just introduced the f irst all transistorized antenna mountedVHF signal boosterthat was married to a deep fringe TV (FM) antennasystem. Conifer has close business ties to Winegard, and John's son

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CONIFER/ continues Page 57

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SATELLITE DICESTCONIFER/ continued from page 48

Randy is the topman at conifer. rt may confuse some to rearn this, butWinegard and Conifer actuaily compete "g"l;ai;;" another inmany segments of the TV and FM marketplace. lf that seems like astrange way to operate two closely related companies, well, you,llhave to talk with Randy or John Winegard about'that one.

uontter is in the STV and MDS hardware business; they are alsointo some contract work in the microwave region. Cine assumes,although it has been more than a decade since ie visiieO Burlington,that there is a decent technology base there.

What George Jones has brought to Conifer is an extremety keen:9Ti9 9J marketing. Because Jones tried to start his own nationalTVRO distribution business in 19g0, and failed, he hai aoour as mucfiexperience as anyone in this field to draw upon. Georoe is the kind ot9yL yhg is qui.ck to recognize whar is good about a joncept, and toproilr wnen he finds out something is not so good. He doesn,istand onceremony. There was no ceremony when h! donned a pair of shortsand a T shirt and dug into the carton with our Turks and Caicosantenna assembly crew to get their 12 foot system operational.

We selected a site away from the traditional WIV'locations. Thepresent'Grace Bay', or WIV studio complex location, is frankly, over_run with antennas. The Cooper house is nearby, and long term we,dl ike to keep the location as a'home'and not attow it to become an outof control antenna test range. There are five operational dishes at thatsrte now and that's it; we may change the composition of the five fromtime to time, but not the total num5er on site. Wnen we openeo tneWIV 'Tower Plaza' broadcast centre (that's English for centerl) lastNovember, we started off with three antennas dn site. tnat seemedlike an adequate number to pull in the three oft_saiettite servtces wewerep,lanning lo.carry (f rom three different birds) on the then-plannedrour channels of over-the-air television. Well, there are now sevenantennas at that site and two more on the way. We have beenpromised the opportunity to install and test a7.7 meter anrenna ratetnrs summer, and by leaving room for that monster, the ,Tower plaza,srte rs now, atso, full. Someone down recently remarked that it had allof the earmarks of a 'structured' (as in reasonabty wilif lanneol SfTltrade show.

_ ̂ Allof this is by way of explanation. We elected to ,stick,the Conifer

rz root antenna at the private home of a local resident. That sounds1i:,::19 l".ky-panky so once again, since those who may besenorng antennas down in the future will face the same situation,some explanation.

On Provo, we have an excellent medical clinic. The clinic is run bya group of doctors from the US who have their own ,thing'going.

Theclinic is staffed, full time, by one or two doctors. The doctbrs, and theirIamrtres, come down for from two weeks to a month, stay in a nicehome.owned by the clinic, and dispense meOicaf itteniion. Charges atthe clinic, to white and black alike, are very low.

- -

To keep this first rate medical facility operating, since the chargesare low, the clinic has a constant, on-gbing funO

"Orive. iocal peo[le,

including the Coopers, donate items ivhic"n can be ,auctioned off, to

AFTER the framework is in place, the screened panel sectionsare installed. You connect them together in pairs (eight sets oitwo) and then install the eight pairJto the frime.

the highest bidders. All of the money from the auctioned off goodsstays with the clinic. The.clinic, by ihe way, is IRS tax exeript (aso-called 501-C3 corporation).so when youdonate something, youcan (if you so desire) subtract the cost of [hat donation from yor", d.S.Income tax.

What does this have to do with satelliteTv? l,m atmost there.We decided to donate the. Conifer package to the ,clinic,; and they

auctioned it off and raised a decent four figuie number. I neglected totell Conifer this in advance, grl !h-"t won'i stop them lrom iit<ing tne'donation

they made'off their 1993 corporate income tax if the-y sowish..The guy who was high bidder on this terminal sysrem, by theway, is a retired corporate Vp from Borg_Warner so itJound a ooodnome.

,,^"Y:11^9jtg future.sy.stems sent down for evatuation are gorng tonno an utttmate home in this manner. Again, we spell this outlerjso

lhat those sending them can perhaps b6 persuaded that their systemen-ds_up doing some really nice things foi humanity in the process ofwrndtng tts way into these pages.

The morning of May 21st d-awned bright and clear and Jones wasreaoy to go to work. The spot selected was some 100 feet from theocean, buried behind some local vegetation. The run Into the housewould be just under 150 feet and before we got down, we,d carry thecontrol cables inside in some buried pVC. Gelorge assures us that thespeciar cabre (more on that rater) wiil probabry"withstand direct bur-rial, although he admits it is not so rated by Be'lden. We prefer to puteverything in PVC down here since we have some very small, andvery nasty little creatures called ,wire weevils' that love to chew upburied cables.

Conifer's mount is a reasonably well protected (from rust) 4 inchpost. The post matches the, rest of ih.e anienna .Vit"r, and atthoughours.is white you have a choice of four decorat6i .olor..._- ]lg

royn, qnd the pivot tube, ptus the etev"iion f ".X, azimuth jackoracket and motorized jack all go onto the post. As you go along youare building a back 'frame' for the 16 panel sections. The ,hub,-con_sists ot a 16 inch disc and 8 ribs. -When you get tne;into position, youhave a frame onto which you will sliae anO"noit Oo*n'm" t6 screenmesh Danels.

_ Before you begin installing th,e screen mesh panels, you pair them

:P_!.1'1"., by botting toggtl-e1 8 sets of t*o "i.n.-r.ii" you have 8master paner sections to sride into place and bort down toihe t6 inchdisc and 8 ribs.There has been a considerable amount ol written material of late

9ol9erJ'rng. the tong rerm integriry of the finished dish product. inparticular, there has been concern ihat by uslng Oii-ii;;tar metals andby.not selecting materials which will r".i.r rrii"nJ.orro.,on, "".hanterlna becomes a sort of ,time bomb,, slowly clicking away Into acollapsed state. We, theretore, pay particular attention to antenna!ar, qd the way they are finishe-d. Now almost everytning looksgreat when it comes out of the factory box. Or at leastlt should. The

PAGE 57/CSD/7-83

i,,i \

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|V,Sifl:i:a mounting pipe in concrere, the framework is assem-

PAGE 58/CSD/7.83 SATELLITE DICES

".^:t.i.r-*" S.{DO

Conifer 12 loot system was no different; bright white, no rust, pristineand clean. But, the expanded-extruded screen mesh is attacheddirectly to the aluminum frame or panel sections with some smallfasteners. How long will they hold up?

Jones. "We were very much concerned about this, even be'tore CSD began drawing people's attention to the possiblecauses ol antenna failure. I believe we have a process which willnot allow the metals to rust or corrode. Thee is a very specialcoating, and we have a test report available for anyone whowants io see it, that covers the entire antenna surface. In particu'lar. the fasteners that hold the screen mesh in place are doublecoated".

Half joking, he would later remark " l hope we don't see thisantenna on the front cover of CSD in two years, all rusted and fallingapart!". Still later, he would again half-joke with local antenna installerPeter Stubbs "How about if I leave behind four gallons of paint, andevery month or so you pop over here and touch it up . ' . just in case."

Antenna degradation continues to be a particularily troublesomeproblem. At least CSD has the attention oJ manufacturers on thasrssue.

The individual panel sections, all 1 6 of them, weigh in at just about4.5 pounds each. Two, bolted together, are still under ten pounds withhardware. The hardware sent down did not happen to be stainless.We chided Jones about that, and he promised to send us down astainless steel kit when he returned to Burlington. Of course substitut-ing stainless hardware over the full antenna would require pulling thefull antenna apart, and starting all over again. At Conifer the stainlesssteel 'option'is but a paltry $35, and anyone involved in installing suchan antenna within 25 miles of a seacoast, in a particularily dampclimate, or within the 'overflow' of an industrial city such as Pittsburgwould be well advised to start off with stainless hardware.

The 8 panel-pairs go onto the back frame in about 45 minutes timewith two people working on it. We had four, and they kept stumblingover each other. We found the panels to fit or align to the holes on theback frame with no particular problems, but in complete frankness theantenna does not have the'precision engineering'and supert ighttolerances which characterized the previously-reviewed ECI 11 foo-ter. The real proof would be the performance, and that was ahead.

The teed supports on a tigure 7 or button hook ofJset support thatcomes out of the center of the dish. There are three sets of 'guys' toanchor the feed firmly in place. We'll talk about them shortly.

CSD apparently received an early production model of the system.Jones pointed out that in the units now being shipped, the polarizationrotation control wires and the RG-213 cable that connects the LNA tothe down converter feed back to the down converter through thesupport pipe of the feed. Somebody lorgot to allow sufficient room onthe inner diameter of the support pipe for the bulky type N connector toslide through the support tube on our antenna, so.we taped the pair ofwires back down the leed support on the outside. Not a big deal, and it

,ff?

FIGURE 7, or'button hook'as some call it, feed support system ispre-engineered lor proper focal distance. Coaxial cable, polar'ization control wires go down inside of feed support (rather thanon outside) on current production models.

, . ' ' . , s

llfY

shows ihat Conifer is still learning about their product.The feed is anchored to the 16 inch metal disc in the center of the

antenna in such a way that the installer has no real adjustments tomake; at leasl not 'in' and 'out' lor focal length. The theory here is thatthe dish cannot be assembled improperly, so therefore the dish'sdepth will always be exactly as designed. lf this is true' then the tocalpoint will, also, always be precisely where the factory calculated itshould be and they will back this up by supplying a non-adiustablefeed and LNA support system.

What you do have to play with are the three guys that tie the feed tothe outer perimeter of the dish. Since you are approximately 5 teet(56") in front of the center of the dish with the working end of the teedmast assembly, there is some'leverage'there' When the dish is atrelatively low look angles (F3R here is under 20 degrees)' the weightof the L'NIA plus the feed is such that there certainly can be a slight'droop' of the end of the feed, towards the ground. Keeping the centerof the feed aligned with the center of the dish is always a challenge atlow look angles with feeds of this sort. Most firms that have thisproblem prefer to 'guy otl'the feed end of the assembly, back to thedish perimeter. Conifer is no exception' We'll return to this shortly.

The downconverter installs in its own 'splashproof housing'; ametal container that straps to the 4 inch support pipe at the rear of theantenna. Into the downconverter plug the 213 cable carrying the LNAsignal (and sending power to the LNA), and the Polarotor (l) three wirecontrol cable. Now here is where Conifer has done a clever and muchneeded thing.

They supply a cable harness that plugs you into the master interconnection wiring inside of the splash proof housing. The harness isdesigned for two purposes; to get you into the master cable that willcarry you to the receiver location inside, and, also allow you to movethe receiver proper to the dish itself, and simply'plug in' so that youhave all of the system controls and tuning knobs right there at the dishfor initial alignment; or, later test.

lf you have ever fought with making up special cables or wonderedhow in the world you were going to come back later and 'test a dish', althe dish, after you had the receiver inside and the control cables runinside, this is the answer. In other fields, they call this 'break-out

cabling' which simply means that you really have two places that thereceiver can be connected even after the installation is completed;inside, where normal viewing takes place, and outside, at the dish' iJthere is a need for being at the dish for tests.

Plugged into the break-out cable and doing the initial system setup, we received a visitor; former SPACE President Tom Humphriesambled by to see what the performance was' Since we had just

completed initial, rough, F4 to F3R tracking adjustments there werethe usual (and appropriate) "ooohs" and "ahhhs" as Humphrieswalked up.

"The feed is off center" he suggested' Jones wondered how thatcould be. "You can see it" pointed out Humphries' "look here". Well, aTom Humphries might see it but George Jones did not. "Let's put atape on it" suggested Humphries. They did, and sure enough' acrossa i2 foot surface there was a 3/8th inch error. Jones scratched hishead, since the only way to adjust the feed position was to tighten onone front turnbuckle and loosen up another. None had been placed on

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o DEALER pRtCE: $39SSC24 BLOCK DOWNCONVERTER

o Mounts Directly to LNA. Downconverts all satellite

channels simultaneouslv UHF. Patents Pending. DEALER PRICE: $150

PAGE 60/csD/7-83 SATELLITE DICESTaDO

the dish at that point, and thb 'off' direction had nothing to do with feed"droop".-

ifiirty minutes later, after putting on, tightening up, backing-otf'

and then taking off the guys, it was clear that adding the front guys and

uiing tne turnduckles ia's not the answer. You could center the feed'

precisely, alright. But in the process you lost signal rather then gaining

it. How come?The feed support assembly/mast had been released from the

factory with just a slight 'cant' to it. ln other words, it was not precisely

straight. When you forced it to be straight with the guys.and turnbuck-le, you were actually only forcing the end of it to center. In the process'you were also twisting the direction which the Scalar feed pointed, andyou ended up with the front of the Scalar no longertotally parallel, andiherefore looking directly towards, the center of the dish surface'

The best fieid solution to this problem, on a sand dune in themiddle of the Caribbean, seemed to be to take the figure T leed otl thedish, try to measure and locate where the welding had deviatedsutficiently to cause this slight problem, and then try to lorce the piece

back into i 'olub line' with a couple of car jacks. We talked about it for afew minutes and then decided getting a cold beer seemed moreimportant so we called it a daY.

Although we had good quality pictures when we.knocked off for

Saturday,lones felt we could tweek some more and do better so areoeat visit to the sand dune installed antenna was scheduled lor

Sunday afternoon. As luck would have it, a series of rain showersgreeted George and Coop as they pulled up to the site' For the nexttwo hours, hiding under a large chunk of cardboard that had oncebeen a shippingiontainer lor a 12 foot dish, the dish was checked,adjusted lor tracking, and checked again (and again). The slightlyotf-center-pointing feed problem was ignored since the dawn of a newday produced more rationale thoughts about the wisdom of trying tocorrect a 3/8" enor at the end of a 57 inch piece of pipe with two carjacks.'

The Conifer receiver package is an unusual one. lt has just enoughbells and whistles to move it into the big leagues' but not nearly somany as say the lQ-160 from Intersat. Jones on bells and whistles'"We will have three different models when the line is complete;onethat is lowend priced, thisone in the middle, and anotheronewith infra-red control and all of the gadgets."

This one has enough gadgets tor most people'1) The motorized jack-screw drive is operated by a control on the

lront panel of the receiver. The control is calibrated with num-bers and it will, after antenna set-up, have a number thatcorresoonds to each satellite location. For example, 10 mightbe F3R while 45 might be W4. To change satellites you turn theknob lrom where you are to where you want to be. That startsthe dish moving and when it arrives at the newly dialed-innumber, the dish movement stops.

2) There are a pair of 'pre-set' push buttons thatJunction with this'Using a set once and torget pot on the rear of the receiver, you

match up say F3R on one of the two front panel buttons' andperhaps F4 on the other button. Now, to select either of thoseiwo satellites, you simply push the appropriate button and offgoes the dish to the pre-set position. For the balance, you usethe main dish movement control.

The two pre-sets are potentiometer set. Pots. The unit set up just

fine and seemed to work flawlessly whenever you wanted to go backto the pre-set positions. However, pots have a way of being trouble-some when there are power glitches, or when you are in a mo'stclimate. We'll have to re-visit this trom time to time to see how theyhold up in the real world.

The single knob control that selects all of the satellite positions

does not have a companion digital or other fancy electronic readout'You read the satellite's position off the calibration marks silk screenedaround the knob's rotation center. We found the mechanical 'fine

tuning'of that control very sensitive. You can always put the dish at astop position that corresponds to the maximum indicated signalstrengtn on the meter, or the best looking picture. But, you have totake iome care with man handling the knob since iust a slight click-click advancement of the knob results in a sizeable movement out atthe dish. A two-speed control, one that moves the dish fast for bigmoves, and one that moves the dish a 1/10th speed or so for finetuning, might not be a bad idea for the little old lady in Dubuque with

DODGING rain showers, Jones spent an extra hour on March22ndby himself playing with the dish. "l can't get over how strongsome of the signals are down here" he noted.

arthritic fingers.

The audio has a pre-set 6.2 and a pre-set 6.8 pair of push buttons'plus a fully tuneable audio sub-carrier control. Everything works finehere, but as George found out there are really some situations where itis nice to have both 'wide band'audio and 'narrow band' audio (such

as found on the AVCOM COM2, for example). You will have somedifliculty properly tuning in the 'narrow-band-FM' sub-carriers onWcN's'transponder 3 ol F3R, for example, with the wide-only audiorecovery bandwidth provided.

The RC-2001 receiver/downconverter package has an auxiliarybutton on the front panel. This is an'expansion'switch that allows theuser to do addition switching of whatever he might wish' In our case'we wanted to be able to switch the AFC on and off ; so we could forcethe receiver to stay where the tuning knob was set, and not allow thereceiver's automaiic f requency control circuits to drag us unwillingly toan adjacent transponder, lor example. This is how our switch waswired.

