Saorsat Use?

Johnboy1951

While clearing out some old rubbish, I came across an old square sat (it appears) dish.
I cannot even remember where it came from or if it truly is a sat dish.

Anyway, the question is could this possibly be of any use for future Saorsat reception?
Is there anything that might be done to determine if this might be useful or is it just useless and should be dumped?

John mac

its probably an old mmds aerial like this?

watty

It's unlikely.

No-one other than "Tooway" subscribers have Ka-Band LNBFs

Ka-Sat (Saorsat) needs a high quality solid dish and new type of LNBF on arm.

MartyM

watty wrote: »

No-one other than "Tooway" subscribers have Ka-Band LNBFs

Are Saorsat likely to offer broadband services too?

byte

MartyM wrote: »

Are Saorsat likely to offer broadband services too?

I doubt it.

Maybe Tooway providers will offer Saorsat as an add-on?

dowtchaboy

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

While clearing out some old rubbish, I came across an old square sat (it appears) dish.
I cannot even remember where it came from or if it truly is a sat dish.

Anyway, the question is could this possibly be of any use for future Saorsat reception?
Is there anything that might be done to determine if this might be useful or is it just useless and should be dumped?

Any chance you found a Squarial? Square (obviously), fairly flat, completely plastic outside? From the old failed BSB days. I had a stack of them = mine were a little curvier at the corners thn the photo above - they were very clever - but were meant for circular polarized signals and not much use now. Think you might be able to pick up signals off Hispasat and maybe Thor./MarcoPolo or that French one I can't remember - but most or all of the signals will be scrambled/encrypted. Pity - lovely technology - but unlikely ever to be useful again.

The Cush

MartyM wrote: »

Are Saorsat likely to offer broadband services too?

No but satellite broadband providers could bundle the Saorsat service as part of a satellite broadband package.

This from Conor Hayes last July

Mr. Conor Hayes: No. DTT will not be able to provide broadband per se. We always argued with the commercial operators, such as the One Vision consortium, which included Eircom, that DTT allowed a triple play option. For example, the operator could go to my mother in Mitchelstown and provide her with telephone and broadband via landline, stick in a DTT box for television services and provide triple play on the one bill. This would have allowed commercial operators to compete with the satellite operators or UPC in Dublin.

Our satellite option would operate on the Ka band as opposed to the Ka band. The Ka band is typically used for telecommunications purposes or contributions between broadcasters. The Ka band is used by the single largest pay television operator in the US, DirecTV, which uses it to deliver high definition television. It works on a consumer basis and is a proven product in weather conditions.

People are offering satellite services over broadband. If one has a broadband service over satellite, one is capable of offering telephony or voice over IP, VoIP. If we are up there in the clear, some bright spark might offer people broadband, telephony and Irish channels - RTE, TG4, TV3 and so on - without their needing to spend much money.

http://debates.oireachtas.ie/DDebate.aspx?F=MAJ20100714.xml&Node=H2&Page=3

watty

Satellite can't do true Broadband though as the Capacity is too low and latency x20 too high.

One Fixed Wireless mast can have more capacity than the entire Irish Spot. One Fibre to the Home has x2 to x20 the capacity of Ka-Sat.

UPC today can supply 1/4 of Ka-Sat Irish capacity to a single user.

Saorsat is only RTE NL Satellite TV service on Ka-Sat. Tooway is the completely separate Internet service on Ka-Sat jointly run by the Viasat and Eutelsat. It's not really Broadband.

Satellite is really horrid for VOIP / Phone calls, though it can work better than VOIP on Mobile, but much less well than voice calls on Mobile.

Johnboy1951

dowtchaboy wrote: »

Any chance you found a Squarial? Square (obviously), fairly flat, completely plastic outside? From the old failed BSB days. I had a stack of them = mine were a little curvier at the corners thn the photo above - they were very clever - but were meant for circular polarized signals and not much use now. Think you might be able to pick up signals off Hispasat and maybe Thor./MarcoPolo or that French one I can't remember - but most or all of the signals will be scrambled/encrypted. Pity - lovely technology - but unlikely ever to be useful again.

My apologies for not giving a better description of the 'squarial' .

