Base station vs. Satellite costs -- any examples?

king of using satellite TV as an example: satellites intended for distribut ion to a few cable TV providers tend to use lower power upstairs, and requi re the user to have a big antenna and sensitive receiver, where direct-to-h ome satellites have bigger, heavier, more expensive to build and to launch higher power transmitters to enable the much more numerous users to have sm aller, cheaper systems.

t for one on salon.com that is vague.

I'm mostly looking for real-world examples of how many users leads to a ne ed for cheap receivers (which often drives the transmitter price up), vs. h ow just a few users leads to a desire for lower-cost transmitters, even if the receiver price goes up as a consequence.

and I can't get to my news server.

Do you need satelite data? Or could you use someting else.

Like AM/FM radio broadcast power vs range/number of households covered?

Or size of the motor at the top of a ski lift vs number of passengers. (When I was a little toddler we skied at a little club that had a rope tow power by an old Model T motor.... no more than ~20 people going up at one time.)

George H.

inking of using satellite TV as an example: satellites intended for distrib ution to a few cable TV providers tend to use lower power upstairs, and req uire the user to have a big antenna and sensitive receiver, where direct-to

-home satellites have bigger, heavier, more expensive to build and to launc h higher power transmitters to enable the much more numerous users to have smaller, cheaper systems.

ept for one on salon.com that is vague.

-- I'm mostly looking for real-world examples of how many users leads to a need for cheap receivers (which often drives the transmitter price up), vs. how just a few users leads to a desire for lower-cost transmitters, even i f the receiver price goes up as a consequence.

" and I can't get to my news server.

The ski lift example isn't what I was thinking of -- I was more thinking of how a system that has a 1:many relationship between components would drive different pricing than one with relationship closer to 1:1.

The broadcast radio gets closer, but I'm more looking at examples that high light the economic advantage of a receiver can be built for $25 with transm itters costing in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, instead of doubling the price of the receiver and halving the price of the transmitter.

using satellite TV as an example: satellites intended for distribution to a few cable TV providers tend to use lower power upstairs, and require the user to have a big antenna and sensitive receiver, where direct-to-home satellites have bigger, heavier, more expensive to build and to launch higher power transmitters to enable the much more numerous users to have smaller, cheaper systems.

one on salon.com that is vague.

mostly looking for real-world examples of how many users leads to a need for cheap receivers (which often drives the transmitter price up), vs. how just a few users leads to a desire for lower-cost transmitters, even if the receiver price goes up as a consequence.

CATV & broadcasters use C band, at 4 GHz. Consumer sat uses KU band at 11 GHz. Consumers will put up with a smaller gain margin than CATV or broadcast. Also, a lot of their C band antennas are 20 to 35 years old and date from the days of 120° LNAs, where they needed all the antenna gain they could get. 'Antennas For Communications' made a lot of them, and they still have the molds sitting in their parking lot near Ocala, Florida.

king of using satellite TV as an example: satellites intended for distribut ion to a few cable TV providers tend to use lower power upstairs, and requi re the user to have a big antenna and sensitive receiver, where direct-to-h ome satellites have bigger, heavier, more expensive to build and to launch higher power transmitters to enable the much more numerous users to have sm aller, cheaper systems.

t for one on salon.com that is vague.

I'm mostly looking for real-world examples of how many users leads to a ne ed for cheap receivers (which often drives the transmitter price up), vs. h ow just a few users leads to a desire for lower-cost transmitters, even if the receiver price goes up as a consequence.

and I can't get to my news server.

From memory back in the days of 12 foot dishes the transponder in the satellite was 100W

Scale the dimensions of today's home satellites and you get 2kW to

4kW, right?

of using satellite TV as an example: satellites intended for distribution to a few cable TV providers tend to use lower power upstairs, and require the user to have a big antenna and sensitive receiver, where direct-to-home satellites have bigger, heavier, more expensive to build and to launch higher power transmitters to enable the much more numerous users to have smaller, cheaper systems.

for one on salon.com that is vague.

mostly looking for real-world examples of how many users leads to a need for cheap receivers (which often drives the transmitter price up), vs. how just a few users leads to a desire for lower-cost transmitters, even if the receiver price goes up as a consequence.

I can't get to my news server.

10 Watts. 100 Watts was used for the uplink. It cost over $1,000,000 to get a TWT into orbit. Most birds had a few spares that could be switched in, in case of a failure. There were 24 transponders that had to run off battereis & solar cells. 100 Watts was out of the question. The early birds were in the two watt range per transponder.

