Upstart TV Station Uses $10 Woks Rather Than $20,000 Satellite Dish
from the simple-does-it dept
It's always nice to see a bit of ingenuity when it comes to technology. NotBuzzAldrin writes in to point us to an article coming out of New Zealand where a local upstart TV station discovered that it would cost them $20,000 for a commercial satellite dish uplink to broadcast the station, a volunteer made a perfectly decent replacement out of a few $10 woks. To be fair, he had done so before. A year earlier he had used a similar wok contraption to get wireless broadband to his home -- and when the TV station was starting up, he figured he might as well try something similar. Apparently, it's worked out just fine -- with the TV station uploading shows via a computer connected to a few of the woks. Of course, this might make you wonder just what everyone else is paying for in that $20,000 dish.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
That's what they're worth
If you that think they are 'drastically over-priced'-- go for it, should be easy as pie to make a killing undercutting existing sources, no? They are only overpriced if they don't sell.
The fact is, it's a small and specialized market, in a situation where the last decision in the world you'd want to make is to risk your entire signal to save $20,000.
The fact that it works is cool, but the stakes are extremely low and they had no choice and no money to spend. I've owned a car that cost me $300, and I got where I was going the same as with one 200x more expensive, but I have less wasted time from breakdowns and a generally safer time of it. It doesn't make my new car overpriced, it jsut fits a different set of needs.
I haven't used a wok, but the round parabolic reflectors for work lamps work extremely well for most signals too, and they are threaded already so you can usually attach things fairly easily without a lot of tools.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: That's what they're worth
As to those who cant imagine how a $20k dish could be genuinely worth more than a $200 dish--use your freaking imagination. Do you understand how much invsible research can go into precise engineering and materials r&d to ensure the optimal selection, fabrication, and application of ultra reliable components? Probably not. You do not f**k with your satellite uplink.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: That's what they're worth
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: That's what they're worth
Do you worry about the hammer in your toolbox failing, too?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
One Man's Wok Is Another Man's Parabolic Reflector
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
the price of Wok's
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Does that make these...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Does that make these...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Does that make these...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Blut light special
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
two cents worth
I have a flux-capacitor I build out of tinkertoys and a discarded transitor radio...
Bottom Line. Products are only worth what someone is will to pay for them. Years ago most people could make the things they needed, now we live in a throw away world...Why should I learn how to make or fix it, it only cost $29.95 to replace?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: two cents worth
Now-a-days, fabricating your own RF equipment (at least in the US) is grounds for a visit not only from the FCC, but from the FBI. They don't take too kindly to DIY electronic equipment, especially when it has the possibility of interfering with the equipment someone else spent a fortune on.
I'd personally love to go back to the day where DIY electronics info was freely available and nobody went to jail for distributing it or using it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Technical Problems...
Anyway, 20,000 is too much to pay for a dish. Now, getting the transmitter in the horn calibrated correctly - that's priceless. (Okay, a good transmitter horn + calibration is worth at least 5-10,000, depending on the application.) Oh, and any kind of crappy reflector that works is great for receiving signals - whatever catches the RF is fine.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Oops, let's read the article.
"One of the issues they had to deal with was making the pole that the wok sits on high enough to clear the Kingsgate Brydone Hotel.
They needed a clear path from the station to the hill, so the only way was up, building the pole more than eight metres high."
So, simple point-to-point transmits, probably microwave. Most Ham radio operators could gin that up in a day, given some modest test equipment and assorted parts.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Word Salad
Whether a wok saves any money over a real antenna depends on how much more often the signal fades due to inclement weather. No signal, no revenue!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Collapsable parabolic
When I used to camp more often, I built a "collapsable parabolic antenna" to feed a portable 12V television. It cost me 1 umbrella, a roll of aluminum foil, and some spray adhesive.
OK, it didn't make for an ideal antenna, and I wouldn't trust it for uplink, but it worked just fine for my purposes (that is: beat the snot out of the telescopic antenna the TV came with)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Give the government 100 billion dollars and 500,000 people to develop something... You'll be lucky if it gets done
Give a corporation 100 million dollars and 50,000 people to develop something... If there's money to be made, they'll do it
Give someone who isn't so blinded by greed that he can still see: some coax and a wok..
