Dish pics request - Elfordstown, RTÉ & Mt Gabriel

jpsr

Has anyone any pictures of upc's headend with all there satellites, or any other cable tv headend.

Apogee

watty

May she never meet the fate of Emly due to Ice and Wind

BarryM

Thanks for those. Whats the other mast?

I had various interactions with RTENL over the messing about for local customers while they were doing the work. My Newstalk reception was all over the place for weeks as well as the RTE radio 1 which wandered for most of the Summer (slight exaggeration, but 2 or 3 hertz was normal...). I also had issues with the placement of radios and the reception conditions. Mostly their answers were 'your receiver has poor selectivity' but by September they managed to get it all working as before....

Strange thing was that my DTT reception wasn't affected, different source?

Bye, Barry

watty

http://www.nationalspacecentre.eu/

National Space Centre (Ltd) is Europes newest provider of satellite and teleport communication services.

National Space Centre is based at Elfordstown Earthstation just outside of Midleton, Co Cork.

Elfordstown is a strategically situated teleport and is a scalable, flexible, purpose built carrier grade facility.

National Space Centre took over the Elfordstown facility from Eircom in December 2009 and is currently undertaking an ambitious upgrade and expansion program. From Elfordstown National Space Centre provides leading edge commercial broadcast technology, and operates a centre of excellence in space related consultancy and R&D. National Space Centre undertakes space and communications related consultancy and Research and Development both for its own purposes and on a contract basis for third parties. National Space Centre is an independent teleport operator, and can partner with any Government, large corporation, or multi-national institution.

The site at Elfordstown is elevated with unobstructed southerly aspect, with a gradual slope from North East to South West.

Current On-Site Antennae
- 32m C band antenna
- 13.1m KA band antenna
- 11m C band antenna
- 9.1m KA band antenna

External Connections
- Multiple fibre connectivity to National backbone
- Point-to-Point microwave link to Eircom Cork Churchfield Hub

Physical Plant
- Antennae
- Antenna Rooms
- Control Rooms & Administrative Building
- Power & Generator Buildings
- 120m Microwave Transmitter tower

Apogee

So have eircom hived off the site to a private company?

Would this be the same Rory Fitzpatrick as the former boss of Mediasatellite?
http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/mediasatellite-crashes-into-liquidation-with-losses-of-e4m-1324097.html

ISTR some interesting articles in 'The Phoenix Magazine' too...

watty

It's been for-sale a while. Years.

They don't seem to have any real customers yet.

Given how Irish Trade marks / Company names work, I'm amazed they allowed to register such an official sounding name.

Mediasatellite were never Ireland's Leading Satellite company.

Personnel
Chief Executive Officer
Rory Fitzpatrick

On Linkedin http://ie.linkedin.com/pub/rory-fitzpatrick/10/a63/914 I'm only "three connections" away. So very likely the same gentleman. Though 630,600 other people are three degrees away from me

Apogee

Would be interesting to know how much it went for - not much I reckon. A shame it was let into private hands and not bought out for use by state/universities seeing as how the taxpayer built the thing in the first place.

But then this is the sort of entrepreneurial spirit that has made Ireland the country that it is today - f*cked.

Apogee

Giant satellite phone dish to be turned into space radio telescope

Irish Times wrote:

A 32-metre satellite dish originally used in the 1980s to take transatlantic calls from Europe to the US is to be reborn as a deep space radio telescope.

The huge dish was originally constructed in Co Cork in 1984 but was retired in the mid-1990s when new fibre-optic transatlantic cables were laid.

There are only a handful of these dishes remaining globally, many of which have fallen into disrepair.

Yesterday at Elfordstown Earthstation, Midleton, Co Cork, Minister of State for Research and Innovation Seán Sherlock announced a partnership between the National Space Centre and Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) which will see the dish start a new life as a telescope.

The telescope will be capable of detecting a host of cosmic phenomena including the emission of giant, slow moving hydrogen clouds, the violent explosions of stars, eruptions of the solar surface and storms on Jupiter.

It will be the only 32m radio telescope available to primary students for educational purposes in Europe.

Phase one of the project will see the telescope operational by the end of this summer, with feeds available in September via the internet to primary and postprimary schools.

Phase two will occur in 2012 and will involve the refurbishment of the dish to enable it to turn as it originally did and the installation of sensors and new receivers. The project will be co-ordinated and operated by CIT under Dr Niall Smith, head of research, and Blackrock Castle Observatory.

Dr Smith said this project will see a €10 million radio telescope brought back to life for less than €10,000 thanks to the partnership between the National Space Centre and CIT.

“It’s a great example of using world-class infrastructure in the most cost-effective way to reach out into the community and to embed our growing scientific heritage alongside our world-renowned culture.

“It will excite students in schools who will get to listen in on the radio signals from outer space.

“It will be a test bed for engineering and science projects from primary through to PhD.” The project will benefit education and skills training, and research and development and provide incomparable hands-on training and research opportunities for students from primary through to PhD level.

