Operating Sat truck - 1 or 2 people

satop

Well-known member
But, if you lock the doors, how do you get back in a second and shut down the transmitter if you are told to by the access center?

Anyone remember when Loral used to do their, "hall of Fame" and "hall of Shame" lists. I wish they still did, and I wish every other access company did also. A little public humiliation goes a long, long way!

I have asked lawyers to read the rules, the all have agreed with my interpretation of them, none of them are on the payroll of any TV station however.
 

stargazer

Active member
Who deleted my response?
The forum was hacked, and some posts were deleted when they restored the back up file.

My response was also deleted, but it was esentially this. The satellite truck operates under a license from the FCC, just like a TV station operates under a license. Would the boss allow your master control to go unmanned? A truck op is esentially the master control operator of the truck. The regs say there has to be someone at the controls when transmitting. If the photog/truck op is out at the camera position, no matter how far away from the truck, is not at the controls of the uplink. Microwave trucks don't fall under the same restrictions.

If something goes wrong, and the access center calls, they might let you slide once or twice, but if you continually have issues, they will report you; or, at the very least, not allow you to buy space on their birds any more; and they don't care that you are doing to save money. Your company could lose their license to operate the trucks, and then you would be parking them and paying a vendor for your shots. And at today's rates, you are talking $2350/day for a vendor truck. If a company is willing to invest a large amount of money to buy a satellite truck, they should be prepared to pay the cost of operating it.

Just my two cents.
 

JimmyS.

Well-known member
This is the statement that i continue to argue....

"the operational functions of the remote earth stations that can be controlled by the operator at the control point, are sufficient to insure that the operations of the remote station(s) are at times in full compliance with the remote station authorization"

You can't argue that.

I've stated a dozen times that I agree with a two person crew. However, since it's been proven thousands of times all over the country that one person can do the job, it's not going to change unless the code changes. Once you've proven that it's a REAL safety issue, millions of dollars in damage have occured to satelites, and million dollar lawsuits against TV stations have truly occured, none of you have a choice when the ND says "do it by yourself".
 

csusandman

Well-known member
What's the definition of "immediate"? 1 second, 5 seconds, 10? How long does it take to walk/run 100' if your phone rings and the caller ID identifies the satellite center? How long does it take the satellite center to tell you about the problem and what they want you to do about it (adjust power, adjust cross pol, shutdown)? What if you're only 50' away?
This is from Dictionary.com:

im-me-di-ate [i-mee-dee-it]

-adjective
1. occurring or accompolished without delay; instant: an immediate reply
2. following or preceding without a lapse of time: the immediate future.
Me thinks that it's obvious when talking about "...the operation of the remote station shall be immediately suspended by the operator at the control point... " what "immediate" implies in that regard. It's a time issue. If you get a call from access to power down, they're not asking you to do so in 1, 5, 10 seconds or however long it takes to run 100'. NOW. IMMEDIATELY. Without delay. But the definition goes on:

3. having no object or space intervening; nearest or next: in the immediate vicinity.
...
7. very close in relationship: my immediate family.
And this would cover the location issue. If you're within the immediate vicinity of the truck, you should be able to power down immediately. Of course, definition #7 says "...very close..." and that could be nitpicked to death of what that means. But I'm thinking the FCC is referring to time, not distance when they say "...immediately..."

Nobody is saying they don't WANT a two person crew. But it's not easy to point to the FCC regs and say it's REQUIRED.
True. It's difficult to cut through all the legal-ese and see the clear-cut rules and regs isn't it?! If anyone were to really take their time while reading them, any sane, logical and smart person could make the assumption that a two man crew would make the most sense.

(Of course, that last sentence is full of contradictions in regards to our bidness... but I threw it out there for a laugh!)

Aside from affecting satellites (and you can cancel out the "twist" by turning your dish controller off), there is really no safety difference between DSNG & ENG... in fact, I'd think ENG is different because of the 50' stick up in the air.
Point taken. "Look up and live." still applies to DSNG huh?! I've edited my previous post after reading, re-reading and re-re-reading that sentence. I guess there isn't too much difference when you boil it all down to the nuts and bolts...

That's great. No one hear is faulting you. All Jimmy is saying is the regs don't require someone to be in the truck.
What? What? (...I can be a smartass at times...)

