FCC Replacing BUD for those with protected status. (2 Viewers)

[DavidR]

I filed to have my BUD protected back when the FCC was asking for it about a year back when FCC was asking for those seeking protection. I imagined I would eventually get a filter, but was presently surprised when I was told my mesh dish would be upgraded to an aluminum at no cost. Anyone else getting thier's replaced by the FCC? Almost seems too good to be true.

I thought this might be a April's Fool joke at first. Interesting. Let us know when you get the check for a replacement.

 

[Radioguy41]

How the heck did I miss this?

 

[radio]

It was aimed at commercial users, but open to BUD users...It wasn't exactly national news, but...like almost all things satellite it was, indeed discussed here. Our dishes are not being replaced, our commercial dishes were given a choice of service from the satellite company to eliminate potential interference at no charge, or we could take a "buyout" from the proceeds of the sale of bandwidth equal to around $8k per dish and we take care of replacement or filtering. Our station took the buyout, but again...there was no "freebie" in filing, it cost to file with the FCC and it cost an FCC attorney to do it for us too. Most home BUD owners would not pay a grand for "protection" of a type we had no idea we'd get when we filed. It won't cost anywhere NEAR that much to filter our dishe(s)...or even replace....but the FCC figures they've endangered a commercial-use dish or set of dishes....which were very expensive when installed, and used all these years in so many commercial locations. They'll STILL net tons of money on the selling of bandwidth!

 

[VictoriaFTA]

How do you register for this? Should be lawsuit worthy for those who missed out. A 2018 registration deadline is completely unacceptable when they haven't even taken away the spectrum yet. The FCC's f**kery with C-band is affecting plenty of post-2018 C-band users. Should be able to register for protection up until the date the spectrum is taken away.

 

[radio]

Oh, good grief. Lawsuit? the most overused word in a world believing in entitlement.

This move was part of the federal register, it was discussed here...It's been discussed in tech news shows, and it was aimed at COMMERCIAL users anyway, (broadcasters, cable systems) with home BUD users who are serious hobbyists following the news offered the chance to REGISTER. I don't know how many times in this thread I have to reiterate as a broadcaster and registered Cband user that NOBODY knew what kind of protection was going to be offered! At the time we put our money down to register with the FCC and pay for the paperwork, all that was known was that it would be SOME kind of protection.

Google the phrase "reallocate C Band" and ANY combination of words to that effect....and look how many articles there are in tech, space, and standard news outlets about it that were mainstream news when this all began.

Would you have invested a minimum of a GRAND to protect yoru BUD? If the answer's NO, then you have no grounds to stand on with your statement.

It cost those of us who filed REAL MONEY like I've said...to file. $500 to the FCC and more if you couldn't wade through the application. I've been in radio 32 years, 16 plus as a station owner and had to have an engineering firm wade through my paperwork. I've done ownership reports, annual FCC regulatory fee filing, National EAS test filing all on my own, but still needed help from a firm. The form was daunting to say the least and time consuming. Get something wrong with the FCC in most filing deadlines and you're OUT.

Would you have invested a thousand bucks? "Lawsuit" is what everyone screams when things don't go their way anymore...like they're entitled to "win" every time there's an issue. C-band has not been meant for consumers directly in years. Experimenters? YES. Do we enjoy it? Yes. Instead of C-band, can you now get most of your Cband programming over the air with sub carriers from standard TV channels? MOST DEFINITELY yes. Please come back to the real world and the fact Cband as much as I love it...(and I do..was selling Birdview in the 1980's) and others do here.... is for the FTA experimenter and not a main source of programming anymore. We take what we can get, we enjoy it while it's there...we move ON. If the programming moves on...so do we.

 

[navychop]

.... 5G is viable at the higher frequencies it is on the way.

Yep. Within all of 900 feet.

 

[VictoriaFTA]

Would you have invested a minimum of a GRAND to protect yoru BUD? If the answer's NO, then you have no grounds to stand on with your statement.