On the back of the receiver are a pair of pots that allow you totweek on the Polarotor | 'pre-set' positions. As most readers realize''vertical' is never really vertical and 'horizontal' is never really horizon-tal, unless the satellite is absolutely due south of you. This meansthat as you track across the sky you have a slight change in theappareni position of both vertical and horizontal slgnals, as they aniveai your antenna. The polarization change lron F3R to F4' for some-boiy in the Caribbean or southeastern USA, is on the order of 20degiees. That's enough so that if you set the 'vertical' or'horizontal'alignment on one end (F3R) or the other (F4), by the time you get thedis-l'r to the opposite end from the end where you set it up, you will nolonger have proper'cross pole isolation' (i'e, you'll see some horizon-tal signal in the vertical position, and vice versa)'

Since the approach of the RC-2001 is to make the system asautomatic as oossible, the intent of these pots is to allow the dealer to

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PAGE 62|CSD/7-83 SATELLITE DICESTdo proper'polarization alignment' at the time of installation, and thenthe customer never has to worry about such things. He simply hitsvertical ('V') or horizontal ('H') on the front of his receiver and tunes inthe service he wishes.

ln the real world, as opposed to the engineering lab where thisconcept was created, you have little nuances to contend with' Forexample, when you are far to the east of the active orbit belt' as theCaribbean and Florida are, and you have a highly desireable satellitesuch as F3R at the very end of the belt from you, you don't really wantto'compromise' the vertical/horizontal polarity settings of the systemin the middle (such as on W4). l f you elect to do this in the mid west ' oron the west coast, no problem. The signals are strong, and moreimportant, the birds are pretty well spaced across the sky for you sothe tracking stays quite true. Not so when everything is west of you.

We eleited io set the controls up on W4 initially, aware of course ofwhat the potential problem would be. Then we checked F4 and F3R' atthe opposite ends. Sure enough, there was some cross pole'crud'onboth sides, but in particular on F3R where you have such diversesignal levels adjacent to one another. TR6 (WTBS)' for example' isweak down here. TR7 (ESPN) is very strong. lf your polarization skewis slightly off, and you are on horizontal and trying to watch WTBS,you't t gei some ESPN 'bleed through' which shows up as addit ionaldegradation on top of the already noisy WTBS signal. Not good

We pointed this out to Jones."lt looks like we need to put a fine tuning control, on the front

panel where the user can fine adiust the polarization" Georgesuggested. We further suggested that the control have a push buttonthal activated the fine tuning, and a pull out position which automati-cally returned the polarization skew to the pre-set location. "ln thatway, then, they could always return to the dealer pre'set polariza't ion posit ion?-' . That 's i t , George. l f you simply gave the customer 20degrees of play on the front, he'd forget all about it from day to day andthe poor dealer would get ' trouble cal ls 'on his telephone because theguy forgot and left it skewed all the way one way, or the other, and thenwent to the oooosile end of the orbit belt.

The receiver has a wide range of user controls and plugs and jacks

on the rear apron. The lF gain (which also changes the signal metersensit ivi ty) is there; RF output on VHF channels 3 or 4 is there. So areaudio and video putputs to drive an external modulator ' a tape deck, ora big screen projection set with baseband signals. There is also a jack

to plug in an external tuning meter, so you can use one of the $50Radio Shack three or four digit VOMs to do some real ly precisetweeking on the dish.

It was refreshing to see a package so complete that even a plastictuning tool to al low the instal ler to set the back panel pots is included!In fact, Jones is to be congratulated to spending lots of time talkingwith dealers and finding out what their objections and problems arewith exist ing'packages'. l t shows. There is a rubber'bel lows boot 'withstainless steel clamps that allows you to cover over the entire motordriven screw jack. This will keep sand, dust, water and pollutants off ofthe screw jack and out of the guts of the jack. Since jack screws areknown for their failure rate, anything somebody does to keep themrunning longer has to be a good step.Performance

Humphries said it first. "What is it? The antenna, or' the electro'nics? Those are awfully good pictures ior a 12 foot antenna!"After the initial tweeking, the first transponder that leaped above itsnormal noise level on us was TR21 of F3R; The Weather Channel.When TWC goes to that Jlat blue screen that allows local cablesystems to insert their own local announcements, you can always seesome white or black ' f lecks' on the f lat blue background. Noise.

Not on the Conifer system.The electronics we put into use was a 100 degree LNA; a Drake

1 00 degree LNA. The data sheet showed it was between 92 and 87degrees with the usual dip in the center. That's good, but far f rom goodenough to account for the clean Weather Channel. Next we flippedover to WTBS on the horizontal side. lt is our weakest carrier level oial l of the F3R signals down here. Hummm. Not so hot.

After the f inal two hour tweeking session, here is the bottom line forthis oarticular Conifer 12 foot installation.

1) The system works right in there with the Paraclipse. On sometransponders, on some birds, it is a superior system. On otherlransponders, on some birds, it is an equal system. And, on yet

other transponders, it is not up to the Paraclipse. This biggestanamoly we saw was that the vertical signals on F3R were inthe'better than'class, while the horizontals were in the'worsethan' class.

Yes, we wondered about both the slightly off-centered feed, and'we wondered about the integrity of the Polarotor l. We've had a coupleof Polarotor I products down here in recent months which had a'polarization isolation' anamoly; one that always cleared itself up whenwe changed out the Polarotor units. We tried that with this system andfound no change.

Because this is a system, you have a more difficult time doing astandard Provo test range cross check. We did go back subsequent-ly and remove all ot the Conifer supplied electronics and subsitute ourown reference set of electronics. The same patterns we saw with theConifer electronics repeated, which indicated what we were seeingwas related to the dish surface, and integrity. That answered Hum-phries' question, anyhow. The performance we were seeing waslargely in the antenna. Simply put, i t has good gain.

2) The unit we received had a certain amount of 'sloppiness inthe manual elevation jack and bracket. Jones told us it wouldbefore we began the installation, and promised that new pro-duction tolerances plus some brass bushings had been addedto the current production units.

That 's good since i t took holding your nose just r ight to make theelevation offset and elevation primary adjustments properly. Some-one using the same antenna we had, with very little prior satelliteexperience, would have had a troublesome time getting the elevationset properly so the dish would appropriately track across the arc.

3) As really neat as the 'everything in one box' and 'everything

tied together with one master cable harness'concept is for thedealer (simply because when you order a Conifer system' youcan forget all about the system and its parts until it arrives;everylhing wil l be in one box), we wonder what wil l happenwhen there are partial system failures'

Suppose the motor drive portion electronics board goes bad?Does the dealer go in and pick up the full receiver (thereby putting thecustomer out of service)? Jones thought about this and decided lhat adealer educational program, teaching how individual inside-olboxboards can be l ield changed out (swapped for new boards), might be agood idea. Having everything in one package is good only if you canseparale what's inside of the package to repair an individual f unction.Lacking that, you'll not be happy when you have to return the entirebox to the Jactory simply because the polarization rotation portion quitSummary

From an industry that forced the dealer to go to a dozen sources orso to round up all of the parts required to make an installation, to acomplete package from one source, with one manufacturer totallyresponsible for every part of that package, is a heap of growing up in afew short years.

lf the manufacturers, such as Confier, who follow this path can get

a decent handle on equipment rel iabi l i ty; i f they can cure the bugs thatare bound to creep into any new system early enough that the dealerswho want to see a package like this work and work well don't getturned off the concept, before it proves itself . . . well, it's a possiblemaior contender for dealer attention.

rffi]Hl6#kKMODEL EFH-7s.I

(HrGH-GAIN)

I O f f e r s s u P e r i o rp e r f o r m a n c e o v e rstandard feeds on anY"deep" dish I Precisionmach ined wavegu idefor High Gain charac-terist ics I Descendingchoke plate design forimproved interferenceblockage I Precision

servo motor operation I Epoxy painted casting forhigfiweather resistance I Angle adaptor for LNA/LNCmounting versati l i ty I Mounting hardware andinstruction manual i ncluded

MODEL EFH-75 I I(HIGH GAIN)

..-< IDesigned for exceP-\ , . lJ t ional oerformance on4,

"oeep' curve orsnes ri1,'" . High gain waveguide

and choke plate for re-duced interference andbetter picture quali ty IFull 3600 rotation IP o w e r f u I w e a t h e r -resistant DC motor fortrouble-free operation

I Epoxy painted surfaces resist corrosion I VersatileLNA angle mounting bracket included I l l lustratedinstruction blooket included

MODELEFH-75-l l l(HrGH GAIN)

fo r i ns tan t po la r ichange I H ighfeedhorn design im-proves performance

deep dishes I Precision-machined waveguide forostanding results. t LNA angle adaptor includedHardware and mounting instructions includedAvailable with control and cable

MODELEFH-75-l

@:t r,:e:t:^i:l:i :Yt?:for fast Precise Polarityselection I Precision die

casting and str ict Q.C. assurehigh per formance and min imalinsert ion loss I EPoxY Painted

casting provides superior weatherresistance I Angle adaptor included

for LNA/LNC mounting versati l i tyI Mounting hardware and instruction

manual included I Available with StandardControl or Push Button/Automatic Receiver

Triggered Control I lncludes 130 ft. of factory-terminated cable when ordered with control.

MODELEFH-75-l l

I Full 3600 Probemovement el iminates need forrotational al ignment of casting

I Precision die cast feedhorn insureshigh performance I Low insert ion loss

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casting resists corrosion I Angle bracket for versati leLNA mounting I l l lustrated step-by-step instructions

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MODELEFH-75-l l l

I High speed solenoidoperation for instantpolarity change I Lowloss characteristics IFully sealed for exceP-tional weather resistanceI Precision die castingand str ict Q.C. Proce-dures insure maximum

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polar i ty select ion I Advance choke plate designfor reduced interference I Minimal insert ion lols

I High gain precision-machined waveguideI Full 1800 rotatiod I polarizer plated for high weatherresistance I Adjustable cast ing I Mount ing hardware andinstruct ions included I Avai lable with control and cable

MODELEFH.9O.PO

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Precision cast ing and workmanshipI Ferr i te design el iminates moving

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strip for fast and easy connection I Full .1g00 rotation tOperates with standard DC voltage supplied by mostreceivers I Plated for superior corrosion resistance

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I Precise 900 offset for optimum performance on vertical andhorizontal transponders I Epoxy painte} aluminumcastings for high weather resistance I All mountinghardware included

MODELEFH.9O

POLARTZER

I Min imal inser t ion lossfor outstanding p ic ture

qual i ty I INSTANT potar i tyselect ion I Ful l 180" rotat ionI Operates wi th s tandard DC

vol tage suppl ied by most receiversI Adjustable casting for easy and

exact a l ignment I Polar izer p latedfor super ior envi ronmental res is tance

I Smal l s ize a l lows insta l la t ion versat i l i tyInc ludes a l l necessary mount ing hardware and insta l la t ion

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MODEL EFH.gO CONTROL

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r For use with servomotor feedhorns r On -Off oower switch r LEDp o w e r i n d i c a t o r rPushbutton for precise900 polar i ty change tS k e w c o m p e n s a t i o ncontrol for peak pictureon all satellites r Provision for connection to receiversautomat ic odd-even polar i ty change output Icompact body r Operates on '110 VAC

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PROVOMAY 28th

Fortunately for Doug, the first antenna worked and with someg:_s!:stance^from arearby cable operator he found himself watchingHBO, l /TCG and PTL (lhat's about all there was on the bird in thos6

one March night, while the antenna was propped up against aa bed of snow. Polly remembers "Our cables were too short and

had to leave the downconversion part of the ICM receiver out bvdish. Then the downconverter to receiver cable was also too shortwe had to go outside and reach inside a bag to change transpon-rs. The first thing we did lhe next week was stietch the cable so thatcould at least change the channels from inside"!USS has not been a steady supporter of the industry trade shows.'have they been a well promoted company with plenty of trade

islng and brochures and slick handouts. All of that is changingDehnert believes it is lime for the industry to become moreof the quality of their products and the value offered.t 12' (6") Model 380 terminal came down to provo on a freiohtDehnert trucked the terminal to Fort L€uderdale and with6utof crating managed to sweet talk the air freight company Inrothe two half-pieces of fiberlass dish strapped inside the air-

unprotected. He scared them to death about marring it; whenne arrived on Provo the nervous freight agent asked us to ,huny

get this $10,000 antenna otf the plane before somethinoito it.'Dehnert knew how to get the man's attention; he placed

A REAL 12 Footer!Doug Dehnert's United Satellite Systems (Rt. 1, St. Hilaire, Mn.

56754; 218/681-5616) is one of the old l ine, established firms sup-plying small aperture TVRO antennas from the far northern oortion ofMinnesota. Doug got into the design and manufacture of TVRO fiber-glass antenna because he, like so many of the early pioneers, wantedto watch television. St. Hilaire is so located that oerhaos there is asingle channel of off-air reception, a percentage of the time.

Dehnert's background is primarily mechanical; he spent approx-imately a decade with a Minnesota firm called ,Arctic Enterprises'which was very big in the manufacture of outdoor motorized sportingequipment, such as snow mobiles and water bikes. During his tenurewith Arctic Dehnert found himself acting as primary liaison executivewith the many off-shore (Japanese) suppliers for Arctic, and he re-counts that during that decade he spent as much as 200 plus days peryear in Japan tending to those liaison duties._ Many of the Arctic pieces used fiberglass in their manufacture.This served as a 'school' for Dehnert sinCe some of those fiberqlasspieces were treated to very difficult environments; the front ,skiipor-tion of a water bike, for example, or the body of a snow mobile, get areal pounding from mother nature.

Doug and wife Polly remember their first satellite dish; a 12 tootaflair which they built from scratch during the winter of 1979 and gO.Minnesota winters are long, and the complete fabrication from scratchof a TVRO dish became their project for that winter. polly recalls thatshe was sure lhat Doug was 'off the deep end on this project'; shecould see no real good coming from the tens of pounds of fiberglassshavings, filings and 'itchy powder' which both would attembt tocleanse from their bodies after spending several hours scraping,sanding, and hacking away at their first dish.

1g

PAGE 67/CSDi7-83

USS's 12FOOTER

UNITED SATELLITE SYSTEMS, Doug Dehnert and 12loot fiber-glass dish at the Provo antenna range,

a 'value' on the shipment which was far above the real value.The Model 380 antenna system consists of a very stout galvanized

steel frame (tripod or three point mounl , a galvanize-d polariiib,tube,'two 'half sections' of fiberglass dish, a tripod mount for the feed plusthe Polarotor feed,and a Dehnert created motor drive and controllersystem. Total weight is nearly 1200 pounds. The heaviest oieces. thetwo halisections of the dish proper, are light enough that two reason-ably strong people can lift them up and carry them around.

Dehnert tells a long string of stories reflecting on where his anten-

i"t,v l," lr

a2 ' l

USS/continues page 68

PAGE 68/csD/7-8r tEE

na systems have been installed in 'untypical' places through theyears. This model, or others (he has then up to 16 feet in size, down toB feet and is working on a 25 footer!), have gone to India, Europe, theCaribbean and elsewhere not in the vocabulary of the typical St.Hilaire resident. One particularly memorable installation, for Dehnert,wenl on the top of a small 12 foot by 1 2 foot elevator shaft, sitting ontop of a 14 story building in downtown New York City. Naturally theelevator shaft was at the very edge of the building and he tells ofhanging out over the street, 15 floors below, to attach and adjust thefeed, on a makeshift set ot 2x4's. Some people will do anything to gettelevision.

Everything about the Model 380 is 'stout.' The dish, the feedsupport system, the mount are all top quality. In an industry whereslight breezes cause other dishes to 'swing and sway,' or drive thefeed into an 'oscillatory pattern,' the USS 12 footer sits there just asrock stable as any commercial grade system offered by any of the bigname manufacturers. In fact, according to Dehnert, there has been abrisk business for USS from cable firms, Reuters' terminal users,SMATV systems and others who are often very quality consciousbefore they are dollar conscious. Dehnert loves to tell you "lt onlycosts a l i t t le more to'do i t r ight ' ." In this case, 'doing i t r ight ' involvesmaking everything far stronger, far stouter, and far more rigid thanperhaps it needs to be for normal home use.

Does that rule out the system for home use? Quite the contrary,according to Dehnert. "We have an excellent group of loyal distribu-tors who have been handling our product for several years. Some, aslar away as California, must really like the product since the motorfreight there is as much as 25/" of the terminal cost alone."

There is of course some logic to what he says. Dehnert may not beinto offering ten year, unlimited warranties for his terminals yet, butthere is certainly a sound argument lor selecting a system that you feelrelatively sure will hold up lor ten years or more, without degradedperformance, when you are out there selling top quality packages.Dehnert admits to liking the counter logic which suggest that other'10-13 foot size antenna ship in far smaller packages, and perhapscost less for transportation. "l wish there was some clever way Icould figure to knock down a mesh type antenna for ease oftransportation, but still be sure that when it went together itwould be stable, sturdy, and hold up for say ten years. Or, evenfive"! lt is Dehnert's view that if you are building a single model of anantenna, in one or more dish sizes, you have to assume that the dishwill be used in some pretty hostile environments. "lf we could all selland install dishes in say the central and lower mid-west, or Arizona, lifewould be far simpler. Unfortunately, many of ours end up buried in tenfeet of snow, or atop a 14 story building. Life is not so kind in thoseenvironments and I have always felt that the dish portion of a systemshould be a one{ime investment."

What does this type of 'stoul quality'cost the dealer, extra? "We

are typically 20 lo 2syomote money, for the same size dish, as thosewho bend metal and stick screen on a frame. But, if our antennas last aminimum of ten years, and a screen dish typically holds up for three to

MOUNT is designed and constructed to commercial specifica-tions and should hold antenna rigid even in a 'big blow.'

five years, the dealer and the custonrer are far better off going with'stout' the first time around; don't you agree"?

