any aspie broadcast engineers?

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Does anyone here work as a broadcast engineer in either
a satellite TV or radio station ?

Can you give me an idea of the importance of gaining experience troubleshooting satellite uplinks ?

i.e. if your station broadcasts via satellite, is it a constant need for you to configure the
antenna position ?

thanks

I am not an engineer but I am in broadcasting. I can ask around.

TV broadcast engineers believe in interlace scanning.

Part of my military duties included maintaining ship-board satcoms.

Can you give me an idea of the importance of gaining experience troubleshooting satellite uplinks?
It is essential to maintain both the uplink and downlink. Without the latter, you can not receive what the network is trying to send you; without the former, no one knows if you're "live".

i.e. if your station broadcasts via satellite, is it a constant need for you to configure the antenna position?
Only if your station is mobile. Most broadcast satellites maintain a constant longitude, so once the antenna is pointed a one particular patch of the sky, you can pretty much forget about it unless you have to access another satellite with the same antenna.

Fnord, do you know any good satellite cabling courses around ? I was thinking of doing some classes cause Im trying to get my Global VSAT forum certificate

I used to work for a TV station. We mostly received though we did the occasional rare uplink to FOX News.

Typically though everything was in a fixed position. The most crucial thing was getting it done in the time window scheduled for you and hoping no idiot screwed up the schedule. If there is an accidental overlap in the schedule two people sending to the same satellite will cause a bad signal.

Most of my sending experience came from the News Van putting up the big mast to send back to the station. Sometimes that is routine and other times it is a pain. The tree line can mess it up and it's tricky working around buildings. Also the wind sucks when it blows the mast around.

The U.S. Navy has an outstanding SATCOM curriculum.

Fnord and Videodrome, do you guys struggle much with the practical parts of your job

such as making cables, positioning antennas, repairing faulty equipment ?

Did you guys overcome the problems mainly just through practice, or were your supervisors more understanding of your condition ?

I have an FCC Commercial GROL license which took some time to study and pass. I am not absolutely sure if I can work on Broadcast equipment. I believe it's only Fixed Public Radio i.e. Voice of America etc.

It's not a struggle, it's just part of the job.


Training and experience. No one knows of my "condition", nor will they, so "understanding" from my supervisors is not an issue.