Sky TV NZ Satellite Outage

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#31838 30-Mar-2006 22:49

3 News Update: Sky HQ are saying "Service will be restored in an hour"

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Jama

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#31839 30-Mar-2006 22:49

Bummer - nice diversity Sky. I had to dig out the trusty 75ohm coax - luckily I left the VHF/UHF antennas on my house - just in case!

Hmmm... I wonder what the refund policy is?

ajobbins

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#31840 30-Mar-2006 22:52

Sky.co.nz:

SKY apologises for loss of SKY satellite services resulting from an outage on the Optus B1 Satellite that provides SKY’s signal.

The satellite signal was lost after a routine positioning procedure to the satellite by Optus. This effectively meant that the SKY transmission signal was lost to New Zealand and to Australian customers. Optus immediately acknowledged the problem and set about its correction. The satellite is communicating correctly with Optus ground stations. Optus has commenced a “re-pointing” manoeuvre to correct the signal.
SKY satellite customers can continue to access SKY Sport 1 on UHF service. Other satellite programming will be restored as soon as Optus has realigned the signal. UHF services are unaffected.

Updates will be posted on www.skytv.co.nz

For further information, please Contact:
Tony O'Brien
Director of Communications
SKY Television
Tel: +64 9 579 9999
Mob: i-64 21 497 830

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freitasm

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#31841 30-Mar-2006 23:00

"Due to this stabilisation system not working, the satellite is spinning around and is currently unable to receive control telemetry signals from earth. The telemetry antenna is facing the sun and not able to receive any commands from the base station. With the antenna facing the sun, thermal noise increases making it even harder to get commands through to the satellite's processors."

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?contentid=6102

Jama

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#31842 30-Mar-2006 23:05

Interesting B1 is a dinosaur. Launched in '91 with a life of 10-15 years and no replacement planned until '09. I think I will form a lobby group to petition the government. I might call it SUCANZ - Satellite Users and Customers of Australia and New Zealand. After all we can't have these bad corporate monopolies interfering with our viewing pleasure. Wonder if I can get Ernie Newman on board.

ajobbins

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#31843 30-Mar-2006 23:05

freitasm: "Due to this stabilisation system not working, the satellite is spinning around and is currently unable to receive control telemetry signals from earth. The telemetry antenna is facing the sun and not able to receive any commands from the base station. With the antenna facing the sun, thermal noise increases making it even harder to get commands through to the satellite's processors."

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?contentid=6102

That was posted at 8.51pm - I understand that B1 began recommunicating with base stations shortly after that

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JohnPorter

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#31844 30-Mar-2006 23:25

"Update 30 March 2006 10:00pm

Sky spokeman Tony O'Brien says the signal was lost while the satellite was being re-positioned, but that communications with the ground station are restored and Optus will re-point the satellite, a maneovre which should be complete about about midnight. Updates will be published on the Sky website.

So if this procedure is successful, Sky subscribers might breath a sigh of relief."

from http://home.nzcity.co.nz/news/default.asp?id=60821

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paradoxsm

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#31850 30-Mar-2006 23:29

Someone told me that it ran out of fuel while repositioning. whoops.

ajobbins

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#31852 30-Mar-2006 23:30

paradoxsm: Someone told me that it ran out of fuel while repositioning. whoops.

Doesn't it run off solar energy?

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JohnPorter

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#31854 30-Mar-2006 23:34

The electornics are powered by solar, but repositioning is done by gas jets. And only just so much gas is on board. So they can only do so much respositioning over the life of the satellite.

ajobbins

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#31856 30-Mar-2006 23:38

JohnPorter: The electornics are powered by solar, but repositioning is done by gas jets. And only just so much gas is on board. So they can only do so much respositioning over the life of the satellite.

But don't the satellites have to reposition all the time? 14 years of repositioning = alot of gas

Also, wouldn't Optus know well ahead of time that it was running out of gas and think "Oh Sheet, we better get the D1 up there ASAP"?

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DjShadow

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#31857 31-Mar-2006 00:00

Well its midnight, I have Saturn Scan channel on and there are heaps of windows with a error message from Saturn saying due to Satellite failure this channel can not be displayed.
Has it come back to life for anyone?
Appears to me Saturn are trying to direct feed as many channels they can themselves, can see Sky 1 going which I assume they are running off Sky UHF...

Aloha

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#31858 31-Mar-2006 00:01

I see a Sky Engineer dressing up at the moment and soon he is going into the Space to refill the empty tanks..

I is a kollege stoodent. Bee nice.

DjShadow

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#31859 31-Mar-2006 00:05

Realistic Question here, if Optus B1 is a total write off, could they drag over the still working Optus B3 Satellite that foxtel originally used into position?

freitasm

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#31860 31-Mar-2006 00:05

Aloha: I see a Sky Engineer dressing up at the moment and soon he is going into the Space to refill the empty tanks..

Perhaps they should get a ride on that Xtra promotion sending people to space?

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