AssemblyWe started with a seven foot by seven foot pad, built at the WIV

Tower Plaza location, sandwiched in between an ADM 20 footer and aHanis 10 footer. We should have made the pad just a foot longer andwider to give us additional maneuvering room. We survived on the 7by 7 pad but life would have been easier had it been a tad larger.

The instruction manual provided is THE most complete step bystep manual we have seen for any TVRO antenna sold widely in thehome marketplace. lt is a virtual textbook on site selection, pad or pierpreparation, concrete work, re-enlorcing of the concrete, and ofcourse assembly of the antenna and mount.

The antenna is not difficult to asemble. ldeally, you would lay itdown on its face and bolt the two halves together. Then you would liftit, turning it over in the process, and slide it-plus{he dish cradle ontothe constructed three legged mount. We ran out of flat space to do itthis way, so we suspended the two dish halves on some scrub brushjust west of the pad, and installed the mount plus cradle all at one time.Then we rounded up several people and litted the perhaps 300pounds of surface onto the cradle and mounl. Some of those liftingcould have been 4 inches taller or so, but that was poor planning onour oan.

Getting from bundles ol galvanized pipe and two half antennasections, to a mount with a dish on it required about two man hours.We loafed alot because Dehnert was having some difficulty adjustingto our bright sunshine.

\.-j

i

''1r:,1'

USS has chosen to suspend the feed with a tripod (three legged)type of mount. The finish on the mount is extremely good and themelal work is superior to even what you expect to see on big dollar S/Aantennas and the like. Everything fit together like it was supposed to.None of the hardware is ever likely to rust on us; it is well protected.

We connected up the Polarotor One feed, stuck a 100 degreeAmplica LNA on the feed, and ran the RG-213 cable through to therear of the dish and the downconverter. There we connected up anAVCOM 28 receiver (both the receiver and the LNA had been freshlyremoved from another 12 foot antenna on site, for direct comparisontesling). When we turned on the electronics we were watching F1 at a16.7 degree look angle. Not bad for eyeballing the north-south andpolar axis settings.

And then the fun began. Running the dish, with the USS Motordrive, up to our highest fulltime video bird (F4) we adjusted theelevation (polar axis angle) for best pictures. Then back down to thewest through the belt checking as we went along. Finally on F3R (lookangle 19.4 degrees) we pushed and shoved on the tripod legs until wehad peaked signal. Back and forth to F4 and F3R a few more times,making minute adjustments each time to the polar axis elevation andthe tripod legs, and we had it. Full tracking across the belt.

It quickly became apparent that this 12' (6") antenna was just a tadbetter, all across lhe orbit belt, than any of the other 10h1112 iootantenna we have installed and tested in the past eight months or so.

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What was particulady impressive was that the system was uniformlybetter, from one end of the belt to the other, and not just on selectedtransponder sets (or polarizations), or, a few birds here and there.

Dehnert has been a bug for exactness lor some time. One of thestandard procedures for his antennas is to haul them to southernCalifornia where he engages the services o1 a full blown 'antenna testrange.' He started doing this several years ago, f irst as a way of gettinga better handle on product gain. He knew after a year or two ol trying toevaluate 0.5 to 0.1d8 'dif ferences' in antennas using off-satel l i tesignals that there were too many 'real world' variations in signalservice levels to make repetitive measurements on difJerent antennasover several days time. By the time he swapped the feeds, LNAs andreceivers to insure that he was always using the same electronics, therelative levels of the various transponders being measured wouldchange on him. "That left me with lots of wasted time, trying to refinethe dish surface, the tripod feed mount, and the feed marriage for thatlast fraction of a dB of gain, and/or best control of the sidelobes. Theanswer was obvious; the antennas had to go to a qualified test range.We found one in San Diego."

This puts the USS antennas in a class that few others have to dateattempted to enter. By having full antenna test range measurementson all products, Dehnert knows exactly what to expect from his anten-nas, and he is able to translate that into doing a better job of helpingfield users with say unusual terrestrial interference problems resolvethose problems. "Unless you know where the sidelobes are, howstrong they are, and how you can make small changes in the feedstructure, for example, to shift those sidelobes around, you can't reallyhelp somebody out there solve a problem. We have that data and ithas proven very valuable to us."

Dehnert's Model 380 'gain figures,' from the antenna test rangeresults, are not really out ol line when compared with some of the otherantennas on premises at the WIV test range. His numbers average 0.5to 0.7 dB better, on paper, than those we read lrom the similarly sizedanlennas now here. And that is just about how much addit ional signalwe see, and measure, with his 12' (6") antenna, over others testedrecenlly.

Dehnert on numbers. " l get a kick out of some of the antennas outthere that make wild, and obviously unsupported claims, tor gain andsidelobe control. I hold in my hand a data sheet for a 12 foot antennawhich claims 41.5 dB of gain. That 's possible, I guess, i f you take thegain at the very top end (4,200 MHz or TR24) of the band. But herethey claim 'First Sidelobe 18 dB typical. ' Can you tel l me where theygot a number like that when the antenna has never been on a testrange"?

We looked at the data sheet. lt also suggested that the 3 dBbeamwidth was 1 .5 degrees. A pretty standard number lor a 12 footregion antenna. What i t did not tel l you, even i l the antenna waschecked on an antenna test range, was 'where (reference the mainbeam center point) the 18 dB f irst sidelobe fel l . ' l t might be plus andminus 2 degrees, or i t could be plus or minus 4 degrees. You real ly

, 6

RANGE tesring on ,rluo*,n1,ri". rr,, took ar US and canadianarc with particular interest paid to dish tracking ability and rela-tive signal level from weaker Canadian and US satellites.

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can't tell from the published data."Even before this 2 degree spacing thing came along" sug-

gests Dehnert "l was always concerned about proper control ofthe sidelobes. There were probaby times when I wonderedwhether spending all of that money and time on hauling anten'nas to a San Diego test range was a wise investment. Now I knowit was"!

lf there is a weakness in the system, it would have to be in thecomplete motor drive package, including the controller. The motordrive is low (DC) voltage. That's good; it is a sater approach thanhauling 1 10 VAC out there to the dish and running the r isk of havingsomebody getzapped from the outdoor, exposed, wiring. Our concernis not with the motor drive voltage, nor the motor drive system (wellengineered, nicely finished). Rather it is with the method used to getpower to the motor drive.

To develop motor drive voltage, USS provides an outdoor enclo-sure from the outboard marine world, and a medium sized heavy dutybattery. This means you have a battery, although enclosed and withappropriate pre-made cables, sitting on the pad at the base of theantenna. We question the decision to place a 12 VDC battery outside,even if enclosed. For one thing, there is the potential theft problem.For another, we suspect that the average user will not remember toservice (as in inspect and 'top off') the battery except after a problemdeveloos.

USS is hardly the only one using this appraoch; going way back tothe original SatFinder motor drive home system, there have beenmany olhers with dish-installed battery systems. And there are noreal, viable, alternatives for hauling up to ten amps of DC currentthrough often long cable runs from a similar DC source inside, andprotected. lt you elected to calculate the voltage drop due to the warefor a 100 foot run, you would fairly quickly discover that perhaps 30%of the available power was being 'lost' in the long cable transfer.

We don't really have a better answer than USS's technique but dosuggest to those who see the wisdom in low voltage (DC) motor drivesthat there is still room for improvement in this small region ol 'tech-

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E.T. In South AfricaReference to your article appearing in the March 1983 issue of

CSD, telling about the visit ot the Entertainment Tonight crew toProvo. Well, believe it or not, the feature that E.T. produced as aresult of that visit was broadcast by local television here in SouthAtrica on the evening of May 24th! So your fame, or otherwise, hasspread far and wide; even to South Africa. My impression of theprogramme was that it depicted you and your work in a tavourable light(despite your mis-givings that lhey might not handle it that way, in theMarch issue of CSD). I have been a subscriber to CSD since last yearand I must say how much I enjoy receiving this magazine. lt hashelped me build my own TVRO and I am building a receiver along thelines of Steve Birkill's equipment. Now that AFRTS is on the air withregular US feeds, I am redoubling my efforts to get the system per-fectedl

Harry J. Moir17 Northumberland RoadKensingtonJohannesburg 2094Reoublic ot South Africa

Aww shucks (blush/blush). Shortly after the piece ran' wehappened to be in Fort Lauderdale putting together the Aprilisirie of CSD. We were amazed how many people stopped us instores and shops to say they recognized us and had seen thepiece (the distinctive WIV'T' shirt probably helped). A week later, inLas Vegas, at the STTI show, we were standing in line to board aplane and a small child tugged at his mother's skirts and said"Mommy, that's the man and his son who have that TV station we sawon TV". Hours later while changing planes in Dallas, we were inthe men's room doing what men usually do in the men's rooms,looking at the wall, and the guy in the next 'pillbox' leaned at usand said "You look thinner on TV". I'm not sure what part of us hewas looking at, in the men's room. Fame disappears quicklyhowever, Amonth later in Fort Lauderdale again nobody saidanything at all except "Get out of my way". We wonder if JohnnyCaison carries his own portable potty, or simply has developed ahuge bladder.

NEC What?On May 3rd I received a telephone call from a gentleman offering

to sell me 65 degree N.E.C. "54 dB gain" LNAs tor a very low price, inlots of 10. I ordered 10, and being ol a suspicious nature, I sent acashier's check for 1/3rd the total. The balance was to be COD. NoLNAs. lcalled on May 24lh and was told that N.E.C. could not supply

SATELLITE DICEST

construction techniques, you would be able to install the system andwalk away giving a far longer survival and performance guaranteethan you might with other 'lighter' systems. Frankly, we will be verysurprised if we find a better performing 12 footer anytime soon downhere on the Provo test range. Dehnert and crew are to be congratu-lated for staying with a product long enough to not only work the bugsout, but to also get as close to maximum theoretical performance asanyone is likely to achieve.

the units, and that they would therefore be made 'locally' by thecompany that represented themselves as 'agents'. I told the lady that Iexpected a prompt refund and I was told that 8 weeks would bereouired.

The company's name is lmperial Products Company (2200 PacificCoast Highway, Hermosa Beach, Ca. 90254; 1 -800-821 -8753). For-tunately the loss of the money won't break me, but that put me an theposition of having to scramble to find the LNAs for scheduled systemdeliveries. I must also answer to the many questions that resulted f rommy placing an advertisement in CSD (Page 46, June issue).

Bi l l Mil lerPROMARP.O.Box 22133Tampa, Fl.33622

CSD knows Bill Miller to be an honest, hard working' levelheaded distributor operating out of Florida. lf Bill says this iswhat happened, this is what happened. To those who would besuckered into ordering 'anything' at what seems like a below-market price, from a source that is unknown to you, do somechecking before sending off money. An 800 number is downrightcheap these days and in a week's time a guy could clean up$50,000 or so by simply saying the 'right things' on the telephone.

POOR REFLECTIONS?In reference lo the April issue of CSD. I notice that you have given

quite a bit of space and time to the Paraclipse antenna. How aboutgiving equal space and time to somebody else? As manufacturer oJ,as you call it a'copycat antenna', think for a moment about this. HenryFord created the Ford car and others copied portions and improved onit. Basically, that is what we have done. We took a good idea, andrefined it lurther.

You shouldn't evaluate a product as to construction and means ofassembly when, I feel, you probably do not have a manufacturingbackground.

1) Stainless steel bolts cannot be used with aluminum as elec-trolysis will occur. The same goes for the wire to hold the meshon the surface; Zinc plating is the ideal solution.

2) Being critical of other antennas without first testing on an equalbasis should not be done unless you are prepared to welcomeall manufacturers at the same time.

3) Even il the design resembles another antenna, a person souldlook at the background of the so-called copycat manufacturer;

PAGE 72losDl7-83

Summary-The USS 12' (6") antenna is certainly not for every home installa-

tion. By the time you package the dish and drive and feed, add an LNA'and receiver, you are well past the $21 00 distributor price range, whendealing in ten lots. and you could be a tad higher if you are selectingone of the really fancy receiver systems, such as the USS Maspro line(which we intend to look at here in the coming months). On the otherhand, it is a system that is tweeked 'at the tactory' for maximizedoerformance and because of its stout and well planned design, and

INDUSTRYAT LARGE

CORRESPON DE NCE, NOTES,REBUTTALS AND

. C H A R G E S . . .

CSD provrdes lh ls Indus t ry Forum wr lh lhe ur ) ( le rs landrng lna loprnrons , though ls and lac ls pub l rshed are l rom lhe wr r l . r rs r l ( )l rabr l r ty lo r s ta temenls ex tends lo lhe pub l rshers Address le l le rs loC S D / I n d u s t r v , P O . B o x 1 0 0 8 5 8 , F l L a u ( J e r i l a l e f L . i J J l t )

AT LARGE/continues Page 76

OVER1 000Pages

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EVERYTHING you will ever need to know about the home satellite TVRo system. During the first two years of csD,every topic from antenna measurements to LNA design t.as couereo extensively. There are dozens of features onreceiver design, LNA installation and selection procedures, dozens more on how the satellite sysrem operates, and howit fails' lt 's all here in the new two'column csD ANTHolocV ""* avaitabte for immediate shipment!TRACE the beginnings of the home TVRO industry, from the first raylor Howard and Robert coleman receiver desrgnsthrough today's ultra-modern, sophisticated consumer products. The complex text of the original Arthur c. ctarke'wireless world' article, written in 1945 (!) describing now lso-;1.tionary satellites would be designed and function.Followthe development of programming permission batlles, tnL startlup of spACE, and see howone David Barkerarticlein the June 1980 csD changed for all tlme the mass production of TVRo receivers!

FRoM sun noise outage lo..a tool< at the first private terminal receiver product ever offered for sare (197g!); from the firstexperiments by pioneer oliver swan leading up to the development of the spherical antenna design, to the sleek,sophisticated motor driven spaceage termina-ls.of to.oay. gveryttinglnut ever nappenlJ in ini" young, dynamic industryworth reporting is covered in detair and depth in this i,ooo (prusl"page,Textbook,!

Nowyou havetheful l f i rst twoyearsof csD, atextbookof thewholeindustryonyourbookshelf . yearone(12 issues)is bound together with a 1 ! -q199^torgword bv 'coop' in csD arlridr-ocvlor.re. veai iwo tthe second 12 issues) isbound together as csD ANTHOLoGY/T\io. within tne uniteJbt"t"", either year for $60 or both years for thecombination price of $'100. Outside the USA, either year for $7S, oiLoth years together for-$t 25 (US funds onty). put theindustry's number one textbook, csD, 9n your bookshelf today with this specLl collecto/s series of Anthologies.Y 1 'ooo sETs of this two year dual-volume Anthology were printed. lf you think finding back copies of the monthly,l', i,fl1i:li,illi?i Y:i'^11*:.: 1": !i,.g_il i. l" oi '"'.io"ov [ose rrom their c5D ANrHoLocy after thesupply runs out! To order your copy or copies, turn page bver ano use order form there!

PAGE 74l0sDl7-83

46ISSUESYOUNG

- HERE lS MY ORDER for the complete 1,000 pluspage CSD ANTHOLOGY in two volumes, coveringine tut t f i rst 24 issues of CSD. $'100 in US fundsenclosed (USA only; $125 elsewhere includingCanada, Mexico)

- HERE lS MY ORDER for just Volume One, coveringOctober 1979 through Septembel1980 of CSD' $60in US funds enclosed (USA only; $75 elsewhere tnUS funds).

- HERE 15 MY ORDER for just Volume Two, coveringOctober 1980 through September 198'1 of CSD' $60in US funds enclosed (USA only; $75 elsewhere inUS funds).

THE ORIGINAL 24MONTHS OF CSDI

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Order Anthology from: CSD, P.O. Box 100858, Fort Lauderdale' Fl ' 33310

- ENTER MY 12 MONTH AIRMAIL SUBSCRIPTIONto CSD/ $50 in US funds enclosed (US and USpossessions only). 12 MONTH- FJ;5B,tXo',? UBTJ'll$Tf:l;:'.i3:fl51,'" S U B S C R I P T I O NMexico only).- $i5l,tij; ffiTJ;:3;?lg"'.',5'':fi[:?J';- SATE L Llr E D I G Esrworld).

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PAGE 76/CSD/7.83

AT LARGE/continued ?rom Page 72

you may see that with good engineering and expertise, peoplecan produce an even better antenna.

4) Besides all of this, we feel that regardless of calling our's aSuperior antenna, it is a far superior anlenna and we welcomethe chance to allow CSD to test one.

lwould appreciate your comment on this matter. lfeel I have seenenough ol one organization that sells and manufacturers a meshantenna, and who apparently wish to give out the idea that they are theonly ones who do so.

Richard F. ArbourU.P.Satel l i te Dish Co.Route 2, Box 41Rapid River, Mi.49878

Let's re-state the 'rules' for getting antennas, receivers,LNAs, modulators, f i l ters, cables, brackets, mounts, motordrives, and left handed widgets tested at CSD.

#1) We will gladly perform testing on any product in this field.#21 We don't charge for the testing; we will supply a de-

tailed written analysis of our findings and make sug-gestions for improvement.

#3) We'll stand our testing procedures, and accuracy, againstanyone else in the industry.