It cost those of us who filed REAL MONEY like I've said...to file. $500 to the FCC and more if you couldn't wade through the application. I've been in radio 32 years, 16 plus as a station owner and had to have an engineering firm wade through my paperwork. I've done ownership reports, annual FCC regulatory fee filing, National EAS test filing all on my own, but still needed help from a firm. The form was daunting to say the least and time consuming. Get something wrong with the FCC in most filing deadlines and you're OUT.

Would you have invested a thousand bucks? "Lawsuit" is what everyone screams when things don't go their way anymore...like they're entitled to "win" every time there's an issue. C-band has not been meant for consumers directly in years. Experimenters? YES. Do we enjoy it? Yes. Instead of C-band, can you now get most of your Cband programming over the air with sub carriers from standard TV channels? MOST DEFINITELY yes. Please come back to the real world and the fact Cband as much as I love it...(and I do..was selling Birdview in the 1980's) and others do here.... is for the FTA experimenter and not a main source of programming anymore. We take what we can get, we enjoy it while it's there...we move ON. If the programming moves on...so do we.

Sure I would have. It's only $1,000. That's not much. The FCC are the ones who are stealing away this spectrum from us so that they and the cell phone monopolies can profit. We should be properly compensated for this theft of spectrum. A program that costs $500 a dish and was cut off 3 years ago just doesn't cut it. You should be eligible for compensation up until the date the spectrum is taken away, not cut off years well before the spectrum gets taken away.

There are also many networks you can only get with C-band -- I haven't seen any Brazilian, Mexican or other Latin American networks carried by channel resellers. The FCC's theft will rob us of the ability to watch channels like Azteca as the cell phone companies take over this spectrum that we won't be able to tune in to now. You can't get backhauls... cable companies, pizza dishes, and IPTV companies will never be an acceptable substitute for the C-band. I don't give a sh*t about watching linear television outside of the niche things that are only on the C-band. If I'm going to watch a scripted TV series it sure as hell isn't going to be through some crappy 1080i television channels full of advertisements and an obnoxious channel logo plastered on the screen at all times. It's going to be through a nice crisp logo-free, commercial free 1080p or 4K copy ripped from Amazon/Netflix/Hulu/Disney+/HBO Max/Peacock/Discovery+/Paramount+

 

[907TECH]

Yep. Within all of 900 feet.

So 5G is all a scam?

 

[navychop]

Just noting the higher frequencies don’t travel far or thru much.

T-Mobile uses 5G in the 600 band. Not much faster than 4G. But travels way farther than the higher frequencies. Needs fewer “towers.” Think how many are needed to cover an area if you can only count on about 900 feet, and inside use requires an antenna, generally outside, on a wall facing that high frequency 5G “tower.”

Not cheap. For dense areas only.

 

[radio]

Victoria FTA,

Sorry you missed your chance to invest in your dish. Bottom line is, what you WANT is not mainstream for consumers and can be "here today gone tomorrow" as NETWORKS change how they distribute. You sound like an angry consumer who wants what's "free'" to be guaranteed. It doesn't work that way. When you're using devices that no longer support subscriptions, the medium you are using is no longer aimed AT consumers. Guess you'd better hang out more here, then for changes...and they are coming. You're on the best site for the fast track for satellite information if you're not a broadcaster with a high paid FCC attorney to fill you in on changes. Should you want to retain an FCC attorney, I will be happy to point you to one whose newsletter will keep you posted on changes in FCC policies for all segments of FCC jurisdiction. Seems to me for most "consumers" that the thousand you'd have invested protecting a single C-band dish would go FAR in streaming programming and selected online services, however...given there's no GUARANTEE that C-band stuff will be there permanently and that you can pretty much ala carte your favorite services via the internet to a roku box or similar without buying what you DON'T want to buy for the most part. You can't go one commercial break anywhere these days without a different streaming network or cable service wanting your five bucks here, seven there, etc.

