When we talk about communication satellites, we sometimes mention that each is roughly the size of a school bus. That provides a bit of scale, and suggests how difficult it might be to launch it into orbit.

But it would still be nice to see a real example for an even better understanding of its size and bulk. There are occasional prelaunch photos of bunny-suited workers prepping one for launch, but it’s hard to relate to human sizes in that sterile environment.

Now we’ve got an alternative. One of the first Sirius radio satellites was donated by SiriusXM Radio and Space Systems/Loral to the Smithsonian last week. The Sirius FM-4 broadcasting satellite was a backup for its three working satellites, which covered the US in an inclined elliptical orbit. The FM-4 satellite will be on display in the James S. McDonnell Space Hangar of the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.

“The availability of a flight unit like Sirius FM-4, which was never launched, is extremely rare and will be a significant addition to the museum’s collection,” said Martin Collins, space history curator.

John Celli, president of Space Systems/Loral, said, “It is an honor to participate in the donation of the original spare satellite, which we are pleased to say was never needed.”

The National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center is in Chantilly VA near Dulles International Airport. Next time I’m traveling through, I’ll try to make time to take a look. Too bad they probably won’t let me touch it, even if I wear a bunny suit.

I’m deeply envious of Dennis C. Brewer. He’s written Build Your Own Free-to-Air (FTA) Satellite TV System, which is like the free-to-air beginner book that I had been promising myself to write for years. When I saw it, I asked myself, How did he do it?

The most important factor that Brewer no doubt employed was persistence. He did the work, he got the photos, and he convinced McGraw-Hill to publish it. That’s quite an accomplishment, and it shouldn’t be understated.

But another obstacle that I encountered when I was trying to put a book together was length. I mean, I’m able to explain all the necessary steps for setting up a FTA system in five web pages, maybe 10 if you count glossary and troubleshooting and all that. With this new book’s index, it runs over 260 normal-sized pages. So how did he do it?

• A long chapter on tools and equipment. “First of all, do not let this chapter on tools and equipment frighten you away,” it begins, then it rolls through at least eight different categories of tools, illustrated by over 20 photos. Large pliers, small pliers, hex key wrenches, a keyhole saw, a tubing cutter, a drill and bolt gauge card, a reciprocating saw with assorted blades, circuit testers, a soldering gun, a multimeter, and a rivet gun. The chapter covers all of these, with photos, and I’ve never used any of them in my years of FTA satellite work. The tools I did use are also there, and at least the chapter begins its conclusion with “You might not need every tool covered here …”
• The book takes a break for a broad list of some of the networks and stations that “you might find on FTA” including, for example, all those great old Equity Broadcasting channels that haven’t been on satellite for years and at least one call sign that no longer exists. The book is copyright 2012; maybe Brewer was working on it longer than that.
• A very long chapter that painstakingly describes how antennas work, then thoroughly illustrates the step-by-step process of assembling a dish. I had glossed over this part on FTAList because each dish is a little different, but this was a good way to add pages. There’s also a shorter chapter that includes a great guide on how to crimp a cable connector.
• Ten pages on satellite receiver selection, with each possible feature and what it means. Ten more on switches with charts showing how to set them up.
• A chapter on aiming the dish and setting the LNB skew with a cute homemade device. I always go by the algorithm that you can’t get it perfect to start, but you just need to get it close enough to pick up signal, then adjust manually until signal quality is maximized. Other folks want to get it precisely accurate the first time. Maybe they’re right.
• A chapter on picking up local over-the-air TV stations. See, here is the wisdom of a true author of books. When I was thinking about putting together what I know about FTA into a book, it never occurred to me to add a section about terrestrial reception.
• Five chapters about choosing a TV set, hooking up FTA to your set and DVR and stuff, adding a speaker system, watching video over the internet, and “putting it all together” for a home theater. Wow. I never would have thought to include any of that. That’s why I had a pamphlet, and he has a book.
• A chapter on installing a FTA satellite card in a PC. This one I had considered, but nothing like the 14 pages of detail this book devotes to the topic.
• A chapter on mobile FTA installations. Now that’s fun, because I think it’s one of FTA’s best uses – something to set up in a dozen places during a long-distance RV trip.
• No summary, but a couple of appendices. The first is Product Sources, but it doesn’t list dealers, and that’s what I think most folks need, not manufacturers. The second lists FTA web sites, and includes Lyngsat but not FTAList. That hurts.

So there you have it. I’m a little concerned that the book doesn’t mention choosing a site for the dish; it seems to just jump in with assembly and pointing without first checking line of sight. And I also wonder how many readers will buy the book and get started because of the now-bogus list of networks available on Ku-band FTA. But for most readers, if they buy this book and don’t get too scared by the tools list, they can put together a FTA satellite system.

Somebody piqued my curiosity a little while ago about circular-polarity channels available in the clear through free-to-air equipment. The question was pretty basic: Are there ever any channels to watch on circular these days?

Quick background: To maximize satellite transponder bandwidth without large allowances for interference at the edges, transponders are stacked like Lincoln Logs using opposite polarities. Most medium-power Ku-band channels use linear polarity; each is either horizontal or vertical. Most high-power Ku-band channels use circular polarity, clockwise or counter-clockwise. This makes the small dish LNBs easier to install because they don’t need to be skewed to match the satellite reception angle as is required for stationary linear-polarity LNBs.

Those high-power channels are designed for smaller dishes, and almost all of them are meant for satellite TV subscribers, mostly to Dish Network or Bell TV. And so almost all of those channels are scrambled. But we FTA viewer are optimists, so we don’t care about what we can’t see. We want to know what we can see.

Once upon a time, only a few years ago, there was good reason for that optimism. Dish regularly left three channels in the clear: Angel One, NASA, and Gol TV. Bell left all of its music channels unscrambled for a long time. Beyond that, there were sightings of other channels that were available for weeks at a time. Dish left dozens of Ion network channels to be found. Bell had extra camera angles from NASCAR races. I even saw a steamy movie channel on Bell one night.

Pirates, or the satellite industry’s reaction to them, eliminated these free channels. Bell was first, scrambling all of its music just so it could be sure that every Bell dish in Canada was connected to either a subscriber or a crook. Then its investigators could just drive down the street looking for dishes and comparing addresses against their subscriber list. Later Dish also scrambled pretty much everything for pretty much the same reason.

Those memories of odd bits of programming spurred me on as I dug out my old Invacom dual-polarity LNB (pdf) and hooked it up to my system. My FTA receiver is too new to have entries for the satellites that Dish and Bell use, so I had to modify its satellite list. Then I had to figure why the signal from these high-powered satellites was coming in so weak. Some troubleshooting narrowed that down to a faulty DiSEqC switch, so I swapped in a new one.

After all that work, I scanned what I could and found next to nothing.

The reports that Nimiq 4 had changed its satellite footprint to cover Canada and very little else appear to be true. On Dish everything was scrambled except for four channels, all running its Dish 101 orientation program. And those are the most interesting bits of information I got out of the whole exercise.

It’s entirely possible that I missed something. There used to be a couple of channels that were marked as scrambled but were actually in the clear, but I couldn’t find any of those out of the couple dozen I checked. If you know of a good circular-polarity channel, or a position where they often have circular-polarity feeds in the clear, please leave a comment here so we’ll all know. It’s fun to explore, but not if you never find anything.