#4') BEFORE something is sent down fortest, we must havean understanding;A) lf you are sending it down for test, and wish a private (i.e.

non-published) appraisal, agree to that before the prod-uct gets here. Otherwise, anything submitted for test isassumed to be for CSD review. That means you take thegood and the bad, however it comes out.

B) Our testing goes far beyond one-shot, take it out ofthe box, hook it up and see how it plays. Antennasstay up and are subiected to the stresses thatMother Nature has down here. Receivers stay indaily use. Ditto LNAS, etc. We reserve the right to goback and 're-visit' a product down the road after theinitial tests. For an example of how that turns out,see COOP'S COMMENTS in this issue.

C) Products that are submitted lor review, but which per-form miserably, will not be written up in CSD. However(and this is significant), we also will not accept anyadvertising for that product in CSD either; not until theproduct is re-submitted and it then performs to at leastminimum standards.

D) When we have a suspicion that we may have beensh ipped a ' super ho t ' i tem, we take i t uponourselves to go out and acquire a duplicate product,in the open marketplace, for review. That weeds outhand tweeked 55 degree LNAS that somebody triesto pass off as a 100 degree unit.

#5) The supplier MUST anange at the CSD office (call CarolGraba at 305-771-0505) in Fort Lauderdale torthe shipping.Big items (antennas) come down to Fort Lauderdale bywhatever method you wish; they then are shipped to Provoon a boat (barge). Smaller items (all electronics, smallerantenna packages) NEVER go by boat (people who work onboats have a terrible affliction; things they handle 'stick'to

the palms of their hands and follow them home. The grand-son's of Ali Babba now load and unload boats!); they mustcome down by plane and Carol Graba knows allabout this.

#61 lf the supplier wishes, he can arrange to come down tobe here when lhe antenna is installed, testing is done,or whatever. Several of the recent products sent downwere possibly sent here so the manufacturer's peoplecould get three days or so laying around in Paradise onthe white, sandy beaches while local people broughtthem re-fills of 'lsland Lemonade' everytime their glas-ses emptied! That's between you and your accountingdepartment; and Carol Graba, again, can arrange yourair transportation and through WIV your on-island hotel

SATELLITE DICESaccomodations,

#71 We don't care if the lady you represent as your wife is yoursecretary. Neither do the island immigration control guys.Even the hotels don't ask such questions. That's betweenyou and your'wife' .

#81 l f you come down'sans-partner' , Tom Humphries is notin the 'date-arranging-business' and iust because youthink you have heard that people run around Provoespousing 'free love' is no guarantee that you won'tspend the entire period of time playing with the knobs

on the front of a TVRO receiver.#9) You are not likely to get invited to dinner at the Coopers.

Susan has seen all of the 'satellite folks' she ever wants tosee and while you certainly will have ample time to inspectthe two WIV locations and play with other systems alreadyhere, dinner is not included.

#10) lf you happened to be crazy about'fresh-made-daily' icecream, go on a starvation diet for a few days betore youarrive, There's a brand new ice cream shop located at

.- the WIV'Tower Plaza' location and most of us somehowmanage to balance the weight loss from being in the(sometimes hot) sunshine with the rapid consumption olfresh ice cream.

#1 1) Final ly, i t r iding in small (9 to 15 seat) airplanes makes younervous, stay home.

That's the only way to get here now and il will probably be Novem-ber before we have regular service from Air Florida, and possiblyEastern, on the big jets.

TWO Stand OutPlease accept my sincere "Thanks" and extend the same along

with a hearty handshake to Bob Luly. The two ol you have rekiridled aglimmer of hope for the retail TVRO industry. Having worked in almostevery capacity in this industry, I have, of late, been extremely apathe-tic about almost anything concerned with consumer earth stations.Unfortunately, the industry has been beseiged by crooks and thievesin an alarming number. There are too many out there who do not careone bit about quality (or else, do not know anything about it). I haveheard teslimonials and have been witness to a staggering number ofcases where people were "taken" in one form or another. I actuallyfind myself hoping that the courts or city councils will outlaw anten-nas, just to stop the pathetic flow of 'thefts' from the masses.

BUT! In this sea of slime and filth there towers at least two sturdylighthouses; Bob Cooper and Bob Luly. My "thanks" at the tirst of thisletter was to Coop for his etforts to make systems and installationsreasonable, not necessarily outstanding; but at least acceptable.Making more of us aware that alot ol systems being sold today lastuntil the day after the warranty expires, and then rust and fall over,deserves the thanks ol everyone who loves this industry and is not in itjust to make a fast buck. Again, Thanks Coop! for the effort.

Bob Luly has already given so much to this industry that hedeserves our thanks even before this last outstanding feat. I am, ofcourse, talking about the protection and help he gave to Bob Taylorand his LPLL circuit (see CSD, May; 1983). Because of Mr. Luly, I feelsecure thal I too will get to enjoy the benefits of the LPLL circuit, andthat it will not be wasted on just one company that I probably wouldnever do business with in the first olace. In case Mr. Tavlor does notrecognize it, not all of the crooks are at the retailing level. Unfortunate-ly, there are too many at the manufacturing level also. Bob Luly has,indeed, earned the 'Pure Heart Award'. Thanks to Bob Luly!

I really do love this business and try to do everything possible tokeep it going strong. I only hope lhat more will join with Coop, BobLuly, and many that I have not mentioned, in working to preserve anindustry that retains its potential tor an excellent future.

E. Brian WilsonPresidentConsultSats3746 SpringfieldKansas City, Kn. 66103

On behalf of Bob Luly, we accept your thanks. Bob has neverbenefitted from his own work and inventions as perhaps hedeserves to. We remember this attending the SPTS show back in

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for what has hapPened and isthat cared would do the samthat cared

rd is happening to his'chi ld' ' Any parentsame thing.

Miami in early 1980; tuckei in his pocket was his own, homebrew

GaAs-FET LHA. goU simply wanted to get better pictures than

the commercial gear was getting him, at lower prices if that was

possible. Since then he has pioneered portable (umbrella) anten-

nas, rotating feed systems and a host of other products' Bob

couid have b=ecome a top selling receiver manufacturer' He could

have become an LNA manufacturer. What he chose to do was to

concentrate on those small, nagging problems that we all face

everyday, helping out thousands as he went along' He's the kind

or gJV dho witt iroUaUty never be named industry'Man Of Theyeir ' 'uy cSD, bJt when i t is al l over, he might make'Man Of The

Decade'' for his persistent approach to solving problems' Coop's

continued 'straidnt aneaA' Oiih is far easier to comprehend' Since

he started the iidustry back in 1978, he feels a 'fatherly' concern

SATELLITE DICESTto be sure it really did what the ad claims' This is not an ideal worldand demanding ihat would add 60 to 90 days lead time to newpioOuct. getti;g into print. That obviously wouldn't lty' As torihe Anderion gear ' . . ' we did obtain a pair of units' Both a pair orblock downconverters and a pair of demodulators' Yes, we hadthe same problems (as reported in April's CSD) with any mixture ofthe four we tried. Yes, that does suggest to us that the 'hum'

pioUf"-" were inherent in the design' HOWEVER, after talkingi"itn f"itn Anderson about this he asked if we were powering theequipment through a SOLA power regulator device' We were'"fnqnC to DC sup-ply in the receiver does not like the square-wave-like outf ut f rom tn6 bOun" Keith suggested; 'try it on an unregulatedfin"';. frile did, and most (but not aill of the hum in the video andiuAio went away. Only a tad remained in the audio side' Wouldwe like to test your TX series? You bet! We'd especially like totry

iaLng *ith a siandard test) a packag€ that includes a reasonableiot"dr feuef broadband 'power amplifier'which we could use withitt" downconuerter and a 'transmitting anlenna' to see iust howeflectivesuch a system would be in covering say a mile or soacross open land til a sub-receiving site;with.no interconnectingcabte. Wi nave a bread boarded package similar to this (but not intf," ++O to gZO UHz range) down here being tested now' Being ableio-""nJ rz (or z4) satlllite channels over a distance'wireless' ison" ueiy neit experience. Our system-is breadboard, not even ofptoto-tfp" qu"liiy, at the present time.but it shows great promiseior serving iemoie parts of the world where terrain or distancemates uni-versal sharing of a terminal impossible' We still believeit is possible to put in i single terminal (where local governmentr"grl"tion. allow), use the 'lF-' output of that terminal to drive ananiplif ier and transmitting antennas, to send the signal out over ai"gion seu"tal miles acioss so that people living within theco-uetag" area could individually, without.interference, Shareeueryttting coming ofl the satetlit-e; without having to have theiro*niJt cible conriected) satellite terminal (service)' We lirst hadthat dream two years ago. We won't give up until somebody doesit.AAAH/ No Thanks!

Please be advised that we are now the new factory authorizedsales and service dealer representing the quality line of ChannelMaster TVRO systems in the Lynchburg, Va. area. As a selling dealer'it is to our mutuil benefit to be able to ofter our customers a method oJdelermining what programs can be lound on what satelliteitranspon-der along iitn generat satellite TV hints and informalion A review olyour pubiicatioi indicated that it is indeed a professional publicationihat will serve this need. In return tor a complimentary subscription toCSD, we would be pleased lo actively promote and sell new subscrip-tions to our customers at no cost to you. Thank you for your considera-tion. and please forward the appropriate order blanks along with yourinstructions lor marketing.

MISSED OneYour April CSD article on block downconverter systems was very

informative, but you missed the newest entry into the field' And that

was our fault since we have not done any national promotion yet'

The product is the TX200 receiver with a TXDC 20 downconverter'

ln the Siate of Washington, this package currently delivers 24 clean

channels with an LNA probe positioned at the 45 degree angle be-

tween vertical and horizontal. All of this through a single LNA and a

;ingl; cable. We use the 440 to 920 MHz UHF band as an lF and

abjolutely control the cross polarization with Saw Filters' Our down-

convertei is set at the factory and requires no field or user adjust-

ments. We have installed quite a few systems in the Pacific Northwest

and the results have encouraged us to expand our manufacturing

capabil i t ies and to begin mariet ing on an.international basis' Our

system also works very well by connecting the downconverter output

t6 an appropriate ampiifier and an antenna, and sending the full block

oano tniougn the air for a distance to the demodulator unit connected

to anotherintenna (this is not legal where FCC rules function!)

Atthe risk ol sounding like a poor competitor, I must say that I was

OisappointeO that you ev-aluated the Anderson unit (April 1983 CSD)

based upon one uhit sent to you from the factory' We both know that

Keith Anderson is somelhing of a whiz at making electronics work; on

a one time basis. Repeatingihat product, in production, is (however) a

different story. lknow; I installed several of the Anderson downconver-

ters along with Anderson receivers. Regrettably' I had to replace

every sinlle one of those within three months as the equipment either

failed or the video and/or audio deteriorated to a point that the custom-

er was no longer satisf ied.In your review you spoke of 'hum' in the audio' as well as a

hum-bar in the video. We had this same problem back when we were

initatting the equipment, and I feel it may have been inherent in the

design.-Based upon my experience, I feel that you should have

chec-ked at least one other 'otf the shell' Anderson unit' I hope that

most CSD readers 'read between the lines' of your report and withheld

taiing inV .ajor commitments until they could conduct their own trial

installation for evaluation.While I realize that TX Engineering is not yet an advertiser in CSD'

I would none the less be pleased if we could send down a unit for test

and evaluation. You could pick up a second unit from any of a number

ol Pacific Northwest distributors who handle the product, therebygiving you both a factory and a non{actory supplied unit to test'

Roger D. LindePresidentTX Engineering, Inc.P.O. Box 7007Renton, Wa 98057

Testing is not related to advertising. lt never has been, and

never wilibe. The only thing that aftects advertising is a timelyplacement of the adv-ertisement order with Carol Graba' ln a

iypical month, about a hall dozen ads don't make it iflto an issue

because (1) they are ordered after the deadline, or, (2) they--are

ordered titi and our 'quota' for ads for the coming issue is lill up

(that happens every month), or, (3) the ad is (after study) iudgedinis-teaiing or inippropriate or perhaps downright deceiving'

ldeally, if tiis was'a perfect world, we'd accept advertising only

afterwe received a product and evaluated itfor performance;iust

Robert C. HauserPresidentAccurate Earth StationsLYnchburg, Va. 24503

Don't think so. CSD is noi tor TVRO users; it is the industry'sdealer/distributor publication and frankly the typical user has nobusiness even seeing a copy of CSD floating around your office'Ask yoursell . , . do yiou warit your customers seeing how muchyou pay for hardwari? Do you want your customers without youriechnibal background to read about field testing of antennas' ordetailed disculsions of 2 degree spacing? What the ultimateconsumers do need is Satellite TV Week, and/or SatGuide CSD isfor people within the industry. That's the way it has always been'and we intend to keeP it that way.

REMEMBER UTV? The to-be satellite delivered cable TV servicethat stalled and stalled getting up first on one bird and then another?They were going to program about 1 8 hours of 'game shows' per daywith viewer participation. Scratch it. Bankruptcy. A Hong Kong com-pany plans to bring out a $9.95 parlor game called 'Satellite Monopol-y'; it you land on the UTV square, your transponder fails and you areforced to soend two turns stuck on the NCN square, or until it turns intothe Playboy Channel; whichever comes first.

SATELLITE DICESTPAGE 79/CSD7-83

_ RCA lost all of the horizontal polarized transponders on F3R at2PM (E) on April 30th. RCA now hopes to collect $ioMln rnsurance torsystem failure. F3 has been an unusual bird since taunch, tosint onetransponder during raunch sequence due to ,launch stresses,' subse_quently having enatic bird conirolproble_ms. Soiai panef "rr"yt.ir.t ,In one part of daily rotation requiring RCA to ,hand;control, the solarpanel's sun hacking for a sequence each day. On two occasions, birdspun out of control without warning and technicians on ground were::i:'g:l"J 1ucky, to have gotten dird bact on ii"tLn "no operatingunoer command.

. . EUROPE's first cable bird, scheduled to go up June 3rd wasdelayed to at least after themiddle of June. nrianejaincn pad washaving difficurt rime oertino Lo tauncher ieiroiitt"o ioi its fright. rf thisone doesn't make i[ entiie_Europea" *6i" ,"*"t ieiretopment wi|b.:919"..! year or more. rnis niaslo oe il;i ;;;; .cabre bird,.._-_Nor foilowins NBC's tead, cBS h;;;;;;;;5Ii to use a cHztransponders to interconnect entire national n"t*orf,. 5n and Harriswill provide terminals in 7 meter region. CBS nas Oeen:testing, inter_connection of a harf dozen stationJin Arizona, ttew lrtexico and westTexas for several months, hopes to have nine on line anO in daily use9! seylge by September start of new r"ir l"aron. rG timetabte forc.mplete switch to birds has been ,.eteaseO. p-rese-.ni i.!0. in"luO" OS!-Tl. 17, 10) plus several occasional channels on Westar3 and 4.CBS says they will scrambte_.servi." ;". .oon'i#qliir"nt ..."pt_able to network use is availaole .....F|NALLY, the third US network, ABC, has re_confirmed to itsaffiliates its plans to use exrensive C OanO OirJi[nlpi-no"r. (up to 8)tointer-connect entire terrestriar net*orrc nei,lixl6tis, has beenusing D3 (TRs 8 and 13) plus a few on WS a;O Wa for occasionalfeeds.

ATTEMPT to create single, standardized, DBS video program_ming technical format for usdin all ot europeitz-lJbecause . . . youguessed it. France said they were going to go"h""d and do it theirway, alone, without regard io trow-otfrj eriopean corntries did it.Germany is next to oicioe; eiitish p".nirg i; s'ystem, rrenchanolher, US yet another. Wortd_standarO OES iecJivers? Not thiscentury.

-^.ll9EryS.l], laresr proposat to create a pair of 24 transpondernattonat satellites' for Argentina, will go ,out for'bid, in t gA+. In additionto the pair of birds, mo-re than 30dground r"irin.f. are pranned.Launch date? Not before late in.1987]Arg"ntin;;if;onlrnue ro use,ano-e-ypand use of, Intelsat birds in interlm.- _ ARTHUR C. CLARKE, appearing before United Nations in mid_May, talked of a worrd 'without wails'ino an eno io-'crosed societies'.clarke,also suggested that the UN's continued deoail oue.. whetherthere should be a 'free flow of information'worlOw-iOe woutd ,one day:-9_ol b9 q9!9d.by engineers, not potiticians'. Cso;" pr"nn"o industrytnp to visit Clarke, presenting him with two or ror. ijin terminals, inrecognition of his inspiration to us all, coming closer"ail of the time.Details of present status in August CbD.- INTELSAT now has two, new, Global beam customers across theAtlantic; ABC and CBS have each taken " frff tir" in"lt transponder;lease to continually feed news,_reports and segments for specialsnT, ̂ E:fgnf,ggih|y Downs, Enstanof to usFf"ia nndover, Me.).::X:.:,]1lr'"1t teg, from Andover to NyC, can typicaily be found onu r/u-z.otros wttn repeti t ive audio announcement identi fying,circuit , .

FINANCES for commercial industry teaOers Sie ani liicrodynelooking better; both are back to profitable ,"yi "tGr. tousy 1982performance. Oak Industries, meanwhile, continues to posi hugelosses.YET another plan for early entry.into European cable communily

comes from Euro-TV, a Dutch firm that wants to lease a channel onlntelsatV with duat uplinks at Hitversum, Hoffina pis USA uptink atCBN in Vilginia. lf it'fties', it could begin about tneiime you read this.. lN THE'if it worked once'departm6nt; propos"O iOiO n"ro"p"."