 

[Juan]

Hans ..verizon ceo..will be on cnbc roughly 10am 3/11/21 to talk about cband auction win for verizon

 

[johnnynobody]

Hans ..verizon ceo..will be on cnbc roughly 10am 3/11/21 to talk about cband auction win for verizon

I don't get or watch CNBC so I'll have to wait for the highlights or a posting of the segment to youtube.

 

[Juan]

I don't get or watch CNBC so I'll have to wait for the highlights or a posting of the segment to youtube.

They are going to use it yo replace mm wave signal for 5g and will probably try to get more of it...meaning c-band will have a fight on their hands

 

[johnnynobody]

Just thought you guys might like to see this. I have an XR-3 so this is probably why I got an e-mail about this kit. Petty cash.

XR-3 Satellite Meter 5G C-Band Repack Kit 1

AVAILABLE NOW FOR PRE-ORDER. WILL SHIP ON 04/21/2021. The 5G C-Band Repack Kit 1 comes with all the products you need to get started with testing and aligning signals while blocking interferences from 5G and any other potential source of out-of-band interference. Products included in this kit...

tescomusa.com

 

[Captain Midnight]

Sounds like anyone interested in C band in a 5G world will need at least a 12ft dish... I sure hate it. Ruining a perfectly good system like 3.7-4.2ghz for a bit more speed on cell phones when fiber and Wi-Fi already exist. 4G LTE was not even being fully optimized.

 

[radio]

This whole issue has been blown out of proportion. If simple filters will help (most) radio stations keep their equipment operating in this age, and the FCC is helping licensees to get these put in either by the satellite owner/operators or by self install, MOST situations will not be severe. Not every dish is going to be in a saturated area for (any) interfering signal...but of course we must fret, right? We just got our email about being in the C-band clearning house for payments to REGISTERED downlink dishes. Filters are not terribly expensive....and will work in most cases according to our station engineer(s) and we have quite a few that service our station who all agree on that point. While I hate this phrase...."just sayin."

 

[johnnynobody]

It seems that these "5G repack" kits have some kind of waveguide filter addition that filters out the 5G interference. I don't know how that's suppose to apply to an LNBF.

 

[primestar31]

It seems that these "5G repack" kits have some kind of waveguide filter addition that filters out the 5G interference. I don't know how that's suppose to apply to an LNBF.

They don't. That's why Titanium has some new LNBF's for the smaller spectrum, with 5G filters built in, ready to be released when the time comes. So, it'll cost us the price of new ones, but what's another $50~ or so?

 

[Captain Midnight]

This whole issue has been blown out of proportion. If simple filters will help (most) radio stations keep their equipment operating in this age, and the FCC is helping licensees to get these put in either by the satellite owner/operators or by self install, MOST situations will not be severe. Not every dish is going to be in a saturated area for (any) interfering signal...but of course we must fret, right? We just got our email about being in the C-band clearning house for payments to REGISTERED downlink dishes. Filters are not terribly expensive....and will work in most cases according to our station engineer(s) and we have quite a few that service our station who all agree on that point. While I hate this phrase...."just sayin."

You haven't considered the adjacent satellite interference from having everything packed in 4.0-4.2GHz. That is my concern for my 10ft dish. Anything smaller than that may as well be toast. Unless it's able to receive Ku.

 

[FTA4PA]

If - and I say IF - this all pans out as the video says then hobbyist C-band will largely be finished in the US as very few of us can afford multiple $5K dishes with expensive filters.

I am keeping in mind though that they are trying to sell you new equipment - larger dishes, special filters, etc - and pushing that you need to install them now. If you install them now and trash your old equipment then you will never know if it would have still worked or not.

Many of us with hobbyist C-band dishes live in rural areas where there will likely be less interference from 5G so with new filtered lnbfs from Titanium hopefully this will mitigate some or most of the issues we will face.

I am holding out hope that the impact will not be as severe as they are saying and will do what I can to keep my current equipment functional but I am also ready to accept that there is very little I, as a hobbyist, can do at this point if new dishes are required.