And all I was saying is that the station that I work for uses a two man crew on DSNG shots: a truck op and a photog. The station where I learned SNG ops eventually had me doing the OMB thing and I got burned on a number of occassions because of their "money saving techniques". One of the reasons why I crossed over...

All in all, my feelings are "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." If your station currently uses a two man crew for DSNG shots, cool. If you're doing them OMB and haven't had a problem, cool. I'm a fan of the first...
 

SamG

Well-known member
This is from Dictionary.com:



Me thinks that it's obvious when talking about "...the operation of the remote station shall be immediately suspended by the operator at the control point... " what "immediate" implies in that regard. It's a time issue. If you get a call from access to power down, they're not asking you to do so in 1, 5, 10 seconds or however long it takes to run 100'. NOW. IMMEDIATELY. Without delay.
I think you left out part of the reg that factors in...
Upon detection by the license, or upon notification from the Commission of a deviation or upon notification by another licensee of harmful interference, the operation of the remote station shall be immediately suspended by the operator at the control point
"Immediate" doesn't come into play until the operator is told (or notices) the violation. Like I said, if you are 50' away from the truck, your cell phone rings and you're running back to the truck AS you answer, by the time you have been notified of the problem, you CAN immediately shutdown. That's my argument. Not that you answer the phone and stay at the camera.

What? What? (...I can be a smartass at times...)
:p

All in all, my feelings are "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." If your station currently uses a two man crew for DSNG shots, cool. If you're doing them OMB and haven't had a problem, cool. I'm a fan of the first...
I agree. I just think people come looking to these threads thinking "how can I show management we MUST have a two man crew?" It's a case of "should" instead of "must", IMHO.
 

rcourtney

Member
Sorry... But, the rules are not clear. That's why this discussion is so long.

Ah yes... The security section. Shouldn't you lock the doors to the truck if you are going to be away from it, anyway? If you don't, that's your mistake if someone enters the vehicle, right? The phrase "appropriate security measures" is the tell all. Just lock the doors. Ask a lawyer.
You have two security means. One, the door locks. Second, don't you have a camera on
the remote mast for checking overhead power lines, etc? Point it down toward vehicle doors.
 

priyanka

Member
if your vehicle is equipped with systems allowing the access operators to bring your vehicle up to power on their transponder, and take your "shot" off the satellite, the argument can be made that they, not you are in control of the earth station.
 

satpimp

Well-known member
This argument will solve itself when an auto-aquire system illuminates in the space segment of a big feed. The people paying Billions for the TV rights and those paying Millions to launch and make money on the satellites will act quickly if things get sloppy.

The FCC does little to enforce the regs. I expect that to change sooner rather than later. There is a lot of chatter on the topic as this thread highlights. Already there have been more inspectors in the field at big events. Checking licenses, frequencies and interference. Fines when they come are big. Wardrobe malfunction big. If a small ownership group gets hit once like that there will be a lot of hand wringing and maybe some rethinking.

I am lucky our shop still has operators for all the trucks. Bonded cell and IP is changing that dynamic faster than the satellite vantog. Several shops in our market are running single handed satellite shots. Photogs everywhere are running around with backpacks, briefcases and camera back transmitters. Full sized sat trucks at the affiliate level are a luxury now.

As a truck op I'm for truck ops. There should always be one, they should be paid more, blah blah blah. I worry about the situations the housecats don't get.

An example: Six trucks in a parking lot. All masts up, transmitting, cables running from the trucks to the riser on the sixth floor. Rain fills the lot with six inches of water. I'm the only person downstairs when the lightning starts. I drop my mast, drop three others. Two trucks are locked. In the delay, one strike near that lot and people upstairs, downstairs and in the stairwell are having a bad day.

When things go smooth you can do more, faster with less. When things get bumpy things can happen fast.

Quoting an old school uplinker, "Good, Fast or Cheap. Pick two."

I have no easy answer. Just be careful! It's only TV.
 

arohi

Member
The parameters of the transmissions of the remote station monitored at the control point, and the operational functions of the
remote earth stations that can be controlled by the operator at the control point, are sufficient to insure that the operations of the remote station(s) are at times in full compliance with the remote station authorization.
 
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