RF Shorts - June 11, 2010

By Doug Lung
published

  • • Galaxy 15 made it past AMC-11 and is now heading towards Galaxy 13 at 127 degrees. It's expected to arrive there around July 12. Spacenews.com continues its excellent coverage of the out of control satellite in Intelsat, SES Safely Negotiate Passage of Wayward Craft by Peter B. de Selding. According to Alan Young, SES World Skies CTO, some of the customer feedback during the ordeal was quite interesting, as SES was asking users to do things that seemed counter-intuitive at times. At one time the company was requesting certain customers to uplink with as little as 5 Watts of power.
  • • With more people listening to music and watching video over the Internet on non-broadcast channels, transmitting emergency alerts over radio, TV or cable may not be as effective as it used to be. On Thursday the FCC held a Workshop on 21st Century Emergency Alerting: Leveraging Multiple Technologies to Bring Alerts and Warnings to the Public [PDF]. In addition to the National Weather Service and emergency agencies, participants included representatives from NAB, NCTA, CTIA, AT&T Mobility Services, Verizon and Akamai.
  • • Broadband TV News reports on Mobile TV doubts raised in Hungary. In the report, Antenna Hungária CEO Jean-Francois Fenech, says that he believes that when the "maturity" level of mobile TV is considered, broadcasters might be better off using multiplex capabilities for adding terrestrial channels instead.
  • • The FCC is requesting information on use of the 1675-1710 MHz band [PDF]. This band is used by weather satellites and as most of the data is downlinked and distributed over the Internet, the FCC is looking at the possibility of sharing the band for wireless broadband use in locations away from downlinks receiving these satellite feeds. NOAA Polar orbit HRPT/AHRPT data is transmitted on frequencies between 1698 and 1707 MHz. The GOES geostationary satellites use 1685.7 MHz and 1691 MHz. While there are a limited number of sites receiving these weather signals, there are many more sites receiving the Emergency Managers Weather Information Network (EMWIN) from GOES 11 and GOES 13 on 1690.725 MHz. This frequency will likely need to be protected from interference from wireless broadband transmitters.
Doug Lung
Doug Lung

Doug Lung is one of America's foremost authorities on broadcast RF technology. As vice president of Broadcast Technology for NBCUniversal Local, H. Douglas Lung leads NBC and Telemundo-owned stations’ RF and transmission affairs, including microwave, radars, satellite uplinks, and FCC technical filings. Beginning his career in 1976 at KSCI in Los Angeles, Lung has nearly 50 years of experience in broadcast television engineering. Beginning in 1985, he led the engineering department for what was to become the Telemundo network and station group, assisting in the design, construction and installation of the company’s broadcast and cable facilities. Other projects include work on the launch of Hawaii’s first UHF TV station, the rollout and testing of the ATSC mobile-handheld standard, and software development related to the incentive auction TV spectrum repack.
A longtime columnist for TV Technology, Doug is also a regular contributor to IEEE Broadcast Technology. He is the recipient of the 2023 NAB Television Engineering Award. He also received a Tech Leadership Award from TV Tech publisher Future plc in 2021 and is a member of the IEEE Broadcast Technology Society and the Society of Broadcast Engineers.