Refurbishment of a 7.5m Andrew Satellite Dish

In October 2013 Av-Comm travelled to the Solomon Islands to provide the refurbishment of a 7.5m Andrew satellite dish that had been out of service for over fifteen years. The dish had originally been used for C Band TVRO applications but had fallen into disrepair and was missing the original feed assembly.

Telekom Television desired the dish to receive the Optus C1/D3 constellation, to provide an increase in the content available for distribution on TTV’s new digital terrestrial transmitters. The works consisted of the design, installation, and commissioning of a new Ku Band feed assembly, as well as the replacement of several key structurally critical parts that were heavily corroded.

The age of the Andrew 7.5m dish made finding any information very difficult and it was decided to go back to basics and calculate the F/D ratio and focal point manually.

To add a further challenge to the project was the consideration that the Solomon Islands are outside of the published footprint of the Optus C1 and Optus D3 satellites. To ensure the dish would receive satisfactory signal levels the feed assembly was made to maximum the reflector’s illumination and efficiency.

The new feed assembly was manufactured in Sydney, shipped to the Solomon Islands where it was installed by the Av Comm team and successfully commissioned providing reception to both the vertical and horizontal polarities of both Optus C1 and D3.