Manufacturing fault on recently launched Optus D1

**Analoguesat** · 16-11-2006

New Zealand's forthcoming satellite digital signal will be coming from a brand new satellite that is causing a few headaches.

It appears the Optus D1 satellite has not been configured properly and engineers are scrambling to fix the problem.

Launched last month, the satellite carries with it New Zealand's digital television future.

Sky is D1's biggest user, with TVNZ, TV3, the new Freeview service and most Australian networks also depending on it.

But during in-orbit testing, technicians discovered a manufacturing mistake.

The D1 satellite needs to be configured so that its signal, from space, covers all of New Zealand.

But there has been a mix up and New Zealand's co-ordinates are set to Australia's specifications.

Tony Dunnett of Auckland Teleport says his understanding is the vertical transponder set for New Zealand is now horizontal and the horizontal transponder set for Australia is now vertical.

The Australian owners of the satellite, Optus, admit a fault has been picked up during testing.

They say it will not affect their capacity to service their customers and they will work with individual clients to sort out the configuration issue.

Dunnett says he doesn't know if the problem is fixable.

"They may be able to put a bandaid on it. Unfortunately when its 22,000 miles away you can hardly call the AA to fix it."

http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/411749/891689

**Analoguesat** · 16-11-2006

Oops - major boo-boo!

**Salty25** · 16-11-2006

Isn't this the same Sky New Zealand that had a service outage a couple of months ago?

***Skip Channel*** · 16-11-2006

Mixing NZ's co-ordinates with Australia's?!?!? Struth!! That's one major fudge up.

**Llew** · 16-11-2006

Originally Posted by Analoguesat

"They may be able to put a bandaid on it. Unfortunately when its 22,000 miles away you can hardly call the AA to fix it."

They may know a man who can though

Llew

**Analoguesat** · 16-11-2006

Maybe they should send Australia own hero to go and fix it:

***misterminibus*** · 16-11-2006

skippy can fix anything...

**Analoguesat** · 16-11-2006

I can see the episode now

"whats the matter Skippy?
Have the men making the new satellite done it wrong??
lets go and rescue them"

Cut to a good old Aussie BBQ - complete with Skippy burgers

(very tasty too - had kanga burgers when I was in Oz a few years ago.)

***EgyptDUDE*** · 18-11-2006

LOL

interesting problem indeed
so in testing process u might ***** up the V - H tpz ! for the beams are configured on each polairty during this stage

**Analoguesat** · 18-11-2006

Some of the beams must be ok Sky NZ were switched over off Optus B1 yesterday.

Rentakill · 19-11-2006

Hi Guys..

Heres some interesting information with regard to The Optus D1 LEMON of a Satellite we just switched services over to from our old Ageing and failing Optus B1.

Sky Tv which is our main satellite provider here in Nz was meant to have its allocated Verticle Transponders, but as you have read, The makers of D1 configured the transponders as Horizontal ones, which isnt quite what SkyTv had ordered..

You'd think in this day and age, and with the large amounts of Money involved that such a Stuff up shouldnt occur..!!

Anyway.. have a read below.

Cheers

Ren

Optus picture starts to clear
20 November 2006

A configuration error on the Optus D1 satellite that means transmissions from its purpose-built New Zealand spot beam cannot be picked up by most Sky TV customers is continuing to cause headaches for broadcasters, despite Sky TV's smooth switch to the new satellite last week.

Optus has declined to confirm that members of the Freeview free-to-air consortium, which include Television New Zealand and Canwest, even have a firm contract to use the satellite.

And there is speculation that the configuration error may mean Freeview will be unable to use it to launch its digital satellite service next year, though this is flatly denied by Freeview general manager Steve Browning.

Sky has conceded it is possible that the transponders on the Australasian beam that Sky TV is now using to replace the capacity it originally booked on the New Zealand-dedicated beam may have to be handed back to other Optus customers and that it may have to again change transponders. This would mean Sky TV could yet have to alter hundreds of thousands of set-top boxes so they can use the beam that was wrongly configured.