Mr Sherlock said the National Space Centre is already active in European Space Agency (ESA) programmes including the Galileo Satellite Navigation Programmes.

“Ireland’s ESA membership has contributed to the development of a highly knowledge-intensive industry sector with over 60 Irish technology companies having secured ESA contracts worth over €60 million since 2000.

“We expect this number to grow significantly in 2011,” the Minister added.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0510/1224296602827.html

Stinicker

Apogee wrote: »

Giant satellite phone dish to be turned into space radio telescope



http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0510/1224296602827.html

Good and interesting use for it, now if this was 5 years ago Fianna Fail would probably demolish it and give planning permission for a housing estate on site :rolleyes:

Apogee

New sign


New dish. "9.1m KA band antenna". Apparently in operation.


Possibly a Ka-sat "gateway"? Or even Saorsat uplink (unlikely imo)??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8eMEXz6Byo

Nothing done to main dish yet


Last one also in birdbath position


The NSC website has a nice gallery, including pics of the installation of the new dish.
http://www.nationalspacecentre.eu/#/gallery/3574010

Apogee

Irish Examiner wrote:

Irish firm signs €20m deal to provide broadband services across Europe

By Eoin English

Wednesday, June 01, 2011

AN IRISH company has signed a €20 million 15-year contract with one of the world’s largest satellite operators to help provide a high-speed broadband service across Europe.

National Space Centre Ltd, which is based at Elfordstown, near Midleton, Co Cork, began beaming the Tooway service at midnight last night.

It offers homes and businesses an always-on broadband service at speeds of up to 10Mb downstream and four Mb upstream. But because it is beamed from a satellite it will be available to millions of remote European homes which are unable to receive phone-line based ADSL broadband.

National Space Centre chief executive, Rory Fitzpatrick, said it is the first truly pan-European broadband transmission network.

"It has created eight jobs in Cork already and we plan to create up to 65 over the next few years as we win new contracts and develop and upgrade our services," he said.

Communications giant Eutelsat, which is based in Paris, has capacity commercialised on 27 satellites. They broadcast more than 3,800 television channels to over 200 million cable and satellite homes in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

It commissioned the construction of the hi-tech KA-SAT satellite, which was launched into orbit in December 2010.

It then signed deals with ground-based satellite dish operators, or teleports, in Madrid, Turin, Athens, Berlin, Helsinki, Larnaka, Udine and Scanzano in Italy, Rambouillet in France, and with the National Space Centre’s teleport in Cork, to receive and redistribute the broadband.

The deal represents an investment of up to €7 million in the Irish teleport.

National Space Centre’s chief technical officer, Bruce Hannah, said: "We are proud to be part of this exciting innovation, which positions Ireland as one of Europe’s top hi-tech economies."

Europe’s ‘broadband map’ shows that at least 13m households are still beyond the range of ADSL broadband, and 17m households access the internet at speeds below 2Mb.

Tooway will be sold in Ireland by Onwave and Digiweb and will provide download speeds of up to 10 Mb for households and 50 Mb for business.

Communications Minister Pat Rabbitte, who launched the service in Dublin, said it offers "very real new options for Irish consumers".

Customers face a one-off installation payment of between €500 and €600 for a small 77cm dish and modem, and monthly charges from €34.99.

Meanwhile, Onwave, formerly Satellite Broadband Ireland, has also partnered with Eutelsat to launch its new triple-play bundled service featuring 150-channel digital TV, home phone and up to 10Mb broadband.

It said it will market its broadband-only service to the 210,843 homes and business internet users in Ireland who connect at speeds under 2Mb.

http://www.examiner.ie/business/irish-firm-signs-20m-deal-to-provide-broadband-services-across-europe-156412.html

watty

It said it will market its broadband-only service to the 210,843 homes and business internet users in Ireland who connect at speeds under 2Mb.

However at 10Mbps package at 50:1 contention they can only service 1000 users... If it drizzles a little.

Stinicker

watty wrote: »

However at 10Mbps package at 50:1 contention they can only service 1000 users... If it drizzles a little.

The sort of download limits that is available on Tooway I often downloaded in a day! It would be better than ISDN but even a marginal Three stick would be miles ahead.

Apogee

Date: June 3 Time: 18:00 - 21:30

FREE Monthly Event | www.bco.ie/events/first-fridays

CIT Blackrock Castle Observatory First Fridays at the Castle is an action-packed open night on the first Friday of every month with activities for visitors of all ages.

6-8pm – Radio Dishes: How Big is Big?
Four half-hour, hands on, family friendly sessions with BCO’s in-house teacher and astronomer, Frances McCarthy.

8-9pm – Rory FitzPatrick, CEO National Space Centre, Elfordstown Earthstation, Midleton.

TO INFINITY AND BEYOND!
Looking at the edges of the known universe through the eyes of a 27 year old telephone satellite dish.
Rory Fitzpatrick, CEO National Space Centre talks of the plans for the 32m Deep Space Radio Telescope at Elfordstown Earthstation, and of the opportunities for Ireland in space related industries.