Wrong.

Echostar stuff, 120W per transponder (32 Ku band transponders). 4kw backbones seem to be the norm for 'spot' satellites. But, newer sats can go up to 15kw.

Cheers

The switch to Ku was to enable a smaller dish. The satellite industry used its lobby power such that any CONUS home can have any number of dishes that are no larger than one meter. In the socialist state of Alaska, anything goes.

Dish and Direct need an 18inch dish at a minimum. FTA needs around 30 inches.

Lygnsat has all the delivery data.

using satellite TV as an example: satellites intended for distribution to a few cable TV providers tend to use lower power upstairs, and require the user to have a big antenna and sensitive receiver, where direct-to-home satellites have bigger, heavier, more expensive to build and to launch higher power transmitters to enable the much more numerous users to have smaller, cheaper systems.

one on salon.com that is vague.

At the extreme end of that spectrum is the entire deep space network and a few dozen space probes.

Or at the other end GPS where the thanks to advances in chip fabrication the receivers have now become consumer items.

mostly looking for real-world examples of how many users leads to a need for cheap receivers (which often drives the transmitter price up), vs. how just a few users leads to a desire for lower-cost transmitters, even if the receiver price goes up as a consequence.

Not a transmit and receive one but if you look back at the history of VLBI it coincided with the mass produced VHS cassettes and recorders and with a bit of additional custom electronics they were used instead of expensive custom digital data cassettes in truck loads.

Every dish in a VLBI network records the signals it observers with a local H-maser time stamp synchronised to global time. The tapes are then moved to a central correlator to be matched up and correlated.

You can't avoid a bit of local shift since the atmospheric thickness varies and so the correlator has to hunt for the white light fringe.

can't get to my news server.

Just remember that these days it seems to double space all posts.

--
Regards, 
Martin Brown

thinking of using satellite TV as an example: satellites intended for distr ibution to a few cable TV providers tend to use lower power upstairs, and r equire the user to have a big antenna and sensitive receiver, where direct- to-home satellites have bigger, heavier, more expensive to build and to lau nch higher power transmitters to enable the much more numerous users to hav e smaller, cheaper systems.

xcept for one on salon.com that is vague.

V -- I'm mostly looking for real-world examples of how many users leads to a need for cheap receivers (which often drives the transmitter price up), v s. how just a few users leads to a desire for lower-cost transmitters, even if the receiver price goes up as a consequence.

er" and I can't get to my news server.

thank you for the correction with some facts.

thinking of using satellite TV as an example: satellites intended for distribution to a few cable TV providers tend to use lower power upstairs, and require the user to have a big antenna and sensitive receiver, where direct-to-home satellites have bigger, heavier, more expensive to build and to launch higher power transmitters to enable the much more numerous users to have smaller, cheaper systems.

except for one on salon.com that is vague.

I'm mostly looking for real-world examples of how many users leads to a need for cheap receivers (which often drives the transmitter price up), vs. how just a few users leads to a desire for lower-cost transmitters, even if the receiver price goes up as a consequence.

and I can't get to my news server.

I was working in the CATV headend industry back in the '80s. :) The higher quted power for some birds took the antenna gain into account, where some transonders were focused on a small footptrint.

BTW, someone is trying to sell a 100 °K LNA on ebay for an outrageous price. They were considered worthless 20 years ago.

geous

That rates right up there with all those 'infomercials' showing worthless products.

Except they aren't 30 years old. :)

thinking of using satellite TV as an example: satellites intended for distr ibution to a few cable TV providers tend to use lower power upstairs, and r equire the user to have a big antenna and sensitive receiver, where direct- to-home satellites have bigger, heavier, more expensive to build and to lau nch higher power transmitters to enable the much more numerous users to hav e smaller, cheaper systems.

xcept for one on salon.com that is vague.

V -- I'm mostly looking for real-world examples of how many users leads to a need for cheap receivers (which often drives the transmitter price up), v s. how just a few users leads to a desire for lower-cost transmitters, even if the receiver price goes up as a consequence.

er" and I can't get to my news server.

of how a system that has a 1:many relationship between components would dri ve different pricing than one with relationship closer to 1:1.

ghlight the economic advantage of a receiver can be built for $25 with tran smitters costing in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, instead of doubli ng the price of the receiver and halving the price of the transmitter.

I wonder if you could find any data on this relating to MESH network topolo gies? In (some of) those configurations, the traditional macro-scale base station transmitter vanishes altogether. Just a thought.

-mpm