Upstart TV Station Uses $10 Woks Rather Than $20,000 Satellite Dish

from the simple-does-it dept

Mon, Feb 26th 2007 11:33pm — Mike Masnick

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.

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43 Comments

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Trojan John, 27 Feb 2007 @ 12:24am

Fcuking priceless. =P
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ScytheNoire, 27 Feb 2007 @ 12:50am

another one of those cases where products are drastically over-priced just because there are so few sources that sell the product. $20,000 for a dish? that dish better give blowjobs for that price.
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Morgan, 27 Feb 2007 @ 1:20am

That's what they're worth
For the market they're in, that's what they're worth. 99% of engineers are not going to trust transmissions to a wok unless they have experience with it and very little to lose if it fails. Even after seeing this I don't know if I'd trust it, most uncoated woks I've ever used rust in about 10 minutes if they get wet.

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.
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Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 27 Feb 2007 @ 2:23am

One Man's Wok Is Another Man's Parabolic Reflector
It's like the price of mainframes versus the early minicomputers (and later PCs) -- a lot of that cost was the cost of selling to such a specialized market. Will we see woks take over wholesale from the more expensive purpose-built antennas? No, because the makers of those antennas have a larger marketing and promotional budget, courtesy of that $20,000 price tag, which the wok makers don't have--not to spend in the antenna market, anyway.
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MrPaladin, 27 Feb 2007 @ 4:04am

the price of Wok's
The price of Woks is going to skyrocket!
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DocRings, 27 Feb 2007 @ 4:15am

That sure makes for tasty RF!
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eipnvn, 27 Feb 2007 @ 4:33am

Does that make these...
E-Woks?
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Yo ho ho..., 27 Feb 2007 @ 5:07am

Blut light special
There is a run on Woks at the local K-Mart !
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erv, 27 Feb 2007 @ 5:13am

Clear Channel to merge and become Wok Channel
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Trouble Maker, 27 Feb 2007 @ 5:20am

two cents worth
...the wok is used as a reflector, many items can be used for this or even made (plywood, small protable swimming pools). The big item that you don't forge out od stone is the Reciever/Transmitter Head...those you have to get from RC cars and trucks from the toy department for about $12.00.

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?
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Feb 2007 @ 5:51am

Re: Does that make these...
Bravo dude, I liked that one
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Kendra, 27 Feb 2007 @ 6:21am

Technical Problems...
There's no question that it works, but for uplinks - when you are beaming a signal back into space into a sensitive receiver, there's a reason for using "better" equipment. The short version is that a poorly polarized signal that is too weak/too strong/slightly off frequency/slightly mis-modulated can really screw up the satellite's receiver, or at least, can screw up the reception of other transmitters on adjacent frequencies. (Sat receivers are very sensitive, btw. They have to cope with weak signals squirted through electrically charged atmospheres, while rejecting all the other stray RF, including the RF generated by re-transmitting the feed back down. Don't screw with the satellites- they are just too hard to go up and fix ;)

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.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Feb 2007 @ 6:24am

Ok, so they rust....I guess next time he'll go ape and buy $20 woks instead and they will last longer
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Feb 2007 @ 6:24am

Re: That's what they're worth
Thanks for the sane points, morgan. One I'd like to add--as an analogy, consider that you are unlikely to find a cheap rocket engine. Theyre going to be made to a certain exacting level of reliability since theyre only used by people lifting important payloads. If youre a hobbyist, you're not going to be able to afford a commercial rocket engine. Make your own. Make all your own stuff--the industry is not geared up to make cheap stuff.

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.
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Kendra, 27 Feb 2007 @ 6:37am

Oops, let's read the article.
While the article talks about a "satellite dish", if you look at what they are doing, they are sending a line of sight signal from the station to a transmitter on a hill, which then beams a conventional TV signal to the broadcast area.

"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.
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starwars trivia, 27 Feb 2007 @ 6:39am

Re: Does that make these...
E-woks???? Hey, maybe the Ewoks could market the E-Woks... OK, so it's lame, but cute!
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deirdre, 27 Feb 2007 @ 6:57am

Word Salad
The article uses terminology that makes it sound like a much bigger deal than it is. It's not a "satellite" dish, it's only transmitting to a nearby mountain top, merely a difference of some 26,000 miles. In the television biz, this is called the Studio-Transmitter Link (STL) or microwave link and nobody spends $20,000 for an STL antenna. The $20,000 price is just plain silly, and was apparently thrown in by the clueless author. Further down, prices in the hundreds are quoted, and those are reasonable prices for an STL antenna.

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!
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Dosquatch, 27 Feb 2007 @ 6:59am

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)
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Overcast, 27 Feb 2007 @ 7:00am

That's sweet :)

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
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coachgeorge (profile), 27 Feb 2007 @ 7:07am

I love it!
Tech weenies aside, I love the innovation. This is old school. The kind of stuff we did in college in the 70's to experiment.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Feb 2007 @ 7:18am

Working for an ISP that has been looking to replace existing wireless backhaul links, I have a little more insight on this "$20,000" price tag that is mentioned.

