satellite career

[evancono29]

hi my name is evan and i am 15 years old i live in illinois i am quite interested in satellites and there technology. I would like to get into the field but i dont know where to start i can aim dish 500s and superdishes and troubleshoot but what should i do to get into the satellite field?

 

[joshschuler]

Find an rsp and hop to.

 

[Dish Dude]

Hook up with a retailer part time helping him out and such. I don't recommend you try anything without supervision because of liability reasons . When you turn 18 get certified and apply at upstanding retailers or RSP.

 

[korsjs]

it is great that some of the younger people are interested in this stuff. stick to it.

 

[Liquidforce88]

I hope you don't want to do installs. Now Dish wants you to work 7 days a week. No days off 3 to 4 installs a day. Oh by the way that breaks down to about 70 - 80 hours a week. Say bye bye to any kind of life.

 

[evancono29]

i was thinking more along the lines of an uplinker?

 

[OoTLink]

I was about to say, who'd want to be a dish jockey with those kinda hours? An uplinker job could be interesting... maybe..

*looks sideways at the superdish* Those things are big :]

 

[bbtkd]

Satellite Specialist

i was thinking more along the lines of an uplinker?

I do know that there is a tech school in or near Mitchell, South Dakota which specializes in training satellite technicians. I work at a large government facility which tracks numerous satellites, and downloads satellite imagery to archive and distribute. We hire graduates from that tech school to monitor the equipment, oversee reception events, correct problems, service the equipment, uplink, etc. South Dakota and other surrounding plains states have the advantage of being very near the geographic center of North America, hence the surprisingly large satellite uplink/downlink industry. Also no mountains to block the satellite view.

 

[Paul_Medenwaldt]

Having worked in a satellite uplink facility, I can give you one piece of advice. You need patience and if you don't, learn to have patience.

I had experience in 2 different fields in an uplink facility. One was the retransmission of signals for a digital satellite company. Basically we watched movies all day. There were other jobs to do at times, but with all the people working there, sometimes you had to fight to do something else besides sit in a room and monitor the signals.

The other job I trained in a little bit and watched from a far was the uplinking of satellite trucks. This job has a little bit more excitment because of the interaction between you and the truck, but once the signal is up and running, there isn't much to do.

There is a lot to learn within an uplink facility, but there is a lot of downtime where there is nothing to do.

Good luck!

Paul