TV Breakdown Appreciation Thread

[Markymark]

Satellites: Interesting stuff [mention]Inspector Sands[/mention] and [mention]thegeek[/mention]. I can see where people are coming from.

In analogue days you were transposing an FM modulated signal, with digital it's a lump of so called 'gausian' xOFDM carrier. In both cases lineraity isn't important (as it would be with analogue AM video and audio signals) It's just a constant amplitude carrier. Any spikes, be they genuine within a single signal or as a combined effect from multiple signals will have the same average effect.

It might depend also whether what is radiated is simply turned around, by amplifiing and sending out again without any frequency change, or is taken down to IF level and has the carrier frequency changed (rather like a terrestrial TV relay)?

I could sort of get the former might be a problem, but not the latter?

I can imagine the satellite may well have systems to detect distress, and shut off the output for a while

There have been instances of deliberate satellite jamming, by dual illuminating. I've never heard of any bird being permanently damaged by such action, and if it could be done, someone would have done it by now (through either accidental or evil intent)?

I'll start googling.........

[Inspector Sands]

I can imagine the satellite may well have systems to detect distress, and shut off the output for a while

Yes they'll have all sorts of control systems and monitoring, thing is that once they're built and deployed there's no way to fix or replace the hardware. The level of eye that the satellite owners keep on what's happening seems to vary. SES keep a keen eye on its DTH services, they do spot when things change and will call the relevant space owner to enquire what's happening.

Transponders do break though, somehow. They transfer services over to spares until they run out of spares

[Neil Jones]

I suppose its possible for a satellite to "completely" fail, but I dare say they are probably more likely to reach the end of their working life and/or run out of fuel.

Of course that's assuming they get that far - Astra 1K was launched at 19.2 degrees East in 2002 to replace the older Astra 1B which had been there since the 1990s, but something went wrong and 1K ended up in the wrong orbit - not the geostationary orbit satellite TV needs. Anyway it was later written off and dumped in the Pacific Ocean. They could have got it up to geostationary orbit but it would have emptied the fuel.

[valley]

They could have got it up to geostationary orbit but it would have emptied the fuel.

I thought the story was they needed the Space Shuttle to get it into the correct orbit - which was really not going to happen.

[Inspector Sands]

I think once they're up and in position they're fairly reliable, it's the launch and deployment that's the riskiest bit. However things do just go wrong, there's a few things that can knacker a satellite:
https://www.captechu.edu/blog/hazards-of...n-go-wrong

The Starlink satellites seem to have a high failure rate, although possibly it's not actually that many considering the number there were to start with, but the sheer quantities involved could potentially produce a lot of space junk especially when if it's rivals also put several thousand up there too
https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-s...sk-2020-10


Incidentally last week's Skeptoid podcast was on the subject of space junk and it all sounded very bleak. Worth a read/listen
https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4781

[Markymark]

And this exercise that happened last year is extraordinary

https://advanced-television.com/2020/02/...satellite/

[Curto32]

A full version of The Challenge TV breakdown during The Crystal Maze from 17th May 2011 has been found.

https://youtu.be/QLBE4PKVO2Y?t=73

[Si-Co]

At first I thought that after the breakdown, they replayed the episode that failed from the start - but it’s actually a different episode that starts after the breakdown. Does that suggest a problem with the “tape”/file, rather than a TX issue?

[Steve in Pudsey]

This is a slightly unusual one, CBBC/BFT apparently playing out an unfinished edit of The O Zone, causing Simon Parkin to fill, assisted by Phillipa Forrester and, to a lesser extent, Claudia Simon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfzSzaxOWCc

And BBC 2 losing the late night snooker coverage. Hardly a rare occurrence but notice that the announcer changes during the breakdown. I wonder if the delay in getting into breakdown mode was the Director having to call Richard Straker round from the BBC 1 booth to cover for the BBC 2 duty announcer on a comfort break or similar?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs6rQovvPww

[Markymark]

And BBC 2 losing the late night snooker coverage. Hardly a rare occurrence but notice that the announcer changes during the breakdown. I wonder if the delay in getting into breakdown mode was the Director having to call Richard Straker round from the BBC 1 booth to cover for the BBC 2 duty announcer on a comfort break or similar?

It's a good question. I wonder (if Richard Straker did have to deputise) whether his BBC 1 booth was assigned to the BBC 2 con for the announcement ?

[Steve in Pudsey]

While I'm sure it could have been, I suspect a quick dash across the corridor would have been simpler for all concerned!

[itvblocks]

And BBC 2 losing the late night snooker coverage. Hardly a rare occurrence but notice that the announcer changes during the breakdown. I wonder if the delay in getting into breakdown mode was the Director having to call Richard Straker round from the BBC 1 booth to cover for the BBC 2 duty announcer on a comfort break or similar?

It's a good question. I wonder (if Richard Straker did have to deputise) whether his BBC 1 booth was assigned to the BBC 2 con for the announcement ?

While I'm sure it could have been, I suspect a quick dash across the corridor would have been simpler for all concerned!

The previous announcer had to spend a penny, that's why :lol:

[Steve in Pudsey]

A brief glimpse of TV-am's breakdown caption followed by the fault not actually being fixed
https://youtu.be/y7bkflKzNls?t=113

[Neil Jones]

Rare that TV-am breakdown caption I suspect, as it mostly ran like clockwork save for occasional graphic glitches and the wrong camera on occasion, nothing worth writing home about.

. Of course in the strike period things quite often went wrong on air, but not as a breakdown, though that's sort of what happens when the janitor operates the video machine and the cleaner is in charge of the vision mixer

[Steve Williams]

This is a slightly unusual one, CBBC/BFT apparently playing out an unfinished edit of The O Zone, causing Simon Parkin to fill, assisted by Phillipa Forrester and, to a lesser extent, Claudia Simon.

I vividly remember this, it was the first day of the school holidays in 1990 and I saw it at the time. Unlike the previous year when Andy Crane fronted it, that summer The O Zone didn't have any presenters, and it was on three times a week, with a proper half-hour show on Wednesdays at 11.30 and then on Mondays and Fridays it was on at 11.55am for five minutes.
https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/bb...23#at-9.05

I got the impression at the time that those five minute episodes were broadcast "live" as they were very much just a few pop videos linked with graphics, like The Chart Show, as mentioned with the top ten on Monday and on Friday some tracks that were going to be in the new chart. So I get the feeling the song at number ten wouldn't play and there was nothing they could do but just abandon it, they certainly never showed it again.