cem@intelca.UUCP (Chuck McManis) (11/30/84)
I have tried unsuccessfully to get the NASA video on our cable here in
Sunnyvale. The "problem" is that the cable company "looks" at Satcom III-R
and Galaxy I, and NOT Satcom I where a previous message indicated that
the video was available. To do this, I was told, would entail a new dish
and reciever, as well as beefing up the channel capability of the distribution
point (they seem to be limited to 25 channels). The question arises, whether
there are any NASA signals available on the first two sattelites and if not
who should I target next ?
--Chuck
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- - - D I S C L A I M E R - - -
{ihnp4,fortune}!dual\ All opinions expressed herein are my
{qantel,idi}-> !intelca!cem own and not those of my employer, my
{ucbvax,hao}!hplabs/ friends, or my avocado plant. :-}prg@mgweed.UUCP (Phil Gunsul) (12/04/84)
[] The following was 'lifted' from the December issue of STV magazine... NASA RETRANSMITS MISSION TV FOR TVRO SYSTEMS By Tom Stocker Home Satellite TV system owners once again have the opportunity to eavesdrop on NASA Space Shuttle missions via Satcom 1R, Transponder 9. While RCA Americom, which originally simulcast STS missions, on a spare transponder, will no longer provide this service, NASA says it will. Originally, NASA contracted with RCA/Americom for one transponder over which it transmitted both television and data. Because of this arrangement, only 75 percent of the transponder's power could be used for TV, a signal that was much too weak for the average home TVRO system to receive clearly. Due to request from museums and private TVRO owners, RCA/Americom simulcast the NASA Select TV (designation for their transmissions) on one of their spare Satcom 1 transponders at full power. While it was a "spare" transponder, if it had been in regular use, the cost for an average mission, to provide his service was in the neighborhood of $80,000 for RCA. RCA/Americom said it would simulcast the missions as long as it had a spare transponder, but with a combination of the Summer Olympics, and business picking up on their shortline business telephone system, the extra transponder was no available for the previous STS mission 41D. . . In a previous telephone conversation with Mark Hess of NASA's Public Relations office at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., Mr. Hess said that NASA is looking into the possibility of acquiring an additional transponder for full power simulcasts to the general public at large. However, by the time STS 41G was launched a NASA spokesman assured STV Magazine that all future missions would indeed be simulcast. While home TVRO owners obviously are a target group for these transmissions, Mr. Hess said that many cable systems carried the transmissions over their access channels. Most large cable companies equipped with 10 meter and larger dishes can receive the low power signal; there were many small cable companies that wanted to carry NASA Select but were left in the dark, or very fuzzed up, like the majority of home TVRO space enthusiasts. While much of the mission is just a shot of the control room at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, there are times when the Space Shuttle crew broadcasts real time, onboard video. Sometimes many hours will pass with nothing on the screen but the Space Center's big board which shows where in the world the Shuttle is (over) at any time of the day or night. Suprisingly, two way communication between the Shuttle and Johnson is very sparse most of the time, but does pick up when activities increase, such as the Solar Max satellite retrieval, or the launch of communications satellites as on the last mission. What is interesting about NASA Select, to the patient space enthusiast, are the uninterrupted TV transmissions, many of which the networks do not carry in their entirety: the two way communication between spacecraft and ground, and full liftoff and landing TV coverage. On STS 41C, the NASA TV cameras rolled for several hours after the landing while NASA technicians jacked up the Shuttle, removed a tire and did a thorough inspection of the brake system. The reason for this lengthy broadcast was to give the NASA engineers and technicians all over the country an opportunity to get a first hand look at how the brakes held up, without having to wait a month for a report and photographs. Brakes on the Shuttle had locked up after landing on a previous missions so everybody was curious how they held up this time. They were fine as indicated by the close-up shots provided by the NASA remote video crew. The shuttle itself is equipped with a bevy of color and black and white television cameras mounted in the payload bay, on the remote manipulator arm, and inside the cockpit and crew living quarters. The cameras also have hand held capabilities and as was seen on STS 41C when a cargo bay camera wasn't working, the astronauts simply removed the camera and fixed it after returning to the cockpit area. While NASA Select TV is not for everyone it does give you, the TVRO owner, another TB viewing option as it does with our cable subscribing cousins. To contact NASA, write National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Public Relations Department, Washington Headquarters, LFD-2, Washington, D.C. 20545. ========================================================================== BTW, are there any other people interested in home satellite reception?? Phil Gunsul -- AT&T/CP Montgomery Works -- (312)859-4485 Cornet 392-4485