Yes it is very close to that pic, a little more rounded at the corners, and has the following writing on the face ....

dMAC BSB Ferguson

Having seen some comments about the use of a 'squarial' for Saorsat reception later in the year, I wondered if this thing might possibly be suitable.

It seems this is a 'no-go' ...... so I guess it is the dump/recycle centre for this ........

Thanks to all for the replies.

regards.

dowtchaboy

Yeah - you've got the same Squarials as I had - I did use some of mine way back - picked up ARTE I think and others from French sat at 5deg W (maybe), and a few other anorakie sats, and I put one up in Belfast for friend who was a Spanish teacher so she could pick up channels off Hispasat for her class (who despite learning Spanish couldn't find Spain on a map.....).

More like this:


No great use any more. Size of the antenna elements and the IF from the LNB would be wrong for the Ka frequencies. Was designed for circular polarisation and had the unique feature that if you flipped the mylar sheet inside you could reverse polarity. Worked OK for linear polarisation (slightly lower gain) though I could never quite figure out the theory despite talking with people on bulletin boards (none of yer fancy "internet forums" back then!) and approaching a prof in UCC who pooh poohed the whole idea of a Squarial even working. (same twat who told me a 10 ft diameter chickenwire dish antenna could not possibly pick up BBC terrestrial signals - despite the fact that I watched it every day.....).

You might offer it on FreeCycle or similar before dumping it?

watty

The boxed Cassegrain dishes have a regular dish inside the the square box and take an interchangable LNBF.

The "Squarial" worked quite differently.

There was never any suggestion a "squarial" would work for Ka-Sat / Saorsat.
Any circular polarised LNB will receive H and V polarisations, equally but at -3dB. So if two linear polarisations overlap on same channel, then you can't separate the channels.

Similarly, H or V linear polarisation LNB will pick up both LH and RH circular polarisation, identically but at -3dB level.

If you have two aerials, one H and one V and drive them with 90 degree out of phase signal you can get RH or LH polarisation depend on lead or lag of phase.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squarial

Cassegrain has no arm out the front as a secondary reflector on inside of "lid" reflect signal to an LNBF pushed inside from a hole in the rear. That's what is inside the squarish box previously posted and why it's quite deep compared to Squarial.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassegrain_antenna



It's not confirmed yet if that Turkish boxed Cassegrain has enough gain. It's about 44cm.

Johnboy1951

dowtchaboy wrote: »

Yeah - you've got the same Squarials as I had - I did use some of mine way back - picked up ARTE I think and others from French sat at 5deg W (maybe), and a few other anorakie sats, and I put one up in Belfast for friend who was a Spanish teacher so she could pick up channels off Hispasat for her class (who despite learning Spanish couldn't find Spain on a map.....).

More like this:


No great use any more. Size of the antenna elements and the IF from the LNB would be wrong for the Ka frequencies. Was designed for circular polarisation and had the unique feature that if you flipped the mylar sheet inside you could reverse polarity. Worked OK for linear polarisation (slightly lower gain) though I could never quite figure out the theory despite talking with people on bulletin boards (none of yer fancy "internet forums" back then!) and approaching a prof in UCC who pooh poohed the whole idea of a Squarial even working. (same twat who told me a 10 ft diameter chickenwire dish antenna could not possibly pick up BBC terrestrial signals - despite the fact that I watched it every day.....).

You might offer it on FreeCycle or similar before dumping it?

It will go to the recycle depot with a lot of other old gear being thrown out. One load gone this week, from which I pulled that dish for a closer look ..... mostly older PCs, scanners, printers, small monitors and such as well as some *really* old valve amps -- man those transformers were heavy .. one tends to forget such things.

Next lot will likely include a few boxes of old unused electronic components, some active but mostly passive, unused, on reels and in boxes. The BSB dish can join them

Thanks for the replies.

regards.

PyeContinental

It almost sounds like you're trying to taunt any collectors/hoarders out there :pac:

Johnboy1951

PyeContinental wrote: »

It almost sounds like you're trying to taunt any collectors/hoarders out there :pac:

More like warning them that there will come a time when they have to suffer the pain of separation ..... eventually ...... and all at the same time. I had more than 30 years of hoarding to deal with ....

....... it can be quite traumatic!