New Sat dish for McMurdo Station

[n0nhp]

A new satellite dish is going in at McMurdo Station Antarctica, There is "Live video" of the construction at The USAP Portal: Science and Support in Antarctica - McMurdo Station Webcams
Go to the RIES Construction tab and in the lower left corner you can get a time lapse of the last 24 hours.
The dome seen in the background before the zoom is the NASA telemetry site.
This will replace the Earth Station on Black Island that I baby sat for a couple of seasons in early 2000.
Bruce

 

[prcguy]

That looks like a General Dynamics 11.1m antenna which I'm very familiar with including all the RF and servo components. I suspect the entire back structure will be enclosed with the optional heaters for the reflector considering where its going. I wonder if its C or Ku or other?

 

[n0nhp]

The one it is replacing is C band Intelsat if they are still using the same provider, I have lost track in the last 20 years ;-)

 

[merlin]

Too cold for me, nice dish though. I gather it will have a dome when done.

 

[n0nhp]

Oh yes, there will be a dome. It would have a tough time staying at it's 7 degree look angle with the wind conditions that occur fairly often. Snow is not too much of a problem, it doesn't snow much there, but what lands doesn't melt except for a couple of weeks in January, it just blows around.

 

[prcguy]

If its in a dome then it won't need the enclosed back and heaters. 7deg look angle is not good and would be a big problem on Ku. Not as bad on C-Band but anything below about 10 degree look angle will suffer scintillation and fading due to tropo ducting. Whatever satellite and transponder(s) they are using would probably get away with a much smaller antenna further north and I'm sure they upsized the antenna to ensure the link budget would be ok under any conditions.

Oh yes, there will be a dome. It would have a tough time staying at it's 7 degree look angle with the wind conditions that occur fairly often. Snow is not too much of a problem, it doesn't snow much there, but what lands doesn't melt except for a couple of weeks in January, it just blows around.

 

[JamesWest]

thanks for posting this story. it is very interesting.

anybody know what that dish costs? i need to replace my patch antenna. 555.

 

[prcguy]

The basic antenna crated should be under $1M but with all the ancillary stuff needed to make it work and installation probably $1.5M.

thanks for posting this story. it is very interesting.

anybody know what that dish costs? i need to replace my patch antenna. 555.

 

[PACNWDude]

+1 on the thank you for sharing. I began my comms career in satcom, then went to Land Mobile Radio, but also spent some time as an engineer for Zetron, and a team came through the 40 hour dispatch course, they were going to upgrade the dispatch system at McMurdo. Would have been nice to have gone there with them, as "tech support". Lucky people. My only option now is to go as a tourist.

 

[n0nhp]

Hmmmm, What year on the Zetron course? I took it for just that reason in probably 1999?
We put in some 4010s

We may have met

Bruce

 

[PACNWDude]

Hmmmm, What year on the Zetron course? I took it for just that reason in probably 1999?
We put in some 4010s

We may have met

Bruce

That is about the right time frame. Very possible and likely.

 

[n0nhp]

It looks like they have tipped it over to approximate look angle

 

[thebaldgeek]

Anyone know if this will be used for aircraft (ACARS/ADSC) use?
I track aircraft heading back and forth from the ice and would love to see better coverage down south.

 

[n0nhp]

The installation it is replacing is the main Data / Voice path to CONUS via geostationary commercial satellite and last I heard all voice was VOIP. So I doubt except for data on the internet, it will carry any ACARS or ADS-C traffic

 

[KK4JUG]

Too cold for me, nice dish though.

And you live in Idaho??

 

[prcguy]

It looks like they have tipped it over to approximate look angleView attachment 112456

Nice and very familiar to me. I might even know the crew that assembled this dish.

 

[ka8ypy]

Nice install, I started in Satcom, went to telco, then radio/lights/siren install, then welding, and now back to satcom.

 

[k7ng]

I ran into some issues, once upon a time in a land far, far away, that using a larger dish at a very low look angle made the scintillation / refraction effects worse. The narrower beam gets messed up in entirety instead of only part of the wider beam from a smaller antenna. But I'm sure someone worked this all out for McMurdo's new install. Not like when Naval Systems Engineering put up a great big LPDA right next to the main office and it came down that winter. While I was on watch.

Viewing McMurdo from Ob Hill webcam brings back memories (not all good ones, either). The town has changed some, but I still recognize a lot of the buildings.

 

[n0nhp]

Laying the foundation for the dome today:

 

[dlohmaii]

I'm going to have to tell my father about this, he was there for Operation Deep Freeze 83-85.
Thanks for sharing.