And end up with the same thing in the end.
lol
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I love it!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
In the field we are in, we have been looking at 3 links, from 3 different companies, all in the $15,000 to $20,000 range. These links are of utmost importance, because they carry an entire region's internet traffic. If this link EVER goes down, its big time problems.
These links are the price they are because of a couple reasons, for one they are typically in a licensed frequency that not anyone can just jump onto, and you are usually also paying for the license to use said frequency.
In addition these "$20,000" links are rated in guarenteed uptime, the technicians will ask you, "you looking for 6 nines of uptime or 7 nines?" What they are talking about is the fact that these links have 99.999999% uptime in a year. 6 "nines" is about 10 mins downtime a year if i remember correctly. And yes, they actually can guarentee that number on a $20k link.
And finnaly, when a company buys a $20,000 link, they are not going to be replacing it for a LOOOOOONG time. Hence the price must be relativly high, to pay for the research and development of the radio.
My company would laugh at any one mentioning we run woks for our traffic.
And one final note, you usually pay the $20,000 for the radio itself, dishes may or may not be included.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
That would be a no. Equipment and license are two different things. Next thing you are gonna tell me that FRS radios come with a FCC license for use.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Take a look at a company called "Dragon Wave".
$20,000 link, with FCC lincence included in that cost.
Do some research before you blow smoke.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
There is just no comparison, high traffic ISP's do NOT use cheap links, your typical "fly by night" wifi provider does.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
My guess (based on the comments about saving 20k) is that they used something else cheap like a wifi radio to connect the locations. (they would be lucky to get 2 9's with most of the off the shelf equipment)
One problem I see with this is that antenna manufacturers must get their gear certified. This certification makes sure that they do not leak rf. They also must be built to protect themselfs from incomming interferance from other directiions (ie from the back side of the antenna). With a wok, you aren't going to get any of this.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It works the other way around too!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
iWok
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
you get what you pay for, but...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Price is going up
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
My company would laugh at any one mentioning we run woks for our traffic.
And one final note, you usually pay the $20,000 for the radio itself, dishes may or may not be included.
Yeah - but 20K... man, you could have like 2000 Woks all transmitting. Talk about redundancy!!
LOL
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
RF wok
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It's still just cool.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: It's still just cool.
("Wow, turns out we don't need a space shuttle to get to the supermarket. We can do it with a Honda SUV!")
And the radio folks have all seen antennas built out of coffee cans, potato chip cans and soup cans for a long time, so that part isn't new either. Google up "cantenna" and build your own.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Misleading Title
Just because some New Zealand newspaper prints up a sensationalist, misleading article doesn't mean Techdirt should follow.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It's still just cool.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Better than Cantenna though
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
satellite on computer
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Not Truly a Satellite Uplink
A wok would NEVER pass international certification standards for a satellite uplink, [29-25 log10(theta)dBi between 1 & 7 degrees from center] and might BARELY pass as a Ku Downlink dish. It would probably cause interference with every bird in the sky, and never be accepted as a legal uplink. As anyone with dish experience knows, the single greatest factor in satellites to guarantee a good signal is CAPTURE AREA. Simply put - the bigger the dish - the more focussed the signal, and the greater the gain. This is true of both up and downlink. Even for Ku uplinks, I recommend a minimum of a 3.8 meter dish, which would give you a gain of 40 dB (aprox). Surely enough gain to overcome atmospheric losses over the distance of a satellite's orbit, and give you a reliable uplink.
The sidelobes on a wok would probably cause interference with the satellites positioned 2 degrees on either side of the one you are actually aiming at - if not interfere with half the sky.
However - as a point to point microwave over short distances with little chance of interfering with another signal - they would probably work great. If you are going to try this, I'd be on the lookout for a cheap aluminum one, as steel would rust unless it was stainless. Another possibility would be the aluminum shop lamps. Simply unscrew the lamp from the shade, and the shade makes a decent reflector.
Also - I've been known to use a tin can as a feedhorn for microwave use.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]