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.
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Cixelsid, 27 Feb 2007 @ 7:28am

It works the other way around too!
You can buy a $20 000 dish and use it as a Wok! Then when you have your buds over for a chinese BBQ, you can say shit like "Fuck man, this Wok has uptime of like shit... 9 nines or some shit...crap this needs more wow wow sauce."
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Lenny, 27 Feb 2007 @ 7:28am

iWok
...I just patented the iWok.
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mark, 27 Feb 2007 @ 7:32am

you get what you pay for, but...
For that $20K, you no doubt get a mathematically ideal dish with known gain and sidelobe performance. Not to mention guaranteed performance in all weather. While the wok can be made to work in a pinch (Radio Amateurs do it all the time with various materials like umbrellas and snow saucers), I wouldn't bet a quasi-commercial venture on it. He should have at least gone with a Tefloned aluminum wok.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Feb 2007 @ 7:45am

Re: That's what they're worth
"They are only overpriced if they don't sell." What plan do you live on? A product can be severely overpriced and yet sell, it's called monopoly. Look at the price of cable internet in the US, does it really cost the company $40-50 per month per customer to keep routers and switches on? Hell no! However, due to lack of real competition (let's not bring DSL into this, it's just as expensive if you include a home phone line), companies can charge whatever price they see fit and customers are forced to pay. Back in 1997 it cost me $20 to get me online, in 2007 it costs me $50, so please say things wouldn't sell if they were overpriced.
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tim, 27 Feb 2007 @ 7:54am

Price is going up
Last time I read this same story the dish was supposed to have cost them $10,000! Talk about inflation.
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Overcast, 27 Feb 2007 @ 8:04am

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.

Yeah - but 20K... man, you could have like 2000 Woks all transmitting. Talk about redundancy!!

LOL
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Chuck Nussman, 27 Feb 2007 @ 8:12am

RF wok
I did that wok satellite thing a few years ago, but it didn't work out for me. It only received oriental stations, and left me hankering for another program just an hour after I saw one.
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dorpass, 27 Feb 2007 @ 8:24am

Re:
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.

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.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Feb 2007 @ 9:07am

Re: Re:
LOL!

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.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Feb 2007 @ 9:11am

Re: Re: Re:
Oh and one more thing, these companies that set up $20,000 links will almost allways also send out their own engineer with the product to get things dialed in.

There is just no comparison, high traffic ISP's do NOT use cheap links, your typical "fly by night" wifi provider does.
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John Duncan Yoyo, 27 Feb 2007 @ 9:33am

Re:
Those prices probably are not in US dollars but NZ dollars.
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Johny, 27 Feb 2007 @ 10:27am

It's still just cool.
I think the idea and subject of the article is cool. Not sure about all these comments going into in-depth workings of a satellite? Pretty sure most people reading the article don't care. I thought the whole idea was not to present this as a feasible replacement for other tv stations but, just to show it was done.
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deirdre, 27 Feb 2007 @ 10:57am

Re: It's still just cool.
That's just what the radio folks have issue with; it WASN'T done, that is, nobody replaced $20,000 worth of radio gear with a wok. Either some important facts were left out or somebody originally priced the wrong stuff.

("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.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Feb 2007 @ 12:33pm

Re: two cents worth
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?

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.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Feb 2007 @ 2:22pm

Re:
At my last job I was the senior network engineer for one of the largest Fixed Wireless Broadband companies in the nation. We too had links that were in the $20k range but there is one key difference. These were full radio and antenna links. The antenna's on the links rarely went above $1k and that was only if they were >4ft dishes usually.(depending on the frequency) The price for linking up a radio station to the tower is definately not in the antennas, but in the transmitter/receiver.

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.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Feb 2007 @ 5:41pm

Misleading Title
From reading the article: That $20,000 was supposedly for a whole "link", not just a reflector. It takes a lot more than a reflector to make a link and the reflector is one of cheapest parts in many cases. In this case it appears that commercial reflectors of equivalent size were readily available for about $80 rather than $20,000.

Just because some New Zealand newspaper prints up a sensationalist, misleading article doesn't mean Techdirt should follow.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Feb 2007 @ 5:09am

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!") You could even walk.
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|333173|3|_||3, 28 Feb 2007 @ 5:31am

Better than Cantenna though
a Cantenna is fundamentally hte wrong shape, wheras a parabolic lamp reflector or wok is more correct (the shape still has to be correct for the location of the antenna itself). I liked the idea of using and umbrella, even if you have to replace the foil often.
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Honey, 5 Mar 2007 @ 2:09am

satellite on computer
I agree with your article "satellite on computer"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 satellite on computer
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girliegirl, 17 Apr 2007 @ 9:23pm

this is inapropriette
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rfengineer, 14 Apr 2008 @ 8:38am

Not Truly a Satellite Uplink
If you read the article, and the associated links, you'd learn that he didn't build a satellite dish with the wok - he build a point to point microwave (multiple of them with multiple paths) in lieu of purchasing the dish.

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.
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okto, 24 Apr 2012 @ 11:21am

Re: That's what they're worth
It's a steel parabola. What's to fail?

Do you worry about the hammer in your toolbox failing, too?
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