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From: vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.space.shuttle
Subject: NASA Satellite TV Coverage
Message-ID: <10682@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: 7 Oct 90 17:18:49 GMT
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 42


NASA Headline News / Peter E. Yee:
>NASA will use an additional satellite transponder during the STS-41 
>Ulysses mission to enable reception of NASA Select television in 
>Alaska and Hawaii -- which are too far north or west for reception of the 
>NASA programming on Satcom F2R.  The additional satellite is Spacenet 
>1, transponder 17.  Edited, two hour summaries of the day's NASA Select 
>programming will be transmitted on Spacenet 1 each day of the STS-41 
>mission from 12:01 to 2:01 am EDT.

Did anyone find the summary last night?  I looked for it after 1:30
and did not find it.  Is Spacenet 1 transponder 17 really the right 
place?  Is it just that Pittsburgh PA (which is not near Alaska or 
Hawaii) is not in the broadcast footprint?  If so, its too bad because
it would be nice to be able to record a 2 hour summary each day.

>NASA Select TV:  Satcom F2R, Transponder 13, C-Band, 72 degrees West 
>Longitude, Audio 6.8, Frequency 3960 MHz.

I have been a bit disappointed in the coverage so far.  Most of the
time when I have checked they have been showing mission control 
without any audio (talk about boring).  The second most common 
thing seems to be computer graphics.  Only once out of about 10
times that I have looked have I actually caught them showing the 
output of a camera that was in orbit and it did not last very long.

I have noticed that there is also NASA stuff on F2 transponder 5.
Most of the time this just has some text that includes STS-41 but
it has been used to show extra cameras during launch and was 
even showing the view from space (although only in black and white)
that I saw on transponder 13.

Given that I have seen stuff on 2 stations and there is supposed
to be stuff on a third I am wondering, has anyone found any others?

It amazes me that with cameras in orbit they are showing what they
are (mostly boring ground based stuff).  Are they only able to send 
video from the shuttle during very limited portions of the orbit?
Assuming this is the problem, does anyone know how limited this is
and what portions (seems that near Florida might be good).

  --  Vince