That's def some good advice there, but I've been shooting and running the microwave trucks for a few years now. It's the Sat stuff that i'm having a hard time learning about. Vertical, horizontal, polarity, there's so much more to it than the few steps they've walked me through to just be able to get up on Galaxy 16. They aren't very good at training, but reading the manuals would def be a good idea. We haven't upgraded to the GPS guided systems so we have to find the bird manually (which I hear is a good place to start).
When I call and the op is tuning me in and they ask me a question about something that isn't on my list, half the time I just say what?
If I wanted to practice tuning other satellites, is that even something I can do? Finding them, or the general area has been pretty easy for me, but unless I know that it's supposed to look like on my scope, i have no way of knowing if it is for sure the right one.
When they trained me the first time we just started plugging in the downlinks for newspath (we're CBS) and that's how I knew if I had the right satellite. I really just want to get some more experience and actually be a sat op, not just follow the steps I was told to follow. Does that paint a better picture?
...and it's funny you mention knocking on your door. The first night we got there I went over and bugged Jeff Foss who was there for the Reno CBS and he was able to help me out. Sometimes the downlink doesn't work because we have such a small dish. Of course no one told me this until I got back 3 days later...
Your microwave experience puts you way ahead of the game in most cases. Keep in mind that SNG work takes you to the boondocks, where cellphones may not always be dependable. In our trucks, the sat cells are a crapshoot, too. You may have to learn some very creative ways to make IFB happen. Do you have a working knowledge of how to hook up hard-line phones to your truck...or do you have portable cellphones available for more than one carrier? That's why you might want to study your IFB systems and see what you can do if your standard IFB system suddenly doesn't work where you are set up. It will happen.
Polarity goes like this.
Imagine that you are in the middle of the United States, say, Illinois. And DIRECTLY to your southern position is the satellite that you want to access,
Now imagine that your signal to that satellite is in the shape of a "+" sign...the vertical part perfectly vertical and the horizontal part perfectly horizontal.
Each satellite has such a "sweet spot" relative to it's position in the arc...where the vertical is perfectly vertical and the horizontal is perfectly horizontal.
And I'm 99.9 percent sure you and your truck will never be anywhere that "sweet spot" on earth.
That's why we can adjust the polarity in the antenna...rotating that "+" shaped signal a little to the left or a little to the right. Assuming you are always on the same bird in the same general area, say, within 100 miles of Fresno, you probably don't have to tweak that polarity much (they'll tell you to "bump your pole" when it's off a bit). If you move to another satellite or move a long way from your home turf, then be prepared to adjust the polarity a bit.
Now how do you know when your polarity is dead on the money? If you are way off, you'll see many of the same signals in your spectrum monitor on both sides--horizontal and vertical. Start turning that polarity and, as you fine tune, signals on horizontal will disappear from both sides and only show up on vertical, and vice versa. When the satellite center wants you to adjust polarity, it's because you have powered up and are slopping over onto the other polarity.
Complicated? I could show you and give you a five-minute lesson in person, and it would probably make mors sense.
Re: small dish...in the world of satellite electronics and dishes, bigger is better, especially on the receive end. Rain and bad storms cause attenuation (rain fade) and it is quite common to lose your receive signal in bad storms (I had that problem at Mammoth). When you lose your return, simply call the sat center and ask them what they see. You're probably OK.