1rf l-bald (4 and 1Z GHz) tamity OirO lsl iiow'Ultore rCC ror app|ovdmay end up being called ,T-Bird,.

ORION, the stand-alone proposal to launch with Amencan moneyspecial satellite to connect North American and European cable in-dustries, is still battling for life.. Hearings in Washington continue;in-lisllJl,s is fierce. Mos-t now feet pi;;;iit;; "p;;;uej,n sorne rol.m,but will have to survive certain court challenoes.

MUZAK, on Westar 4 for some time, ii upgrading service to'stereo'with 200.new special receivers. lf you st;t; the middle ofrne.erevator you'll notice the bass fiddles are on the right and theclarinets on the left. Excepr as you pass the .l3th floor.

I Al.u were ptaved for firsl U,S domestic satellite, Westar 1, Mayfirst. Bird tauncrred hiddt" or Apiir, r sia,t;;;ilir's domesric birdtllgr:l Origllalty ptanned..as a 7 year bird,.i,."riiz rransponderpacKage put PBS into satellite business "nO ,"0" it posstble foreveryone else to follow. Using last of thruster fuel on-Oo",O, bird wasejected some 40 miles outside of nominal 22,300 -e 6io,t n"ight andit will be a,owed to drift on its own .forryliri.i*"ii."iro, ,sate'ite

lt"3y"l' it will be virtually permanenily in space, slowly moving overbett just mires berow. prans ro r"trieue6uerib tiii"J Jii'i+" "roio t"p",

EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCy has upgra_ded their,L-Sat,prog-::ijo ?yitg hjgl power DBS birds. Re_nanje"o ott;;r;, new 12 GHzregion bird will be monster mea.suring ASfeet a;ios!, ieigning morethan 5,s00 pounds and oenerating o-ver 3.5 kW;i;;;, power. Birdwill carry one super powe-r oas rv"clann!i-pir. s"x Jiisiry tower (bur:llll9:f !q""f . tevet),commerciatibusinessr trans"ponoers. oishszes down to 9 inches are planned with future genJrattons of thisseries bird. ESA believes there will ne a ,nuge, w6rlJ-marxet tor tnissuper-powered DBS type satellite, forecastin! "" .iny ". 150 world_wide by 1990s.

-_ :ryTERlRlStNG Japanese firm, meanwhite, quietty showing offprolojype 'wrist worn' combination TVAO ;nd'J"t"ti;i" connected'mobile telephone' usino 10 inch fold_out Oirn ""Li"". iirst you unrurlthe dish from your wristiaim it at the general region of the satellite, andthen speak into your thumb.

"",-!Tjlf-".".j1':,:,jiRlp:,yjivasionof Frenchhomesby,f oreisn,,not-French-controned DBS birds. They have otfered one oiinl,]linrl;3?L ?3:,.,:,lp"lyf T pl,'s p'ovileJ ti ny r_u;;;;,s wi | | d ropforown DBS bird. Rtso uide*rdy,r;Ar-ff;;#ff #[;l;imesh, picket fence around southern "nO westein-noroer otto preclude any DBS signals getting into frencn nor!..

,y]'l ":_oI9 oJ rhe program services on early-entrant USCt,s

TRANSPONDERWATCH

RECENT REPORTSOF ACTIVITY ON

DOMESTIC / I NTERNATIONALSATELLITES

Send your reports to CSO Transponder Watch, p.O. Box .100858, Ft.

Lauderdate, FL 3331O. For tate news, calt (305) 7Zt.O5O5.

,tt service. Again, don,t exoect..innovative, new irogr;r,ng,onGHz DBS; just the best (oi perhaps the worst) oi wfrit we atreadyre available at 4 GHz.

SATELLITEDICESTPAGE 80/csD/7-8r IEEt . )

wound on spool inside and containing permanent record of everytransmission ever sent through bird since launch, proceed.

WARNER-AMEX is now using satellite capacity of F4 to link theircable systems in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Missouri. Systemwill ultimately be'inter-active' allowing cable viewers in all connectedcommunities to respond to polling and other events.

NOTgoing well. NASA's plan to get first TRDSS bird onto station inClarke orbit having problems; firing of banks of thrusters, originallyintended to help bird stay on-station after a successful launch, re-sulted in 'overheating of thrusters' and far shorter lhruster'burns' thanNASA hoped for. NASA had originally announced it hoped to haveTDRSS into proper orbit altitude by middle of June. With problems, notl ikely, and, second TDRSS is now set back unti l at least 'early 1984'while original cause of problem (malfunctioning o{ Inert ial UpperStage) is still being investigated.

THAT police line-up you see on PBS transponder may not bestaged; Conlersat is leasing spare PBS time to allow real victims ofcrimes to inspect real suspects via satellite TV.

LOW orbit satellites (those usually launched from VandenbergAFB, California in north-south path) will be test situation for SpaceShuttle scheduled for launch next April. NASA plans to allow astro-nauts to leave vehicle, retrieve an orbiting (low orbit) satellite, bring itinside, and conduct repairs.

NUMBER six of nine planned Intelsat V satellites is stationed nowat 18.5 west after launch in mid-May. Bird wil l take over'major path l l 'duties and provide considerably stronger 4 GHz signals over Africa,South America, Europe and eastern portions ol North America.

f F YOU l ike Eros (TRz, F4, Thursday-Saturday nights; 11PM to2AM), you' l l ' love'The PLEASURE CHANNEL; i f , and when, i t startsuo with its own feeds on satellite vet to be selected, alonq about 1S'eptember.

ANOTHER of those big dollar 'consultant studies' from a NewEngland firm now tells us that 'impressive selection of 4 GHz program-ming' may be more than enough to 'otfset price differential' someexoect to see when consumers are faced with choice belween 1 2 GHzand 4 GHz home packages. Venture Development Corp. (Wellesley,

Mass.) concludes "Most severe threat to 'big dish industry' (4 GHz;that's usl) is threat of scrambling".

CHANGEABLE TED TURNER has decided he doesn't want tomerge with somebody atterall. Perhaps most recentquarter financialreport helped him change mind; TBS now making money for first time.

YOU MAY have to see this one work to believe it. Last month'sannouncement that an Indiana firm was offering complete homeTVRO for $39.95 per month on lease is followed up by announcemenlfrom industry supplier Birdview (Chanute, Kn.) that they have $8.3Morder from Omega Satellite Products for massive number of 8 lootterminals. Omega says it will set $5 per terminal per month aside 'to

pay for programming services'. Program suppliers are less thanpleased with plan, see move by Omega as direct reason to hastenscrambling of F3R premium services. Omega is maverick SMATVoperator, claims it will 'stick'individual home systems onto its present'cable count' when paying programmers for service. Those who re-fuse to accept Omega payments? In the master list given to viewers,those channels will be marked 'unauthorized' and viewers will be'advised' not to watch!

FGC's decision to al low'phased in'2 degree spacing {or new andexisting 4 GHz satellites really is not final answer. Still ahead is whowill move, when, and whether the 'CATV/video' end of the belt from119.5 to 134 west wi l l ever real ly be 2degee spaced. See specialreport this issue CSD.

SOME confusion as we go to press whether the launch of Galaxy1, scheduled to replace older F1 at 135 west wi l l be to 135, or, 134.Assumption made in our report starting page I is that Commission willhave Galaxy go to 134 immediately after launch. lf not, the first true 3degree spacing will wait until later in the year.

OOOPS. State of New Jersey looking into reports that peoplel iving near massive upl inks around Vernon Valley sutfer 'higher thannormal' frequency of birth defects and cancer. Several new 'Uplink

teleports' are planned across country.Ff VE fall '83 SBS 12 GHz carried DBS sionals would be launched

WATCH/continues page 82

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PAGE 82lcsD/7,8r lSlE

into early 12 GHz market by international publisher and financierRupert Murdock if everything announced comes off. His firm plans touse SBS 3 when launched late this summer, allowing 4 to 6 footantennas over much of country, Murdock's marketing plans fluid, butinclude use of rural farmer co-ops.

MEANWHILE COMSAT's STC has decided to go for an 'early

entry' as well, using five channels on SBS 4 bird to be launched inOctober of '84. STC expects 4 to 6 foot dishes to fly.

NBC also has jumped onto the SBS bandwagon, as predicted inCSD for April. NBC plans to use 3 meter dishes at affiliates with firstservice scheduled for early January of '84. They plan to have entirenetwork operating via satellite by September of '84. Network will payfor dishes and terminals and Harris wi l l supply.

COOP/continued from page 5

considered 'high technology' and as long as Section 15204 remainson the books, we will in the future be forced to play the Export Licensegame.

ls there a way around all of this? Well, not necessarily around it.But you could transfer the responsibility for the Export License toanother if you got yourself off the hook as the 'shipper'. The easiestlegal way to get out of the loop is to put someone inside of the statesbetween you and the foreign customer. lt you shipped your products toanyone other than a freight forwarding company, then you areselling to'that recipient'. Then it becomes their responsibility to getthe product out of the country. They have to become the 'international

shipper', and they have to worry about the paperwork. At least some ofthe non-US users of the hardware have established US shippingaddresses, using 'agents' within the USA to receive their goods. Whatthey do with it next, to get it shipped on to their own country, is theirbusiness.

Operation Exodus. Not something that affects very many of us. Butto those involved in internalional sales and shipments, it is a brand

new problem to be dealt with. Good luck!

MORE Provo Antenna TestsMay was a busy month at the CSD Providenciales test range with

three separate 11112 tool antenna systems arriving, with their 'mas-

ters,'on three successive Fridays. We look at all three of the systemshere this month, and add the following anecdote which is being writtenafter each of the antennas has been in, and performing, for up to amonth's time.

Walter Grebis (Engineered Communicalions, Inc.) was the firstdown, returning with us from the states on May 13th. Waltefs 1 1 lootantenna is what might be called an'advanced proto-type.' He told methat approximately 25 had been shipped when he was down to see us,and that certainly means we are getting them 'younger and younger'all of the time!The Grebis approach is one of first designing a dish formaximum control of sidelobes (his area of the USA, New Jersev, hasterrible terrestrial interference problems), and then trying to figure outhow to soup up the gain. His .3 f/D dish works very well iJ you attach toit the Seavey relatively new, and also quite 'special,' .3 feed.

George Jones from the Confier Corporation was next down (May20th), with his new 12 foot (16 section) screen mesh dish. Jonescheated a little and made it more diff icult for us to evaluate the antennaalone; he also brought down a complete set of the new matchingConifer electronics (plus a Drake 1 00 degree LNA). We got one of theearly Conifer 12 tooters, although cagey George wouldn't tell usexactly how many had been shipped when he was here.

Then followed Doug and Polly Dehnert from United SatelliteSystems (USS), with thei 12' (6") commercial duty and commercialgrade fiberglass dish. Doug's approach to antenna systems is one ofgoing to maximum performance and maximum durability. No new-comer to the industry, he notes that while his f irm has not attracted thewidespread interest of some of the others out there, he's been profit-able from the first year and is now going inlo year four.

Antennas brought to Provo tor test, like any TVRO equipment sentdown here, arrive in a rather unique test situation. With 7 antennasnow installed on the tiny 100 by 200 foot lot at'Tower Plaza,'and

DH SPUI{ PARABOLIC ANTENI{ASWe didn't invent 0r improve anything! We just manufacture in quantity theantenna that has always been best. An aluminum antenna spun to a trueparabolic curve.

A spun a luminum antenna is thelinest you can buy. The military,NASA, the telephone companiesall specify aluminum antennas spun10 a true parabolic curve. DH is anational leader in antenna manu-lacturing, producing over 3,000antennas a month. Because oltheir accuracy, a 9' spun antennawill perlorm as \r/ell as an average1 0' l iberglass.

Distributors and Manufacturers, contactus for quotes on quantity purchases.

Most sizes in inventory.

Available in aluminum 0r steel in focallengths 0f 43" or 36" in sizes from 9'to 6' .

We also manufacture polar mounts andspun aluminum polarotor cover.

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SATELLITE DICESTanother half dozen over at the WIV Studio facility, we have a rathercomplete handle on a very wide range of satelliteproducts. Becausetne antennas 'go in' and 'stay in' we are looking not only at theirapparent performance fresh out of their shipping crates, bui the longterm ability to hold up as well.

We took a sizeable antenna down a few months back; after twoyears or so of sitting out there getting buffeted by the 20-30 MpH'breezes,'

and the constant salt laden air that surrounded it, theantenna. just developed a number of weak spots. We had a choice;either take it down, or quit using it (the perlormance had degraded thaimuch). Or if we let it sit there, occupying valuable grouno space, oneday it would fall down on its own. Unfortunately there are two othersheaded for a similar fate before the year is out; therr mounts orsurfaces are simply deteriorating so rapidty that the performance isgone.

In safer and saner climes, people test antennas in the big time bysubjecting them to wind tunnel and environmental tests. I sus-pect thatthe purposes of these 'brief'tests is more to creale data sheet hypethan to really find out when things start to come apart or oegrade sofar that the performance is shot.-l have a much better test sltuation;every antenna here is put into real world service, and no less oftenthan once per month somebody makes a detailed part by part inspec-tion of the antenna, mount and support system. Since tne antennasare in regular use, electronic (i.e. gain or performance) degradationshows up rapidly.

We have the most ideal test range I can conceive. yes, there iswind and there is salty air. But more important, because we sit off tolhe side of the footprint 'boresights' we are in the unique spot of beingable to determine, on virtually every bird, the true performance char--acteristics of an antenna system. We see ditferences in signal levelbetween the slrongest and weakest F3R transponders of more than 6dB, for example. We have a frightfully weak D3 high in our sky (F3R islow), and it is a natural 'testing station'as we sweep from eOg6 tb edgeof the belt. For the really difficult tests, we swing further east to theIntelsat birds (six plus are viewable here routindly, plus Ghorizont).With such a wide range of lransponder modulation formats (from hajf

transponder 15 MHz wide signals to the Ghorizont 50 MHz widesignals), with such a wide variety of signal levels (our strongestlootprint is in the 32 dBw region and they go all the way to virtually ierofrom that high point), and with the built-in natural environment, ihis isTHE place to lind out whether a receiver, or LNA or antenna has whatit takes.

After a few weeks to a month of watching the performance on theGrebis ECI alt.elTa (1 1 footer/May 21st), th; Conifer (1 2 footer/May14th) and the USS (12'6" lMay 21th), there are already some patternideveloping. Patterns that did not stick out so vividly at the timeeverything was fresh and new, straight out of the boxes. Since wehave also had some other antennas down for test in recent months, itwould only be fair if we looked at those as well at this time.

While I will save a detailed part by part analysis for a later date,here are my observations as of mid-June:'l) Paraclipse 12 footer. Because a local scoundrel has been

selling these as home terminals since January or so, there are. now perhaps ten in the country. I get around to see many of

them every month or two, so that gives me more opportunity tojudge their 'value'than simply keeping an eye on the single oneat WlV. Rust. Those clips that hold the mesh in plaie arerusting. Even the clips that are coated with some type of plastic.The plastic seems to get brittle and flake oft, leaving part of theclip (initially) exposed. Not good. The hub assembly in the rearis also rusting on some of them, inspite of powder coatinq.Powder coating is supposed to be a cure-all for rust. Not her6.the rust, even on the oldest antenna (seven months) is notsevere yet; just an early warning sign. performance, on theother hand, has stayed high on all of the ten or so down here.We have noticed that it is necessary or advisable to drill a holethrough the large steel support pipe and ,pin'the circular oipe tothe square tube post if you don't want them twisting ofi align_ment slightly in very stout winds. We have suggested to lhefactory that a new factory-hole should be added!o you have todrill only the round pipe and not the square pipe. We originallygave the Paraclipse an 'A +' for performance and desion. We

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lower the design to 'A-' but retain for now the 'A+' rating forperformance.

2) Harris 10 Footer- This antenna got high marks for its design,and its (10 foot) performance. The primary problem we havediscovered is that the sub-reflector feed shroud, into which youplace the LNA, gets hotter than the devil in the bright sunlight.We stuck one of those small automobile suction-cup thermo-meters inside of the housing one day recently and it 'pinned' at120 degrees before 12 noon. l t never came'off the peg' unti lnearly six o'clock. This raises the LNA temperature appreci-ably, and you can see the performance degrade during theafternoon hours because of the considerably increased LNAtemperature. We tried to blow air through it (a futile effortwithout major surgery to the housing) to cool things down.Getting the LNA 'inside'to protect it from theft is a nice touch,but not when the LNA suffers with heat in the process. Droptheir 10' performance from an A to a 'B + '.

3) ADM 20 Footer- There are now three here, operating. Two ofthe three have ortho-mode couplers so we can simultaneouslytake off vertical and horizontal signals. ADM provides a mount-ing bracket that allows you to insert the ortho mode couplerplus a pair of LNAs inside the feed shroud. Unfortunately, thiscauses two problems. The feed shroud is not large enough orproperly shaped to take two Amplica or Amplica plus LocomLNAs; for example. Offset-design LNAs, with a'hump' betweenthe front flange and the long, thin electronics bank, simply won'tfil. The next problem is that in the process of getting all of thestuff crammed into the shroud housing, you lose your ability torotate the feed plus LNA package to compensate torthe'vertic-allhorizontal'skew change as the dish moves across the sky.We solved this by substituting an Atlantic Microwave. dual-mode ortho coupler in place of the Chaparral unit provided, andgoing back to the old fashioned Alliance Antenna Rotor torotate the whole assembly by the few degrees necessary tore-gain cross-polarization integrity when we take the big dishthrough the sky from F3R east. ADM needs to re-look at all ofthis since more and more of their dishes are going into com-mercial installations where people both elect to go'dual mode,'and, drive the dish from bird to bird. No loss in performance;st i l lthe best 20 footer around.