Sky TV spokesman Tony O'Brien says if it had to switch to the New Zealand beam - which is aligned horizontally rather than vertically - it could change the configurations of Sky dishes simply by downloading new software to customers' set-top boxes. This may not be necessary, and would be the worst situation that might happen, he says.

There is unlikely to be an entirely happy ending for all the parties, however. Optus says it is in discussions with US firm Orbital, which built D1. Spokeswoman Simone Bergholcs would not comment on whether legal action was likely in relation to the configuration issue.

It is understood that Sky was able to switch broadcasts to D1 from the end-of-life B1 satellite - which is due to run out of fuel some time next year - by taking the only transponders on D1's Australasian beam that are able to be directed only at New Zealand. These are vertically aligned, as now required by Sky.

Freeview, whose main backers are TVNZ and Canwest, cannot use other transponders on the Australasian beam to broadcast vertically-aligned signals to New Zealand, even if they were available, as its broadcasters do not own rights to transmit programming to Australia, where its signals would then be picked up.

Freeview general manager Steve Browning says the freeto- air broadcasters will be able to use the transponder they were originally allocated on the maladjusted New Zealand beam, and that people will be able to pick up transmissions using set-top boxes that will be configured to pick up signals from the horizontal antenna.

The change should not be an issue for Freeview, as it has no equipment installed in homes at present.

"The LNBs that go on the front of satellite dishes are switchable and the set-top box tells the LNB what to do, so as long as the set-top box can cope with horizontal or vertical, you are sweet,'' Mr Browning says.

He would not comment on the implications for households of Sky and Freeview channels being broadcast from D1 using beams that were aligned differently, saying his understanding is that situation will not arise.

Mr O'Brien says that, even using the transponders on the Australasian beam, the strength of Sky TV's signals improved significantly when it made the switch to D1 on Wednesday of last week.

**Analoguesat** · 19-11-2006

Surely it would be easier just to get everyone to rotate the LNB in the holder 90 degrees one way or the other.

major boo-boo by the manufactureres.

Rentakill · 20-11-2006

Hi Analoguesat.

Theres no problem with Polarity with regard to LNB alingnment.
Pretty much all LNBs installed are Dual throat - Dual Polarity Lnbs allready.
There are apparantly a few Single pol Lnbs there from the early install days though..
The big issue seems to be, that due to the stuff up in configuration of the D1 Satellite, Optus have had to give the remaining V transponders to SkyNz so they can get there service into Nz.
The problem with this is , because Sky are now using some other V transponders that were originally allocated for Australian services those Australian service providers pretty much miss out.
Aswell as that, the Transponders they are using are what they Call Australian/New Zealand focused beems. Making our Nz services now available to our Ozzy mates. Ideal for those Ex-pat kiwis over there.

I did also hear that due to this stuff up, out of the 24Ku tranponders originally on the D1 Sat, only 8 are of use.

Like everything though.. This information is from Media banter,, so could be slightly out of kilter..

Anyway. LMAO.. aswell

Cheers:

**Analoguesat** · 20-11-2006

Thanks for that. Please keep us updated with developments - its difficult to do it from 12000 miles away.

Rentakill · 20-11-2006

Some more to add found on a local Sat Site.

From ANON

Anyway regarding D1 you didn't hear this from me but
it's not only the NZ beams that are backwards, it's all transponders
on the satellite.

It seems that there was a misunderstanding between Optus and
Orbital as to the description of H and V pols in that all documentation
dosn't use the terms H and V but "A" and "B" pols and they got it
backwards.

This dosn't affect the Australian beams as the H and V pol
transponders are identical and the H just become V and the
V becomes H. The only ones that the effect is visible on ,
(apart from what Optus call the transponders internally) is of
course the beams with NZ coverage.

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