Future moon base TV station?

[N5XZS]

Might happen with 8 to 15 years from now, if the Moon base colony were to start.

If you were start your own public or commercial TV station on the Moon and what frequency that you might able to use it legally under ITU or follow your country's radio regulator "FCC, or whatever name that is."

Should be on VHF, UHF or special frequency bands for Moon base broadcasters and avoid interference with Earth's ground based TV stations?

Should be fun for future TV DXers out there!

 

[ReggieA]

Given the distance, and reasonable power, it'd probably be on Ku band to keep the tx/rx dishes to a reasonable size. The Earth dish would also have to be automatically aimed, as the Moon's direction changes through the day. And the station won't be available when the Moon is down, so maybe not worth the effort?

 

[rmccolman]

As Reggie noted, such a station intended for average users to pick up directly likely wouldn't be practical. Your reception dish would need to track the Moon across the sky as Earth rotates -- roughly 1/4 degree per minute, coupled with the fact that the Moon would be below the horizon half of the time, again, as Reggie mentioned.

Richard

 

[N5XZS]

But remember it's similar to shortwave broadcast or closest thing is to Moon base colony is Antarctic base from various nations down under with most of them have shortwave radio and very low power FM and TV stations down there!

So in reality it's not a full power fulltime service stations.

 

[ancient]

If you are talking about a moon colony, I would think that initially it would have such a small footprint that it would just use Internet-based video. In other words the colonists would use something like a Roku or FireTV or AppleTV, or just watch video on their phones or tablets, assuming they even have time to watch TV. If for some reason they did decide they needed to emulate regular broadcast TV then I expect that at least initially it would be a cable-type system, but I can think of no good reason for them to go through that trouble. But remember that it's going to be outrageously expensive to send anything to the moon (assuming that anti-gravity tech still hasn't been invented, or released to the commercial sector if you believe the government has reverse-engineered UFO's) so I doubt they are going to be sending many big-screen TV's to the moon.

It stands to reason that they will absolutely have to have Internet access 24/7, which means communicating with earth stations at various points around the globe. The latency will be horrible (gamers will hate it) and if you are watching Netflix when the signal gets handed off from one earth station to another you may see an interruption in your video, though it really should not be that much different than how Internet in airplanes is handled on a technical level. The moon moves much slower than a jet aircraft relative to its position as viewed from the earth. So I just can't see them using a terrestrial-type broadcast scheme, at least not initially.

 

[N5XZS]

But remember in order to show to the world you must have start a radio or TV station that way this colony is alive and well to the public other than just 2 radio and TV and internet via radio waves.

Regardless of light speed delay of amost 2 seconds back to earth at Wp 1.00 or 186,000 + or - MPs.

Meaning 1 way broadcasts to Earth!

 

[ancient]

No, in order to show to the world what is going on up there you only need a video stream. The networks on earth can retransmit that to they viewers if they wish.

How do you think video from the ISS gets shown on NASA TV? They aren't operating a TV station on the ISS; they are sending a video stream to NASA most likely using TCP/IP. I assume the same thing will happen with video coming from the moon.

I get that you are chomping at the bit for an opportunity to DX the moon but the hard reality is that it makes no financial sense for anyone to put a TV station up there. It doesn't make sense now, and it won't make sense on the moon until there are a significant number of people up there. And since the moon has no oxygen, it will make sense for all the colonists (or at least all those sent by a single entity) to be confined to a pretty small area, which means that they will likely all have wired or wireless Internet access. So why do they need a TV station? They don't with today's technology, and 8 to 15 years from now (to use your timeframe) there will be an even less compelling case.

In fact there is a part of me that wonders if the switch to ATSC3 is the beginning of the end for terrestrial broadcasting. A lot of people see no need for it and won't go out and buy new equipment to receive it. In the meantime, IMHO anyway, most of the recently-made shows have been of poorer quality than the older shows, except for the fact that the older shows were in standard definition and the new ones are in HD. I find watching regular television is a less enjoyable experience with each passing year - there are still a few good shows but with most of the newer ones I can't stay awake long enough to finish an episode. I suppose that is partly due to my age but I still can't shake the feeling that the broadcasters have put their golden goose in the oven and they keep raising the temperature (the cost to viewers) and one day will find that the younger folks just aren't that interested in the crap they are producing (already many young people would rather play video games or watch TikTok videos than watch TV). So I would not even guarantee that in 15 years TV stations will still be a big thing on planet Earth, let alone on the moon.

And if I am wrong and TV continues to be a thing, I would bet that you'll see a TV station on Mars before you'll sever see one on the moon, partly because a TV station on Mars would not have nearly as much potential to interfere with signals on Earth.

 

[Cham]

I don't see why there wouldn't be (a) broadcast station(s) on the moon eventually, but not likely a "TV" station but likely local data for 2-way data between devices like phones we use now here. The data would likely have 2-way video among anything else that a data stream carries these days. These would cover research and other activities surrounding "moon base". Due to the Moon's small radius the range would be limited, so lunar orbiting satellites would likely be more useful.

I would also expect an amateur radio repeater system to be installed on the moon eventually, accessible from Earth. Likely a digital mode and passwd accessible.
There has been talk about doing that for many years.

With re-usable boosters and spacecraft the cost of going to space will be much less per weight unit than it is now. That will make the moon and other interesting places within the solar system much more accessible. Whether that's a good thing or not who knows. With all the low-earth-orbiting hardware going up these days though, it's like a "space shield" is being built around us...

 

[lfp302]

As Reggie noted, such a station intended for average users to pick up directly likely wouldn't be practical. Your reception dish would need to track the Moon across the sky as Earth rotates -- roughly 1/4 degree per minute, coupled with the fact that the Moon would be below the horizon half of the time, again, as Reggie mentioned.

Richard

Also, the tracking would need to adjust for elevation changes, as The Moon's orbit is tilted 5 + degrees relative to the ecliptic.

 

[NYDutch]

Spread a few repeaters around the moon for 24/7 access and connect them to Starlink for streaming?