4) ECI 1 1 Footer- A month may not seem like long enough to tellhow an antenna is going to hold up; we'll certainly re-visit it. TheProvo'style' pipe mount turned out to be a bad idea. lf you optfor this one (see report, page 42 here) be sure you go with thestandard mount. Re-adjusting north and south polar axis aftereach strong wind is a pain. The hardware is holding up verywell, no signs of deterioration at all. We are not so certain aboutthe Seavey feed; there has been a measurable (and notice-able) loss in performance on low-look angle F3R. lf we knewmore about the theory, and design, of the Seavey feed, we'dprobaby be able to pinpoint the degradation. From an 'A' rating1 1 footer to a 'B +' rating afler 30 days.

5) Conifer 12 Footer- Some of the hardware Jones broughtdown, not properly galvanized or stainless, is showing signs ofrusl after three weeks. We'll be using Brillo pads to clean it up,and touching up the paint about the time you read this. Jonessaid (see report, page 48 here) that he wished he had broughtthe $35 option stainless steel hardware kit. We wish he had,also. Performance is the same as when it went in. An 'A' ratino

6) 0g3ti2'6'- Two weeks is barety enough or" ,o n", "Jquainted' with the system. In particular, the dead-on trackingacross the orbit belt (no loss at either end, nor in the middle)continues to impress us. With everything galvanized, or stain-less, no signs of wear and tear yet. Our'A+'rat ing for a 12footer holds.

With consolidation fo lhe WIV television operations underway, atthe'Tower Plaza'site where all five TV transmitters plus the WIV-FMtransmitter is located, space at that site is now at a premium. A 25 footmonster is scheduled to arrive late in the summer, after we accom-pany it to a test range where we'll share with you the steps that go intotest range check-out for large antennas (in approximately the October

SATELLITE DICESTCSD). That, plus two 'still vacant, spots suitable for antennas up to 12feet in size will complete all of the available spice on ihat tot. nnd thenthere will be ten.

Meanwhile, at the WIV studio complex in Grace Bay, we arereworking some antennas and mounts preparing for a set of dedicated'European/African/South American' aniennas. Fopeiuily Oy navingLileast two large antennas trained to the east fuiltime, we wiribe abr6 toadd some fulltime service from the IntelsaVGhorizont bird. on oW

TililtlJg ""bt" system. By next January, we wiil proOaOly have theonry caote system in the world where you can flip thiough 20 channels

and bring in live TV from Asia (Moscow), Europe, Africi, South Amer_ica and North America. lf we coutO lust ilgure Jui'howii get nustratialOceana in here, we'd have all of the *oilO .ou"r"O ini singte cablesysteml

With this tremendous concentration of satellite hardware, and thelpy""gPilg parade of products to test and evaluate, rt seems asname rn_at the only real avenue we have to share all of this with you isthrough CSD. So I am working on creating " n*_profit, low_frofile'Satellite Research & Study Cintre,nere6n irouda-place you canbring your family to and airow them to run *ito

-on our oeautirur,

unspoiled beaches, diving/swimming/snorkeling or whar ever turnsInem on,.white you spend a Jew hours a day working with the equip-ment and.techno.logy located here. l'll keep you adviied. lt could wellturn out to be the most ideal vacation/business tiip combo for asatellite person that could be created. Oh yes, with our new 8,200 footrunway now ready for formalopening, andAir Florida 60 minute flightsfrom Miami, or Eastern jet flights from New york City, provo is getiingcloser all of the time!

ROBS At WorkAfter our November ('g2) provo Satellite Retreat, most of those

atten_ding decided that since we had shared shipwrecks, dunkingsatellite receivers in the sea, and watching provo's new ,Navy' equifitselt to protect the shoreline, we'd try to glt together every now andagain in ihe future. Kind of a reunion, aJit we-re.

One of the many lighter moments at the Retreat had Canadiandesigner Jon Spisar squaring off with marketing type David McClas-Key ot Intersat. McClaskey was talking about hislirm's hoped for salesprojectrons during 1983. Spisar listened intently, and then lookedMcurasKey squarely in the eye.'You and your wife Sue are very nice people, but you are aterrible Bloodsucker!" sputtered Spiiar. fortunitely everyone wasy_.-r1 lrl.ldly at this point and .McOiaskey was not itarmed by thelrankness of Spisar. When Spisar was reminded that according toWebster, a Bloodsucker was . . . ,,an animal that sucks blood, ai ina leech,".or, "a person who extorts or sponges off of others,', Jonexplained what he meant.

l'You people talk all of these big numbers. you talk about building10,000 antennas, or buying 5,000 [NAs or shipping 1 S,000 receivers.Inose are ctearty unrealistic numbers and I think you talk such bignumbers just to impress yourselves. you are bloodsuckers (with ismall 'b ') !

_ Well, the name stuck. And since this was the first of the provoSatellite Retreats, we decided to form a fraternity of iorts. After somesmalldiscussion, we became the,Royal Order Of Bloodsuckers,,orROBS for short. ROBS met next in Las Vegas at tf,e STTI show inMarch. Only a few were missing and former-astronaut Gene Cernandropped by to say hello. McClaskey and Guy Davis of Intersat hadpad.e 1O^s_o1e wall plaques commemorating our individual participa_tion in ROBS and we talked about doing somlthing worthwhile for the'ld.r:try. In the. group there are desiln enginee-rs, manufacturers,orstnoutors ancl dealers. There's even a cable operator. They areCanadians, and Americans. .lol " small group,'iheie is amazingdiversity. And because we all shared that-we;k in provo, closel!associated with one another, there is more than a close friendshioamongst everyone in the group. There have bebn no hostilities, andwnenever three or more of the group are together there is an uncom_mon amount of good natured ribbing and plenty of laughter. But thereis a serious side as well."Suppose we take a hard look at TVRO receivers,, someonesuggested. "We might be able to arrange for a Hewlett packardengineer and some test equipment. lt might be useful if we simply did

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some noise f igure, dynamic range and other tests on recelvers to seewhat type of variat ions we f ind in the f ield."

ROBS member Tom Harrington, the guy who created Coax-Seal 'offered us the use of his faci l i ty in Boca Grande, Florida. That 's on anisland off the west coast of Florida between Sarasota and Fort MyersThis is one of those l i t t le known, out of the way spots in Florida wherethe developers have tr ied to use intel l igent long range planning toinsure that the place is not overrun with side by side condos and al l ofthe other i l ls of modern civi l izat ion. Headquarters became the Gaspar-i l la Inn, a 100 year old (plus) establ ishment where for B months or so ayear you have to be dressed in a suit and a t ie just to get in the door'We were there during the 'off season' which al lowed us to be thenatural slobs we are without offending anyone. Once a Provo beambum, always a Provo beach bum.

We invited John Ramsey of Sat-Tec and Doug Dehnert of USSto join us. John is a qual i f ied, but not yet off icial, ROBS guy since he'sbeen to Provo. Dehnert was scheduled {or a Provo visi t after heattended the ROBS aff air. I had arranged for Mark Davis out of the HPAtlanta off ice to drag an 8970-A noise f igure test set down for the tests.We col lected on a Sunday, went Tarpon f ishing on Monday, and gotserious on Tuesday. The last to leave took off on Thursday

Like any ROBS gathering, the best parts of the meetings are themeals, and, the 'bul l sessions. ' We eat well and there is somethingabout watching David Lyman, a dealer out of Utah, eating his f i f thpiece of pie or sneaking around the table sampling everyone else'sdinner that brings out the chi ld in al lof us. Lyman is or I should say wasbrand new in lhe industry last fal lwhen he and brother Mike traveled toProvo. He barely knew which knob on a receiver turned i t on. l t issomething very special to watch him tear into an engineer or OEMnow, ful ly qual i f ied to cri t ique a product 's performance or design. Youcan't hang around the ROBS group very long and not get a cramcourse education on the real world of satel l i te TV.

In the f irst serious bul l session. we got started on equipmentwarranties and guaranlees. That suited another guest, Bi l l Young,since Bi l l had come along to learn as much as he could about serviceand instal lat ion problems in the industry. Bi l l is the guy working with

edFl - P t '

TEAMING UP . . . David McGlaskey (r ight) and John Figura (cen-ter) of Intersat double team Utah dealer David Lyman on themerits of the new lQ-l60 system. Lyman shut them up by advis-ing he was going to handle Gl 's new unit instead ol the Intersat.

several of the real ly substantial insurance f irms in the world, trying toput together a combination 'al l r isk/peri ls ' insurance pol icy, plus acomprehensive extended warranty/guarantee program for the indus-try. I had turned to Bi l l for some advice on how this industry couldcreate a mature combination program to get the dealers olf the hookfor faulty original equipment, plus get the consumers off the hook forfaulty dealer instal lat ion practices. The Apri l CSD survey, the resultsof which we printed in the June CSD, opened my eyes on just howsevere the equipment rel iabi l i ty, and instal lat ion problems real ly are inthe industry. I saw an opportunity here for a smart, experienced,insurance and warranty man lo help us do a better job for the consum-ers and dealers.

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SATELLITE DICESTThe second serious session got us off on Japanese and other Far

Eastern suppliers. Several in the group were'already heavily intousing Far Eastern suppliers for b.-otfr component p"rt, "nO arb_39s9.mbles. Doug Dehnert had the most to share on this subject sincell.^I:_tfr9 l".eiver system is ail made offshore. t,d tove to have tapedtnat drscussion, led by Dehnert and Sat Tec,s John Ramsey, sincetherest of us learned more about dealing offshore in 30 minutes fime thanwe collectively knew from a lifetime of being associated with thingselectronic. Their bottom line might interest iou.'The Japanese will win in any batile of mass production be_

cause they are simply better at what they do than Americans.I ne key is the heavy government support for Japanese tech_no logy programs, and, the abso lu te ded ic i t ion o f theJapanese worker.'

. You may not like that message anymore than I did, but I must admitthat I am now more anxious than ever to see some of the Jaoaneseelectronic assembly centers at work this coming November ;h.;;group of us head to Sri Lanka (to visit Arthur C. Clarfe;, by way ofJapan. As.John Ramsey noted ,,The Japanese deserve io win;tireyare simply better at it than we are . . .,,

^-,Low.er,.Srades' are given to the Taiwanese, but both Ramsey anduehnert allowed that the Taiwan folks were going to be everybit asgood and as dedicated as Japan in the next deladd. They see itas thenext 'Japan,' and note that most of the Japanese manutaclurers nowdo sub-assembly work on Taiwan through wholly or partially ownedsubsidiary plants there. Far lower on the totem pole are the Koreansand Hong Kong/Singapore electronic centers. ,,The Koreans arewhere the Japanese were twenty-five years ago," noted Dehnert."They special ize in copying

-equipinent, r ' ight down to the

IJaoen]?rK and c.opyright notices." Ramsey related a story of alarge shtpment of Nicad batteries which he knew came in from one ofthese lower grade electronic centers. ,,The guy that ordered thebatteries gota good deal;just over 50 cents per Saitery, landed. Whenhe opened the box he figured there was a big misiake; rney wereEveready batteries, clearly marked as having been produced inthe USA, When he asked about it, he found out the batteries were

precision copies. Can you imagine somebody going to the trouble ofmaking exact duplicates, knock-offs, ot Evereid"y baiteries? An Applell computer, sure. But a 50 cent batterv???".

Elsewhere in this issue we look at ihe measurement system iorcheckng TVRO receiver performance. I had asked twentv differentreceiver suppliers to supply a unit on loan for the tests. Abbut half oftnem came through. The rest probably figured we were going topublish a table of 'best' to ,worst' and tire/OiOn't trust us with theirunits. I had carefully explained that no such publication woutd takeplace, that indeed we were not ,rating receivers' but rather we weremere-ly attempting to get a handle on how receivers varied under testconditions. The results were not tenibly surprising, but what welearned about measurement techniques was. We'tt h"ave lots more tosay-about receiver performance ratings ahead.

Most.of the ROBS group felt we hid learned a great deal duringour.two/lhreeday gathering. lt's good to see that a gioup with diversi_lred interests in the industry can get together without the pressures ofa show ̂or formal meeting, and accomplish so much. The atmospheregets 100% of the credit for making these things work and Coax Seal'sTom Harrington was a perfect host who real-ly went out of his way tosee that everyone enjoyed themselves.

RESUMES To The Rioht

, B?"l gn May I5thoisoayoung satel l i teengineerfromTexaswasscheduled to move to provo..We have an officelivorkshop set aside forhim in the WIV'Tower plaza', and naO oegun io siolx ,-p on retevisionsets, stereo gear, and VHF FM two_way ridio repeaters and radios inanticipation. This chap was going to run the first'profesiional electro_nrcs shop in the Turks and Caicos, minding the store from which:g,u-i,pT".ntyqr being sotd, keeping an "y" 6n oui"irost faurt freesolid-state TV transmitters (9 now-operating), our young fn4 stereoradio network (two transmitters), the nine TVRO aniennas located atTower Plaza, and be responsible for the installatio; a;; matntenancefor the first two-way radio VHF repeaters in tn" lorntry.

He didn't show up.That creates an unusual position for somebody who is either

PAGE 88/CSD/7-83

already in the television hardware/broadcast/two-way radio business,or who can learn enough to fake it before they arrive here. I'm onlykidding about the faking it part; the guy we need down here in theTurks and Caicos wil l have to hit the ground running.

The deal we had worked out with the 'no-show' was that TowerPlaza would provide him with a place to operate out of, rent free, for ayear. We'd handle the government paperwork so he could instantly goto work here. He'd mind our store, we'd get him started in business inhis own shop. He would need enough modern test equipment to al ignand maintain VHF two-way radios and color TV sets. He should knowhow to work on VCRs and if he happened to be a ham, well, that wouldbe pretty nifty since we went ahead and installed a whole raft ofantennas at Tower Plaza so the no-show could be'on the air 'with hisown VPS ham l icense minutes after landing.

We are not looking for an employee; this is not a solicitation fora job opening. What we are looking for is someone who wants to be inbusiness for themselves, sort of under our wing for the first year or so,to help them adjust to 'fronlier living.' We'll provide him with loads ofbusiness, even giving free radio and TV advertising time to the busi-ness so that the whole country will know the guy is here and operating.

The 'no-show' figured that from scratch he was going to spendaround $15,000 for the r ight test equipment and he felt he needed$5,000 after landing here to make sure he could l ive with safety unti lthe bucks started pouring in from equipment repairs and sales. Thatsounds like a reasonable nest egg to get started, to me.

There are several severe drawbacks about living here. Numberone, you'd have to operate from a shop less than ten feet from TomHumphries; past President of SPACE and now the only print shopoperator in the Turks and Caicos. Humphries also dabbles in TVROdistribution and dealer activity and the bad part about being next tohim is that he swears at his print ing press alot. Loudly.

The next severe drawback is that if you are a 'Ham', a VP5 'call' isthe next thing to being a DXpedit ion. They l ine up in huge pi le ups towork you, especially from Europe, the Far East and Asia. That's why Idon't operate much on ham radio anymore; I don't l ike working those

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guys at the rate of four per minute. l 'm gett ing too old to f i l l in my logthat fast.

l f you happen to be a sunshine and salt water nut, that 's the nexthandicap. Humphries practices the 'rel igion' of Scuba diving, andthere are many advocates on Provo. You'll have a terrible time decid-ing you should work when only five minutes away is the most beautifulundersea reef in the world. A person without great resistance totemptation would be in big trouble here.

lf you have a closet filled with winter clothing, that's your nextproblem. Since in three years our coldest recorded temperature hasbeen 63 degrees, you'll probably want to leave the woolen underwearbehind. And that presents a severe storage problem.

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CooP/continued from page 88

lf you don't like informal living, wearing T shirts, cut offs, sandalsand carrying a half empty cold brew around, you'll not make it here.One guy who came down and saw Humphries went back to his formeremployer (M/A Com) and reported Tom had turned into a "40 year oldhippie, driving a beat up old pick up truck, loaded down with coldbeer, diving gear and a bevy of English girls who didn't appear tohave much on their bodies" when he saw them, Of course you couldbe strong of will and resist the temptations that have been the undoingof Humphries. You could also stay in Hackensack.

Seriously, we'd like to get this service thing taken care of. Either ayoung fellow, preferably without family (small children are here, butschooling is difficult), a middle-aged 'drop out' like Humphries, orsomebody who has a reasonable nest egg socked away and whowants to retire to a casual life style Caribbean island, would be ideal.The guy (l hesitate to say gal, although certainly there are manyso-qualified) will have to be a hard worker, not be easily distracted bybeer and broads and Barracuda (that's a fish you see while diving),ready to give up punctual living, formal life styles, and 'rules'to live by(you make your own up here), and, not be destitute. Smart we'llaccept. Poor is no sin but you'll have to take the opportunity and runwith it, and provide your own 'fall back' position if you get here and findout you can't hack it.

