# **Urgent** C-band Telstar 4 lost power!



## rolou21 (Apr 4, 2002)

**FYI** Around 9am this morning Fri. 9-19-2003 T4 lost power and is currently on
reserve battery power which may only last 3 more hours. Per Loral Skyney in Hawley,
Pa. it may be that the spacecraft may never regain total power at all. Once the battery power is used up, then total communication is lost.

All ABC affiliates (my job) and and CBS to name a few are to be re-located to Telstar 5

**DMX TO HOME SUBSCRIBERS**
If you currently receive the service on T4/15U ku band and receive no lock at all, per
Comcast operations in Colorado, the service will be re-located to Telstar 6/xponder
25 (93' W, same polarity) but change the IF frequency from 1422 to 1394. This will go into effect Fri. 9-19-2003 around 2pm eastern. The problem is you can't get thru to Loral satellite access because of all the re-routes they are doing now.


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## bills976 (Jun 30, 2002)

Pardon my ignorance, but could someone explain what this means? What was on Telstar 4 and who/what uses that particular satellite?


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## rolou21 (Apr 4, 2002)

bills976 said:


> Pardon my ignorance, but could someone explain what this means? What was on Telstar 4 and who/what uses that particular satellite?


THis is just an fyi.....All ABC and CBS AS WELL AS PBSX and the smut channels to name a few.


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

rolou21 said:


> **FYI** Around 9am this morning Fri. 9-19-2003 T4 lost power and is currently on
> reserve battery power which may only last 3 more hours. Per Loral Skyney in Hawley,
> Pa. it may be that the spacecraft may never regain total power at all. Once the battery power is used up, then total communication is lost.
> 
> ...


Wow! That's a major outage. T4 carries a bunch of stuff. Here is a chart. It looks like ABC is the big loser:

http://www.lyngsat.com/t4.shtml


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## Neil Griffin (Jun 14, 2002)

rolou21 said:


> THis is just an fyi.....All ABC and CBS AS WELL AS PBSX and the smut channels to name a few.


Some of these networks, such as CBS, ABC, and PBS have transponders on other satellites that can serve as backup. Others have high priority contracts that may allow them to bump a lower priority user on another satellite. So there may be some efect on other satellites.

The users most affected may be the statewide PBS channels that use T4 to reach distant transmitters. Georgia Public TV is currently only feeding the Atlanta transmitter, and the outstate GPR radio transmitters are being fed by other means (probably phone or off-air), according to their website.


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## Pete K. (Apr 23, 2002)

Here is what GPTV is saying about the outage:

Georgia Public Broadcasting Experiencing A Loss of Satellite Signal 
ATLANTA - SEPTEMBER 19, 2003: At 8:56 this morning the LORAL Satellite TELSTAR 4 lost its ability to relay signals, which is impacting broadcasters across the country including Georgia Public Broadcasting, which leases a transponder on the satellite to deliver Georgia Public Television, Georgia Public Radio, and PeachStar Education Services.

LORAL is investigating the cause of the outage and expects to know more within four to six hours.* Currently, Georgia Public Television, which is fed by fiber to its tower at Stone Mountain and to Atlanta area cable systems, is broadcasting normally in the metro Atlanta area.* Using a land-based back up delivery system, GPTV and Georgia Public Radio are on air with varying levels of service in most areas of the state.**Unfortunately, there is no similar back up system for PeachStar Education Services.* 

Local GPR stations in Savannah, Augusta, Athens and Carrollton are on the air with local programming and restricted GPR network feeds.* The other 11 GPR stations are broadcasting the network signal with varying levels of quality.* Service to all Georgia's 2,500 school satellite sites has been interrupted.

Georgia Public Broadcasting is not alone in this situation.* Public broadcasters in South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida are affected as well as some of ABC Television and numerous other satellite communications users. 

GPB is working with LORAL and others to restore all broadcast services as soon as possible.** This situation is similar to the loss of TELSTAR 401 in January 1997 when the satellite was lost.* GPB, a LORAL priority customer, was moved to another satellite within a few days.* GPB's association with LORAL SKYNET began in 1993.


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## invaliduser88 (Apr 23, 2002)

http://money.cnn.com/2003/09/19/technology/telstar.reut/


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## bryan27 (Apr 1, 2002)

The PRSS (Public Radio Satellite Service) was also on Telstar 4. You can't use a consumer receiver to get the PRSS you have to have a $3,000 ComStream Sat Receiver. Many Public Radio Stations lost programming with the outage. By the time information reached our station (on Sunday) we had missed a week's worth of program feeds. By Tuesday we had the receiver reprogrammed, and had to download MP3 versions of programs (provided we could get them)


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## music_beans (Mar 21, 2003)

Since Telstar 4 is lost now, is it just going to sit up there? (Better choice would be a shuttle mission to fix it.)


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## Mike123abc (Jul 19, 2002)

music_beans said:


> Since Telstar 4 is lost now, is it just going to sit up there? (Better choice would be a shuttle mission to fix it.)


Well the shuttle goes 200-400 miles above the earth, a long ways away from geosync orbit. It is well out of the range of the shuttle to fix.

Most likely they will put it in a orbit to keep it out of the important geosync orbit path.


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## JulienPDX (Feb 2, 2004)

whatever happened to this satellite...loral's site lists it as being UP still..did it get fixed?


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## JohnH (Apr 22, 2002)

No, it has not been fixed. Due to the nature of the outage, they likely cannot "talk" to it. So. it is up there drifting west very slowly. They recently sold it along with some others to Intelsat. I think the sale just passed FCC scrutiny.

You might see it listed as Telstar 402 R some places.


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## HappyGoLucky (Jan 11, 2004)

Mike123abc said:


> Most likely they will put it in a orbit to keep it out of the important geosync orbit path.


They can't move it. It lost all power, they can't communicate with it so they can't reposition it. It will simply ride in its current position until it eventually begins to decend and burn up on re-entry.


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