[BC] Satellite finders

[Rob Landry]

On Thu, 1 Dec 2011, Tom Taggart wrote:

> Spent all day outside trying to line up a 10' solid dish to
> get a radio net feed from Galaxy 16.

That's exactly what I'm trying to do. I'll be going back out there later 
today with the damned spectrum analyzer for another try.

> We got good signal level indication on the Bird-Dog, and it
> indicated we were looking at the correct satellite and
> polarization.  Still no lock on the Comstream now in use for
> the network, nor on a brand new XDS receiver.  Then he
> tilted the XDS receiver the wrong way, a little screw fell
> out of it, and it went completely dead (didn't blow the line
> fuse, must of gotten the power supply fuse).

I didn't know there were any networks on Galaxy 16 that used XDS 
receivers.

I am trying to get something from NPR using a Content Depot receiver.

> We called in a spectrum analyzer from the local two-way
> shop.  A sweep with a "naked" LNB didn't see any strong
> local signals (cell tower 1/4 mile away).

My dish is at the base of the local cell tower.

> Best guess is we've used up the last 10 minutes of life in
> that particular Comstream.

I've seen power supplies go bad in those. Moreover, if I remember right 
they can take several minutes to lock if they've never seen that 
particular network before.

Rob