The nest egg, and the right test equipment, is important. A onebedroom aparlment, furnished, will cost you $500 to $600 a monthhere, And they are hard to find. The first time you pull your car up to thegas pump (you'll have to bring down a good, servicable vehicle like aused pick-up truck), and pay $2.05 a gallon, you'll remember you arenot in Dallas. lf you eat normal, and cook your own meals, you mightget by for $1 00 in raw groceries per week. lf you drink lots of cold beer,you spend $2.00 a bottle in the pubs or $12 a case al the grocery.That's the nasty side. On the bright side, you'll get paid very well byyour customers for the radios you sell, or the TV or two-ways yourepair. Their only alternative is to send the stuff 700 miles back toFlorida and wait weeks to get it fixed, plus pay shipping and hassle

SATELLITE DICESTwith customs on both ends. lt is a builfin-market. There are probably250 TV sets alone, sitting broken in closets here; another 50 to 100VHF marine radios 'down', and on and on. Like I said, the guy whodoes this will have to hit the ground running. Even as he is flying downwith Provo Flying Service, owner Ed Hegner will be asking him if hecan find time to repair some of his Avionics radio gear. There is no endto it.

I am not prepared to spend hours telling everyone who thinks theyare ready to abandon civilization for Provo all about Provo. That wouldtake far more time than I have available. What I suggest is that thoseinterested sit down and write me a long letter telling me all of thereasons you have to want to come here. Include how you plan tohandle the test equipment and nest egg problems, and when you cancome down for a look-see visit. Just getting down for a weekend willset you back $500 from the time you leave Fort Lauderdale until youare back in Fort Lauderdale, if you stay here three nights and fly withProvo Flying Service. So there is an element of risk involved, even ininvestigating the opportunity.

Oh y_es.Being the first to get a letter to us will be secondary to being the'best qualified' person we come up with. Maybe nobody will write, in

which case Humphries had better learn how to fix TV sets and two-way radios while his printing press is runningl

THE SATELLITE ExpertHard on the heels of the notice that we have a new oroblem with

the shipment of 'high tech goods' outside of the USA, there is thenearly tragic story of a man who decided he would be 'king' of arelatively well known African nation. The 'Satellite King'.

Many of us hear weekly from well meaning people scattered allover the globe. These people have read or heard about satellitetelevision and from the usually sketchy printed reports they have noway of knowing that you can't set up a terminal in Tanzania or Liberiaor Tunisia, for example, and tune in HBO or WTBS. The reports theyread tell how wonderful, and 'world wide', satellite television is andoften the reports mis-lead the readers into believing that for $3995 or

SATELLITE DICEST$13,995 or whatever number, they can be escalated into the middle ofthe great American satellite bonanza. Such people are, understand-ably, excited. They hunger for information, and they thirst for theopportunity to have their own terminal.

Often when a person is approached with a request for assistancein establishing the 'first satellite terminal' in (fill in the name of vourfavorite foreign country), there are well meaning but hardly substinti-ated 'market projections' floating in and out of the conversation."We have no television in Liberia" the conversation might be-gin. "Gan you help us get television, via satellite?. Even if you don'tknow where Liberia is, that seems like a pretty nifty'business oppor-lunity ' .

"We can sell several thousand terminals here. And, price willbe no obiect. Why we might sell them for as much as $30,000each!" exclaims the Liberian. Now the guy has your attention."Look I have a friend who is the cousin olthe president. We canget the equipment into Liberia without paying any duty at all"says the Liberian. "We can even get an exclusive license to bringthe equipment in, and nobody else will be able to get a license foltwenty years or more. We can make millions",

The guy from Tanzania, or Liberia, or whatever, has his 'sellingshoes'on. He has a real sucker on the hook. What he wants is foisomebody to show him how it is done. He wants somebody to bedumb enough to believe that he really does have a friend who is 'thePresident cousin.' And that he can, indeed, 'get around' all of thegovernment paperwork, and get a 'twenty year license, to be theexclusive importer of the product.

The US guy is barely conversant on satellites himself. He hasnever put in a terminal with his own two hands. He has never tried tomake a dish track. He has never hooked up a receiver on his own. Buthe forgets all of this because he sees millions of dollars laying outthere on the ground in Liberia. So he throws common sense to thewinds, and jumps in with both feet.

Weeks later our US satellite student is in downtown Monrovia.That's the capital of Liberia. In a box he has a DX Receiver, an LNAand some cables. In another box he has a 1 2 toot paracliose anrenna.

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PAGE 91/CSD/7-83

It's hotter than hell in Monrovia in April and he knows he is very close tothe equator. And he's in Africa. But he doens't know what to do next.

Fourteen overseas telephone calls later he has the paraclipsemore or less together. Monrovia is only 8 degrees north of the equator,so the antenna should be all rights be pointing almost straight over-head. Only our friend thinks he is south of the equator, rather thannorth. So he spends the first two days trying to find satellites to hisnorth. Remember, he never did this before himself so even if he waspointing in the correct direction, he would be in big trouble. Naturally,looking north, while still north of the equator, only compounds hisproblem.

After a couple of days looking in the wrong direction, he finallydecides to read through the Steve Birkill international satellite manuai.He's not read it before. lt was far too technical to attract his attention.But now his friend, the guy who has another friend who is the cousin ofthe President, is really getting steamed. Days of looking and nopictures. All of the people HE told about satellite TV, those people whowere going to lay down $30,000 cash per terminal, are starting to bughim. 'Got pictures yet?' they are asking. So our traveting Rftericai'soon to be millionaire' satellite 'expert' decides he had better fiqureoul what is going on here.

That's when he discovers, for the first time, that he is looking in thewrong direction. That could be embarassing when he has to tell themto turn the antenna around the other way. He thinks quick and thenreports ' I just checked with my contacts in the states. The satelliteoperators have moved the satellites to the south;something to do withthe Russians. We have to look for them in this direction now (pointingsouth)'. The Liberians don't know the geo-stationary orbit beit from ichunk ot mahogany so they go along with him. Afterall, ,this is thegreat American satellite expert'. Right?. Another day passes. Then, as the day is ending, quite by accident,

the dish stumbles across a satellite; virtually dead overhead at 14degrees west. There is wild excitement. people appear from behindthe trees, and huts, and fences. "American television" comes the

COOP/continues page 94

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cry. Well, not quite.Our American friend has never seen this type of television before.

But after a few hours he figures out that he must have Ghorizont; theRussian monster bird that spills out a big, fat signal over 40% of theearth from 14 west.

For the first 12 hours or so nobody wants to allow the American'expert'to move the dish. lt took them several days to get pictures, andwhile the pictures they have are not high quality by US standards, it isfar better television than Monrovia residents are accustomed towatching. Their local service is on the air perhaps 5 hours per day, witha mighty 500 watt transmitter. Eventually he is allowed to move thedish, in hopes of f inding those elusive'HBO'and'WTBS'signals. Afternearly another day of lrying, our American expert decides the bestthing he can do is beat it out of Liberia and back to the safety of thestates. A story about how the present President gained power mayhave had something to do with his decision;the present one shot thelast one.

Meanwhile back in the states, the chips are starting to fall. TheUS Embassy in Liberia gets a report that an American 'Satellite

Expert' has been in town, and he has left behind a terminal that isbringing in television. The American Embassy investigates and tindsout, sure enough, this is true. But then the Embassy learns that theterminal is bringing in Russian television. 'Red Flags', bells and whis-tles go off all over the American Embassy compound. "Russian

television, in Liberia, brought in by an American 'Satellite Ex-perl'???".

Teletype text flies to Washington. "What does Washingtonknow about an American, perhaps hired by the Liberian govern-ment, to bring Russian culture (i.e. television) to Liberia???".Washington doesn't know anything, but they will find out.

A CIA type travels to the town where the American lives. He talkswith some acquaintances of the American. "He told me that he hadcontacts inside the CIA; that he was being hired by the CIA to putin those satellite things in Liberia" one acquaintance relates. TheCIA field man decides it is time to get back with Washington. Therecould be some sort of top-level, covert activity here. One that isclassified. He doesn't want to step on his own people

After a day of solid checking in Washington, nobody can find anyrecord of our friend having any CIA connections. The closest theycome is to learn that our friend's wife once worked as a receptionist inan FBI field otfice; twenty years or so previously.

Back into the field. And meanwhile the Liberians involved in thefiasco are feeling some heat. The President has gotten the word;some of his people are watching Russian television, and the Amer-ican Embassy is alarmed. The Liberian president promptly advisesthe Embassy that this all happened without government knowledge."No, there is no attempt here to turn Liberia into a puppet of theUSSR by bringing in Russian television. No, the Monrovia trans-mitter, all 500 watts of it, is not about to become a broadcastingstation tor Russian television".

Lest you think this is al l tantasy, think again. This actual ly hap'pened during April. The chips were falling all the way to the end ofMay. They may still be falling as you read this. And there is a warninghere for those who don't understand what happened.

(1) You can't march into a country and set up a satellite terminal,unless you have some idea of what you are doing. (A 12 footParaclipse and a DX receiver, as fine pieces of equipment asthey are, were never designed to bring American satellitetelevision to Liberia!)

(2) You can't get a big head about how 'important you are' andtabricate stories about the American government and the CIAbacking you in some foreign country. (lt doesn't take a JamesBond fan to figure out that the CIA and other covert-agencyguys play for keeps, and you'd better not try to get a game ontheir court it you are not in their league!)

(3) Leaving behind Russian television, and ONLY Russian televi-sion, in a country where the American influence is precariousat besl, is not a smart thing to do. (You are, afterall, an

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American. And in case you haven't noticed, there is a tiny bit olconflict, worldwide, between the Russian and American sys-tems!)

(4) Hauling high technology stuff out of the USA, unmarked andundeclared, and without appropriate 1520A Export Licensingis a terrible mistake. (Especially when you stir up a hornet'snest after you get there!)

(5) You had better know which side of the equator you are on!This guy is relatively well known in the industry. He tells people "l

don't know much about the technical side of this business", andsure enough, he proved that in Liberia. He also proved that it is stillpossible for one American, acting without both oars in the water, to bea dangerous instrument of unintended foreign policy. A satellite ter-minal, in the wrong hands, can be a dangerous instrument. lt you haveany doubts about that, ask the American Embassy in Monrovia, or, theU.S. Department of State in Washington. They have quite a file goingnow and it ain't over yet.

lF LIBERIA ISN'T YOUR Cup Of Tea.. .There has been an uncommon amount of activity in the Middle

East of late, on the'home'TVRO front. You have to understand that atypical TVRO home in Saudi Arabia, or Kuwait or elsewhere sur-rounding the Red Sea in the oil rich arena is not your typical Americansuburban home. There are thousands of Sheiks and Princes and whathave you still holding forth over minor, but very wealthy, 'states' or'provinces'within their anid lands. They have the bucks, and lhe 'yen'

for modern technology. One of them is equal to perhaps 10,000 of us.Or, 1,000 of them are equal to ten million of us. lt therefore becomespossible for a few hundred of 'them'to represent some exceedinglylarge dollars to say the American advertising market.

ljudge there to be between 30 to 50 terminals now in operation orunder construction in this region of the world. I know of one suppliernow a third of the way through a contract to deliver 65 lerminals in the 6and 7.5 meter size, to this region of the world. By year's end therecould well be 100 such terminals there; perhaps more.

All of this activity, although the numbers seem very small to us bycomparison, has not gone unnoticed. On either side of the Atlantic. Aguy selling drill bits, for example, would just love to tell Sheik this orPrince that about his diamond tipped carbon steel deep well drillingbits. lf he could reach that Sheik or Prince in his bedroom, so much thebetter.

A fellow named Omar Duwalk is President of something called'ClCO,'which is shorthand for Computerphone International Corpora-tion. I understand that Omar has raised $36 million in'venture capital'to provide American style television to a number of ditferent 'Arab'

countries. Since that is about half the money you need lo build andlaunch a 24 channel modern satellite Uust to put the bucks intoperspective; not to suggest that is what he is up to), Omar has alotgoing for his plan. Now, what is he up to?

Omar ralsed $36 million from an 'Arab Consortium' to haulAmerican ABC, CBS, NBC and 'other' style television across theAtlantic to Saudi, Kuwait, and neighboring areas. Omar also went tothe folks at Intelsat, back late in April, and tendered a formal request lolease a oair of Intelsat TV transoonders. Omar wants to send Amer-ican programs via Intelsat to Saudi and the region sunounding Saudi,probably via the same 1 west bird that is currently carrying AFRTS(see CSD for February, 1983) to the Persian Gulf region.

Since $36 million will buy alot of transponder time (at Intelsat rates,he could have about nine years worth of Intelsat fees socked awaywith a $36 million kitty), one might wonder how he plans to spend thatdough. Omar has that figured out.

They plan to use a pair of transpondels, in half transponderformat, so they can ship four simultaneous programs east. One eachABC, CBS, NBC, and, the fourth will be split between WTBS, CNN,and a big list of others. The programs will cost them a few bucks, butnot enough to 'dent' the $36 mil. Then on the ground, Omar figures toget his money back.

The plan is to wire, as in cable, big chunks of large Arabian cities.They'll program some of the channels with tapes, from throughout theArabic world, some channels directly otf of Intelsat and other birds

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SATELLITE DICESTvisible to themr with European programming, and of course at leastfour channels with American television. At perhaps $50,OOO per milecable plant costs, Omar could put in 720 miles of cable plant. He'llprobably be using some of the relatively low cost 20 channel plantsystems, however, and squeeze in for under 920,000 per mile. Thatwil l bui ld his'consort ium'more than 1500 miles of cable plant, buythem two full time Intelsat transponders, and give them enough oper-ating capital for several years. Very slick.

Will Omar scramble his service via Intelsat? They are not sure,but there is certainly that possibility. We mention this so that readers inEurope and Africa don't run out yelling 'Love Boat ls Coming' into thestreets of their villages. Maybe, but it could be scrambled in theorocess.

Omar Duwaik. A man with 936,000,000 to spend on bringingAmerican television to the middle east. Those who want to netp nimwith the project will find his office in Denver (where his firm is listed atSuite C, 1925 S. Rosemary St.,80224); gO3/7S1-6100.

JV Who?The June issue of CSD carried some comments of mine concern-

ing that controversial distributor Joe Valentino. I closed the commentsby noting that Joe was arranging to bring down a pair of new{o-the-industry antennas for test on the provo rrange.' Well, he has come,and gone. And in the interim I have had a few more letters from dealerswho are having problems with Joe.

Unraveling the controversy boiling around JV is abit akin to being aparticipant on the panel of 'To Tell The Truth,'or, ,What's My Line-?'.Someplace in all that we hear and see there is a comDlete truth.

While here on Provo Joe said to me, almost as an afterthought,"There is no more JV Electronics." When I didn't respond he added"We lost $125,000 last year and now we are JV Satellite.', peoolewh.o lose big sums of money, and change their names, usually aretrying lo get out from beneath a stack of debts. Or ,hide' from orosecu-tion.

In another discussion concerning how dealers can survive whenthey are dealing with OEMs or distributors (or bolh) who will not standbehind their equipment properly, Joe seemed genuinely concernedthat dealers do get stuck when they should not. I raised another sideto the coin.

'But what about the distributor who tries to help out a dealer. Thedealer has a problem and the distributor agrees to send a replacementwidget that day. The dealer agrees to return the troublesome widgethe has the same day, the same way. What happens then?, I asked.. l'Tley often don't return the broken unit; they keep themboth. That's why 1 lost $125,000 last year as JV Electronics" wasthe response. And he added "Where do you draw the line? | take on aline of antennas, or drives, or whatever. The OEM is new to thebusiness and after we get some into the field there are problems. I feelsorry for the dealer having problems, and somewhat responsible.Then the OEM goes out of business and I'm in the middle. The dealerhas a defective unit. I collected the money from the dealer, paid theO!M, gnd then I find mysetf being asked to make good for the brokenunit which the OEM is no longer available to guarantee. I didn'tguarantee the unit, the OEM did. lf I received a guarantee or warranty,I passed it on to the dealer. But the dealer looks to me tor a refund.since the OEM is gone."

I can see how JV lost $ 1 25,000, or at least some money, in 1 992.They were acling in the wrong capacity if JV refunded honey forproducts it did not manufacture. You refund money like this out ofpro1its. lf you have any. I can also see why Joe didn't have profits in1982.

"We sold LNAS at the show (a specific show) for $25 abovecosl" Joe related. We asked how he could do that, $25 over invoicecost. "l didn't have to inventory them. The manufacturer brought 50t0 the show. They carried them, stocked them in their booth, and I soldthem from my booth. I made $25 each time I turned one." Rioht.

I recalled another conversation with Dave McClaskey of Iniersat.The subject was dealers who ask to get equipment COD, or who pleadand beg_for an emerQency replacement because a ,system is down.'"There is a sham out there; people have figured out how to beat

COOP/continues page 100

PAGE 97/CSD/7-83

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PAGE 100/CSD/7-83 SATELLITE DICESTCOOP/continued from page 97

the COD thing" David told me. Then he wove a tale of how it ispossible to snag a portion of a COD shipment out from under thewatchful eyes of the delivery company. I was amazed at how the shamworked. Downright clever is what it was. The bottom line was that theshipping company (such as UPS) would eventually return a portion ofthe shipment to Intersat, with the notation that it had been refused.Right again. PART of it had been refused. The other part 'dis-

appeared' because the clever dealer knew how to manipulate thedelivery company driver.