Rory will discuss the recent re commissioning of the 32meter radio telescope at Midleton which has been brought back to life in a partnership between the National Space Centre and CIT BCO. Learn how students in schools will get to listen in on the radio signals from outer space through the giant receiver & how the dish will be a testbed for engineering and science projects from primary through to PhD & research. Read the latest news from National Space Centre here.

Read Colm Ryan’s blogpost on the partnership announcement here

There is no astronomical twilight in June with a glow on the northern horizon all night. Night sky observing will recommence in September.

The Cork Science Cafe will resume in October 2011 at the Lodge in Blackrock Castle.

http://www.bco.ie/2011/05/first-fridays-radio-astronomy/

Apogee

Interesting talk. On the commercial side, they plan to install another 4 Ka-band antennas, as well as a number of new buildings on the site. A proper teleport.

On the radio astronomy side, the initial work involves installing a new receiver (~€10,000) to monitor the 21cm band. They will also use the pre-existing C-band waveguides and equipment to monitor the 4GHz band. The plan is to keep the dish stationary in Phase 1. Sometime next year, they hope to have the gears, motors etc fully refurbished so that the dish can then be used to track objects. They also aim to allow open access for schools via the net.

Apogee

Irish Examiner wrote:

CORY listens to cosmos for signs of ET

By Eoin English

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

A NASA astronaut switched on one of Europe’s largest radio telescopes last night to allow it to "listen" to deep space and for signs of intelligent life.

Greg Johnson, who piloted the space shuttle Endeavour’s final mission in June, flicked the switch at the Big Dish Project at the National Space Centre’s (NSC) Elfordstown Earthstation facility at Midleton, Co Cork, making it the largest radio dish available for educational purposes in Europe.

Within seconds, the first cosmic microwave background sounds crackled through. The dish picked up the hiss from hydrogen atoms in a cloud up to 100m light years away, first emitted when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

And while it will spend most of its time hunting and tracking giant hydrogen clouds — the birthplace of stars — it will also be able to detect digital or repeating signals from space which would indicate the existence of intelligent life.

The 32-metre telescope is being co-ordinated by Cork Institute of Technology in conjunction with its department of applied physics and instrumentation.

It will be linked to the award-winning Blackrock Castle Observatory, which is owned by Cork City Council and operated by CIT.

CIT’s head of research, Dr Niall Smith, said the dish was a great example of industry and education working together to educate and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers.

"Today marks an important milestone in the new life of the 32m dish — as the community of users grows the limits to what can be achieved will shrink in equal measure."

The dish will detect radio waves at 1.4 gigahertz and will provide a visual and audio display of the signals received. But it will also enable astronomers to "listen" to phenomena including:

* Enormous galaxy-scale jets from quasars.

* Violent eruptions of stars.

* Eruptions from the solar surface.

The dish was built in 1984 to transmit telephone calls between Europe and the US, but was retired in the mid-1990s when the underground transatlantic cables were laid.

To build such a device today could cost between €10 million and €15m.

However, scientists at CIT have upgraded it with new detectors for about €10,000.

Blackrock observatory ran a nationwide schools competition to name it and the winner, Rebecca Cantwell, 13, of Regina Mundi College in Cork, who christened it CORY — Computer Operated Radio Yoke — attended the switch on.

CORY can scan radiowaves 24 hours a day, even through clouds, giving radio astronomy a huge advantage over visible light astronomy.

It will be a testbed for engineering and science projects from primary through to PhD research, and will also be available to researchers around the country and abroad.

The aim is to link it via the internet to Irish schools, allowing pupils to control its movement and point it towards deep space objects.

http://www.examiner.ie/ireland/cory-listens-to-cosmos-for-signs-of-et-173935.html

Apogee

Irish Examiner wrote:

Ireland’s National Space Centre is planning a €80m technology investment — some of which will be aimed at monitoring space junk. Taoiseach Enda Kenny was informed of the 10-year investment programme yesterday when he visited the centre on a hilly outcrop above the main Midleton-Fermoy road in Cork. He was there to view the country’s first earth observation ground station, which was built on site by Canadian company exactEarth.

The satellite tracking system is used to monitor the movement of vessels around the world’s seas and will be important in tracking illegal activity such as drugs shipments and people trafficking.
[...]

http://www.examiner.ie/ireland/irish-space-tracking-centre-hopes-to-switch-from-drugs-to-junk-241997.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MP1wTLirLPE

The Journal.ie wrote:

exactEarth is a leading organisation in the field of space-based AIS (Automatic Identification System) vessel tracking and monitoring systems.

So what is in the station? It comprises a 3.7m fast-tracking antenna (it can move at 15 degrees per second) inside a protective fibre-glass radome, which is linked by cable to an on-site preliminary data processing centre.

The antenna downloads data from exactEarth’s satellites up to six times a day, and ExactEarth’s network records every point of the planet during a 12 hour period.

http://www.thejournal.ie/earth-observation-ground-station-1070250-Sep2013/