The main programme is live from Jodrell Bank with various live (or as live) contributions such as Liz Bonnin in South Africa and a forecast from the BBC Weather Centre.
Are these contributions downlinked at Jodrell Bank or is a TV Centre gallery switching between the various sources? Or is it a combination with the OBs being downlinked at Jodrell and the weather being put to air by pres like they do for Countryfile?
The live inserts into Stargazing are all going via TVC - there are one (or two) reverse vision carriers to the OB.
If you're at an OB and getting material in from other OBs, you'll want to minimise the number of satellites you need to point at to get it, so it makes sense to have it all on the one bird. And if the weather forecast has to be uplinked from TVC anyway, then the other OBs might as well be turned around onto the same satellite. (Also, I believe the Houston feed on Monday came by a transatlantic fibre to TVC.)
The folks from SIS sent us some nice photos of their dishes next to the Lovell telescope - they've brought along Europe's first transportable earth station, UKI-1 to do their downlinks. And it looks like a wee baby next to Lovell...
The live inserts into Stargazing are all going via TVC - there are one (or two) reverse vision carriers to the OB.
If you're at an OB and getting material in from other OBs, you'll want to minimise the number of satellites you need to point at to get it, so it makes sense to have it all on the one bird. And if the weather forecast has to be uplinked from TVC anyway, then the other OBs might as well be turned around onto the same satellite. (Also, I believe the Houston feed on Monday came by a transatlantic fibre to TVC.)
The folks from SIS sent us some nice photos of their dishes next to the Lovell telescope - they've brought along Europe's first transportable earth station, UKI-1 to do their downlinks. And it looks like a wee baby next to Lovell...
Who's doing the OB in South Africa, local hire from SABC or MNET, or a flyaway kit from the UK ?
The live inserts into Stargazing are all going via TVC - there are one (or two) reverse vision carriers to the OB.
Nope - South Africa and Dulverton were downlinked directly at Jodrell. UKI-1 was there specifically to handle South Africa downlinking (as it was on a different satellite to the other circuits) and avoid a double-hop that would have been required if the circuits had been routed via TVC and added yet more delay (There was more delay than ideal because the clean-feed and 4-wire TO South Africa were actually on a reverse vision from Jodrell to South Africa as there was no Satcomms or GSM/DEL solution that was suitable AIUI).
The only reverse visions to Jodrell from TVC were the BBC Weather Centre feed and the fibre feed from Houston feed.
Quote:
If you're at an OB and getting material in from other OBs, you'll want to minimise the number of satellites you need to point at to get it, so it makes sense to have it all on the one bird.
But if you are doing it live you want to avoid double-hops where possible hence South Africa was uplinked on a separate satellite to the other uplinks/downlinks - and that's why UKI-1 was there in addition to Link 23 (which did everything else - including downlinking Dulverton)
Quote:
And if the weather forecast has to be uplinked from TVC anyway, then the other OBs might as well be turned around onto the same satellite. (Also, I believe the Houston feed on Monday came by a transatlantic fibre to TVC.)
Yep - those were the two that DID come via TVC!
Quote:
The folks from SIS sent us some nice photos of their dishes next to the Lovell telescope - they've brought along Europe's first transportable earth station, UKI-1 to do their downlinks. And it looks like a wee baby next to Lovell...
The live inserts into Stargazing are all going via TVC - there are one (or two) reverse vision carriers to the OB.
If you're at an OB and getting material in from other OBs, you'll want to minimise the number of satellites you need to point at to get it, so it makes sense to have it all on the one bird. And if the weather forecast has to be uplinked from TVC anyway, then the other OBs might as well be turned around onto the same satellite. (Also, I believe the Houston feed on Monday came by a transatlantic fibre to TVC.)
The folks from SIS sent us some nice photos of their dishes next to the Lovell telescope - they've brought along Europe's first transportable earth station, UKI-1 to do their downlinks. And it looks like a wee baby next to Lovell...
Who's doing the OB in South Africa, local hire from SABC or MNET, or a flyaway kit from the UK ?
SIS Live flyaway team, with a local dish. Same SIS team as Hawaii last year (which was 1080/50i even though it was from a US location).
The main programme is live from Jodrell Bank with various live (or as live) contributions such as Liz Bonnin in South Africa and a forecast from the BBC Weather Centre.
Are these contributions downlinked at Jodrell Bank or is a TV Centre gallery switching between the various sources? Or is it a combination with the OBs being downlinked at Jodrell and the weather being put to air by pres like they do for Countryfile?
No gallery or hub at TVC.
South Africa downlinked directly at Jodrell.
Houston was fibre to TVC and then uplinked from TVC and downlinked at Jodrell.
BBC Weather uplinked from TVC and then downlinked at Jodrell (so the weather switching was handled at Jodrell and was part of the main/reserve programme feeds arriving at TVC from Jodrell)
Dulverton downlinked directly at Jodrell.
The live inserts into Stargazing are all going via TVC - there are one (or two) reverse vision carriers to the OB.
Nope - South Africa and Dulverton were downlinked directly at Jodrell. UKI-1 was there specifically to handle South Africa downlinking (as it was on a different satellite to the other circuits) and avoid a double-hop that would have been required if the circuits had been routed via TVC and added yet more delay
Whoops - apologies for talking nonsense. That'll teach me to post stuff from home without having read any of the comms sheets...
The live inserts into Stargazing are all going via TVC - there are one (or two) reverse vision carriers to the OB.
Nope - South Africa and Dulverton were downlinked directly at Jodrell. UKI-1 was there specifically to handle South Africa downlinking (as it was on a different satellite to the other circuits) and avoid a double-hop that would have been required if the circuits had been routed via TVC and added yet more delay
Whoops - apologies for talking nonsense. That'll teach me to post stuff from home without having read any of the comms sheets...
If you were inspired by this series (and I must say, I think it was much much better than last year's) then I'm going to give Google a shameless plug here, if you have an Andriod phone or tablet, download the Google Sky Map app, fantastic little application (and when it's cloudy, you can see what you're missing !)