The same McOlaskey told me about how a big-time chain store forwhom Intersat manufactures gear was a problem. "One of theiroutlets has several of our antennas. They kept claiming the antennaswere bad and because they were a new account and a big one at that,we kept sending replacements. The 'bad units' never found their wayback lo St. Louis. This year, 1 2 months or so after this happened, I raninto this dealer at a trade show. "l still have those bad antennas' hesaid to me. lasked him what he was going to do with lhem. He smiledand said "Aww, you don't need them back. l'll iust keep them."Right. Again.

There is a pattern here which is disturbing. The OEMs and distribu-lors are very vulnerable to criticism. They are immediate'bad guys' ifsomething doesn't work, or if there is not immediate restitution forsomethino that malfunctions. The dealers bad mouth the distributors

VALENTINO ON PROVO/ 'vintage' T shirt.

or OEMs and sooner or later (typically sooner these days) CSD gets aletter charging the supplier with mail fraud or whatever

The OEM, or distributor, on the other hand, is very reluctant to blowthe whistle on a dealer. He figures that he is bigger than the dealer,and it looks like the big guy is attacking the little guy. lt is always better,for PR, to be on the attack when you are the 'little guy.'

What may be missing in the industry is a central clearinghouse for credit. An agency that simply collects informalion, pro-vided by distributors and OEMs, and stores it away in one of thosenasty computer machines.

The machinery might be complicated to implement, but since it hasbeen done in dozens of other industries with high success, it could bedone here as well. The object would be to simply'warn'distributors orOEMs that a specific dealer is a bad apple who engages in one type oranother of deceit when placing an order. For a system like this to workin this industry, at least one OEM or distributor would have to be aguinea pig for each bad apple dealer. Somebody would get burned,and that information would go to the central agency. Now others wouldfind out in advance of getting stung themselves.

Through all thatJoe says he has been through, and through all thatseveral dozen others have shared with me, I am convinced that this'good guy/bad guy' labeling that we hear bantered about the industryis very much a two-way street. Yes, there are OEMs and there aredistributors who always try to do a number on unsuspecting dealers.

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But, there are also dealers who are just as conniving

,"^ lf-il:l""r9d^uj*itity for poorty designed products is here (through

lle paSe.s of CSD), there ne_eds to Le a' .orni"ip"rt system forrncreased awareness to the OEM and distributor thiicertain dealers

fl: qluyins " cheating game., For now t am satistieOinat if we pinpointthe problem and air i t here, that some clever businei, p"rron wil l pickup the bal l and run with i t . I would editorialfy ,rppon a properlydesigned and properly run .credit information ;o;; ; ; .Joe vatentino, meanwhile, is a dist inct proOte-m. ;6e rs not the f irst

ll-rlrbylg, to tose money. He is not the firit i" g" "ri"f business asone enti ty and reappear as.a new enti ty. What h; is doing, however, isy:r1_yi.lbt". He freety admits that ,or" p.oft" Uou!-ni t,o, him, andbecause of dealer cheating or OEM conniving, he-fot stucX in themiddle. JV Satel l i te sounds very much l ike Jf Etecironics to me; Idoubt anyone wil l be confused by the name ch"ng;. A;C i f i r helps Joeget,b?ck on his feet, i t is probably far better to Xtep joe in businessand alive, so that someday he canmake re.tirrlion fSrinose prootemsthat h.e caused (as opposed to probtems rrel"r';i;;ii with becausesomebody else screwed up).. With Joe's statement thatie wil l be working to straiqhten out thoselegit imate craims againsr JV Erectronics, l h"r; j ; i ; ; i rhat csD wir lco.nttnue to accept his advertising. But, as I have warned him, theminute the tetters starr tg qijg r.p frorn p"opL'uino are havingprobrems with JV sateilite, I wiil be forced to're-visit tnat oecision. JVElectronics is pasr rense. _tv sateiliie-is pl;;;ruil Now we atlknow this and those who feel they neeO-to O-e'"iin""o about suchthings have indeed been warneo.

NOT l l legat?

_ Way back in November of 1979, the Federal CommunrcationsCommission decided that therer/vas no 6ng., ";*V;;ed for peopleinstalling TVROs to have an FCC li"ense. itey Oii t'f,[ not becausethe home satellite industry was important to tndm, nut more becausethe cable industrv and the radio broadcasteis were tatking ofthousands of new ierminals per year, and the FCC was faced with thelergthy, and expensive-to-government procedure of processtng eachof these ARO (audio receiie only) or TVRO terminals for a license.The FCC simply did not want to'get swamped with license appttca_PT-:^r,"^ll? re-thousht their ralionate i;i;;q;;;;s; ricense andoecrded that a license would henceforth be .bptioial., you couldspend the $ 1200 or so to f i le for and obtain a f icense, i iVou wished. Oryou could do it without a license. lf you went througi the licensingprocedure, you were actually ,staking

a claim, to "ARO

or TVRdservice in your area, without terrestrial interference. The whole1,..:!:i.9

process, iniriaily, was designed to in.ri" tnuiine terrestrialusers of 4 GHz, and the satellite o1 space ,."r, oJ 4 GHz, couldco-exist using the same frequency bands. A TVRO or ARO license,granted, insured that no future terrestrial networks would be built,ontop of you. '

^-^ ll_t!?j ].| ol.'lllyling, the FCC tarked about the then virsin butgrowrng 'home TVRO' field. They made some comments aboui,illeg_al' (i.e- unauthorized) versus ,legit' (authoriz"dl;;;6ii;., and prom-rsed they would re-visit that subject isoon.' Weti, soon lust happened.But not without some oroddrno.I understand that some Suyers or would_be buyers of homeTVROs have been concerned about the ,f egafity' oi tw;ing a TVRO. Ifurther understand that some of these *oriO_n6 ori"r.'i,ru" t"r,"n itupon themselves to contact their FCC regional tielO'otLes (there are24 or so scattered from San Juan to nnihorige) Li a- protessional

opinion.' And, since they are apt to talk wit"n i receptionist or atechnician or a field enoineer, or, the man in cnarge, t-frtly are apt aswouh-be.TVRo buyerJto receive a different'officiar statement, abouttheleg?Iy-of_owning a TVRO from each rCC per'sonlirly tatk with.orAutr, our trade association, has been concerned about thisproblem since a would-be buyer who gets a lrolJtf an uninformedFCC person is apr to be totd ftaily ,rrrO, tiey aie noi r"g"i.l you cannotblame the uninfollned FCC person totallyi tfrere nas "Oeen

no ,officialp.lrcy statement' from Washington, and left to make up their ownminds about a controversial question such as this, the batest, thing todo for a government employee is to simply say ;ro , --

. Nol anymore. SPACE his been urtri-tri"-W".nington headquar_lers of the FCC and they have just released a relitivety detailed

-ATTENTION -

ALUMINUIVI MESHANTENNADEALERS

U.P . Sa te l l i t e now o f f e r s a mesh an tenna t ha t i s manu fac_tu red rn t he mrdwes t . Ca l l o r w r i t e f o r a compe t i t i ve p r i ce ,bea t t he Wes t Coas t on f r e rgh t . We o f f e r a comp le te l i neo f componen ts i nc l ud ing :

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PAGE 104/CSD/7-83

COOP/continued trorii Page 101

statement which officiallv sanctions home TVROs. The statementmentions that 'to datd the;e have been no court cases brought againstTVRO owners, dealers. distributors and manufacturers' and furtherconcludes that there is nothing illegal about watching satellite TV,selling satellite TV systems, or manufacturing TVRO Hardware.

The statement does attempt to explain that under the 1934 Com-munications Act, certain types of communications are consideredprivate. That's the 'Section 605' thing. This serves to put the public onnotice that at least some of the transmissions found on satellite areconsidered private, or personal, material. And, interception ol suchtransmissions, without prior approval is or could be a violation ofSection 605. That's just common sense.

SPACE is to be congratulated for staying on top of this problem,and getting the ear of the Commission. Every dealer who is a memberof SPACE should by now have a formal 'copy'of the FCC statementconcerning 'legal reception.' lf you don't, you probably are not amember of SPACE. That's your cue to get on the horn (2021887-0605)and join. lt I were a dealer, I'd run off several hundred copies of theFCC release, and frame one in my showroom so anybody who ques-tions your business activity can read for themselves that you are nol insome sort of illegal business.

FN RESINSI was recently told a story concerning a 12 foot fiberglass antenna

which is too good to keep to myself . I will not identify the 'author' of thisreport except to note that this is the head of a company that producesfiberglass antennas for the home TVRO market. I've changed just afew circumstances to make it more difficult for those reading this toidentify the source. The 'meat' in all of this is the detailed introspectone gets of the problems associated with fiberglass dish construction.Who told me all of this is not imDortant.

"We had the opportunity to provide a dish to somebody impor-tant. This was to be a very special antenna; one that represented thevery best of our skills and the best of our technolgoy. We decided tosend the mount out for a special paint job. Normally we use zincchromate followed by an oil based paint manufactured by PorterPaints. This has worked very well for us, and so far no problems withlhe antennas in hostile environments. We should have left a goodthing alone!

"This'special'antenna was primed with auto body primer. Thenit was painted wilh lmron paint. This is classy, but it proved to be adisaster. We happened to paint a second mount the same way at thesame time. lt was installed as a 'show antenna' here at the factory.Less than six months later, we had to replace it; rust!

"Ourfiberglass man was given the same word;this was to be thevery best antenna we could produce! While the mount was gettingprepared the work began on the dish.

"We buy resin from two suppliers; AZS, and, Koppers. On the daythis special antenna was to be 'shot' the truck anived with severalbanels of Koppers resin. This stuff comes in a pretty blue drum withbig labels all over it. The AZS resin, on the other hand, arrives in are-used black colored drum lhat typically has dents on the drum andstenciled oroduct identification.

"The fiberglass man was told this was to be a special antenna sohe does the logical thing; he gets the pretty blue drum and starts tospray. Since the drum just came off the truck an hour or so ago, itdoesn't need to be 'stirred.' That's a 45 minute wait for the slirring, andhe saw no reason to do that.

"Just for the record, resin, like bug spray, and many olherproducts is 40% active ingredients. The rest is 'filler.' In the case otmost resins, the filler is a form of Carbosil. And, Carbosil has a numberof ingredients in it including powdered glass. Because filler has alower specific gravity than the active components, the 'filler' will tend torise to the top of the drum/mixture. When you stir this top layer it willappear to be thick and soupy, while the bottom is thin and runny. Thisbottom layer is the active chemical that makes the stutf actually gel.

"Now then, the drum that came otf the truck (the pretty blue drum)was'new,'and it didn't need to be agitated; right? Wrong. There is notelling, unless you can read the code that Koppers puts on the drum,when this resin was actually made. The Koppers stuff is made on the

SATELLITE DICESTopposite side of the USA from us and shipping does use up some time.The AZS stutf, on the other hand, is made quite close by. Normally ifwe use il promptly we do not have to agitate it since the resin takes acouple of weeks to 'settle out.'

"What all of this leads to is that the 'soecial antenna' was madewith the highly concentrated 'pure stutf ' at the bottom of the drum (thechopper gun sucks up the stuff at the bottom of the drum first).

"This all turned out to be a disaster; but an interesting disaster.One of the ways to save money in a liberglass operation is to use fillerto stretch the resin out. Here we had an antenna with the exactopposite; it has no filler in it! The'special antenna' left the factory andwas installed before we figured any of this out. The mount had abeautiful auto body lmron paint finish over auto body primer; and thedish was formed with almost 100% 'good stuff'; no filler at all!

"The dish went in and worked quite well, for awhile. Then itbegan to'sag.'That problem may or may not have been related to thestrange 'mix' of the resin and fillers. lt did provide us with an accidentalopportunity to evaluate the long term stability of the'pure' resin. Howwell will it stand up to UV (ultra violet) radiation, for example? Whatabout becoming brittle? The fillers, improperly used, cause the anten-na surfaces to become brittle."

Taylor Howard remarked to me, recently, that he felt the days offiberglass dishes were numbered. Apparently Tay teels that the eco-nomics of fiberglass, plus the shipping problems that are inherent withsuch (relatively) heavy dishes (or pieces of dishes) is'handwriting onthe wall.' I'm not sure I totally agree, although I do know that if you tookthe 'average' or mean of antenna performance for all antennas nowbeing sold, you'd find that solid metal dishes generally average higherin performance than mesh or fiberglass, while structural integrityusually finds the open faced mesh dishes a poor third. The biggestproblem with fiberglass, if there are problems, is in the composition ofthe fiberglass sections. lf they are not done properly, the poor guy inthe field has a very bad time trying to get the pieces to tit properly.That's not a blanket indictment of all fiberglass antennas; some gotogether beautifully. And work just as well. But a poorly designedfiberglass dish, improperly manufactured, is a disaster.

ROHNER Finally Gets ltlowa Attorney General Tom Miller in mid-May filed a lawsuil

against John and Georgia Rohner of West Liberty, lowa charging thatthey had defrauded people who had ordered satellite television equip-ment from the Rohners. The suit was filed in Polk County District Courtand names as defendents J.P. Rohner and Associates in addition toJohn and Georgia Rohner. Also named were two Rohner 'spin-otf'

firms; Satellite TVRO Technology (abbreviated STT; Rohner's de-liberate attempt to associate himself with the well known STT firm),and Advanced Communications Engineering, Inc. According to thelowa Attorney General, Rohner listed himself as President of each ofthese firms.

According to the suit, the Rohners and their companies were"paid in advance for equipment which never was delivered, wasdelivered incomplete, or was delivered in inoperable condition".The suit further charges that the defendents had repeatedly ignoredrequests from unhappy purchasers to either deliver operable equip-ment or make refund to the buyers. The State of lowa is asking thecourt to force the Rohners to cease delivering TVRO equipment(within the State of lowa; the limit of the State's authority), and torefund money to those who have purchased equipment. The suit listssome 36 complaints trom residents of lowa, as well as elsewherearound the country, totaling more than $45,000.

Any readers of CSD who have continued to have 'Rohner prob-lems'are urged to contact lhe lowa otfice of State Attorney GeneralTom Miller. The suit has been a long time coming, as older readers ofCSD well know. CSD discontinued accepting Rohner associatedadvertising in the summer of 1980, and carried an extensive storysimilarto the present lowa state case way back in the summerof 1981 ,In cases such as this, state agencies often move very slowly. Forexample, back on June 7, 1982 lowa Attorney General Miller wrote "lt

is the opinion (of this otfice) that Rohner and Associates hasviolated the lowa Consumer Act(71416 Code) and we anticipatefiling a civil action against him for said violation". Some 1 lmonths later, such an action was finally filed.

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Sat-tec. . . R-SOOO DThe Leoder in Satellite TV

Cantemporary styling,state -of -the -srt perf ormence,dawn to esrth pricing

S;r t 1 t : t "s R 5000. c l re( 'e iv(?r r lesrgytec l for 1c>clay- 's r r t i r rket l t lace wi l l lt ( ) r ' ] r ( ) r r ( ) \ ! ' s f e . r l t r r cs . Fea t i r r cs ( us t ( )n re rs c l en ranc l . l i l <e . s i g r r z r l r l e l e r .r - on l cn rp< . r l i r r 9 ' s t y i i r r rS . t r nex t :e l l ed J r i r : t t r r e c l L r ; i l i t y . l t r r t u t r l e a r - rd io ,bL r i l t i r r r l oc l r r l a i o r ( ) l ) t i ( ) l r . c :hanne r l - l oc ' k AFC. l ' r asebanc i v i c ]eoo t t t pL r l .r t rggecl r t ,c ,ather l ; roof c lo ' ,vr rconvt : r tcr . cL l r re l ) l l imi tec l " ic l io t pror t f "h r - r r . ' k r r 1 r . c l i g i l ; r i l i n r i t e r c l i s c r i r l i n . r t o r c l e t t , c l o r anc l r e l j ab le un i chass i scc>ns t ruc l i on . Ou r ye ; r r s o f i r c ' c ' on rp l i shn re t t l s i r r t he s . r t e l l i t c TVi l ) c l us l r ! - h , r s g i ven us r r l r i c l r r r : i ns igh l i n l r t r ecep t i o t t t ech r t i c l r l es a t t c l( Lrstonr€,r c lenr i rnc ls . T i re R i ;000 inc 'orp() rz i tes t I . re l ; r tes l 1<:chtro logyarsrvc, l i ers t f re sLr t r fkr c lc , t i r j is thal onlg exper ienct : cat t c lever lop.

Ex tcns i , " , c c i L r c l l i l ! ' co l r l r o l c l r ecks s t r r : h as o t t r r t t r i c l ue t r i p l e l eve l boa rc lt es t . r ecc i ve r bL r rn i n as r t ' r , l l , r s i r f i na l ac tL ta l i . r t t . t he u i r check o t r ta r ssL r rL , s r c l i . r i r i l i t t . . f o t g tu i r r s 1 ( ) u ( ) I t l e .

The R 5000 - net ,er l ra . . ; so nrut .h been exl rer iencrecl kr r so l i t t le . FronrS . r l t ec . l he na in re ! , oL r ' ve kno r , v r r i i r s t , s i nce l f r e l r eg inn ing o f Sa te l l i t e ,TV

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