True Sat dishes on cell phone towers?

[RKASA]

Asked around and no one can elighten me on why several of the true cell phone towers in this area have two each true Sat dishes mounted on them pointed in a bit differant direactions. What sevice does this feed to the tower or town and how does it work? I see no extra cable leaving the tower so assume it is used in a 3g application of some sort. We have no sort of wifi from any operator around here only 2g and 3g sevice.

[Anthony5]

It probably is so that when the technician has to fix something at the tower, he is ensured that he can watch some tv.

[lopburi3]

Are you sure this is not microwave antennas between different towers? Are they horizontal or point to the sky (as a satellite dish would?).

[RKASA]

Are you sure this is not microwave antennas between different towers? Are they horizontal or point to the sky (as a satellite dish would?).

No They can't see one another in that way anyway - they are just basic at home style True Sat TV dishes on the towers about half way up. Should have a picture but my phone is dumb type.

[Satcommlee]

They are simply there for decoration at the moment, perhaps to identify the towers as being TRUE..

If you look at some, they don't even have the LNB (receiver bit) on the end.

Maybe in the future they may use them for some other purpose such as multicasting TV over 3G/4G, but right now they just decorations.

Edited November 29, 2014 by Satcommlee

[KhunBENQ]

deleted...

a photo would help

Very unlikely TV sat antennas as lopburi wrote.

Structures like these are NOT TV sat antennas! (see lopburi3's post)

Edited November 29, 2014 by KhunBENQ

[RKASA]

deleted...

a photo would help

Very unlikely TV sat antennas as lopburi wrote.

Structures like these are NOT TV sat antennas! (see lopburi3's post)

No they are not microwave I know the differance being former tech - I have one of these red true Sat dishes on my house too - it is now used for GMM-Z. They are in fact Sat dishes the red ones from true and placed on true towers. I just didn't know why and no one else around this town or the next town where they have the same thing knows why ether. Like I said in other post my phone is dumb type and has no cam so I don't currently have a picture of the tower.

Like satcommlee said maybe some future plan for them.

[KhunBENQ]

Unusal but who says it is impossible? (can not remember to have seen that)

Is there a cable operator in your area feeding from satellite reception?

Edited November 29, 2014 by KhunBENQ

[KhnomKhnom]

Some guidelines.......

-a pair of dish antennas that seem to be in relation to each other by being near, but pointed in different directions usually indicates a relay point where one antenna receives a weak signal from a source, it is amplified and fed to the other antenna to relay it on to the next tower/dish. This is common for voice telephone service, for example.

-A couple of consumer grade red True dishes, not pointed to the sky, could be some kind of signal sampling site for testing signal qualities from two directions. Pointed to the sky could be satellite signal sampling test points to monitor signal quality.

-Any dish structure can be used with a different pick up device for many choices of uses (even if the metal dish is meant for consumer applications) if a Thai technician can make that operate for whatever is needed.

-Various kinds of towers can have multiple functions/uses. A tower may hold several antennas. Some tower owners charge a rental fee to put an antenna up.

-All kinds of surveillance of public visual sites and of RF from anywhere must be proliferating now days. An innocent looking dish could have specific hidden surveillance purposes, for example, or a mounted dish could be simply a test to check on its MTtoF, mean time to failure, due to atmospheric and other degrading effects.

[RichCor]

RKASA is talking about Ku Band antennas attached to remote 3G Towers ... like this one pictured below.

I've seen a couple of towers here in Chiang Rai with two Ku Band antennas pointed in different directions.

The big players are supposed to be developing high-definition mobile TV as DVB-H ( as opposed to terrestrial-based DVB-T2 or satellite-based DVB-S2 ) though I haven't seen any indication of this. In Feb 2013, True sent out a press release highlighting their 4G infrastructure, "TrueMove H first to offer 4G Experience at Siam Paragon Feb 21-24, 2013 With Thailand’s First Live HD Television Broadcast via 4G". No idea of how or even why they did this (unless they just wanted to show off the data capacity of their system).

Any broadcast video being sent for delivery over Internet Protocol is currently being done via iptv or individual streams, when it really needs to be MULTICASTING to cut down on duplicate data being sent left, right and center -- so I don't think TRUE pulling in DVB-S2 Ku-Band Video Content and Pushing it anywhere.

Ericsson is working on Broadcast Video over LTE using eMBMS, HEVC and MPEG DASH but those trials are being held elsewhere.

One other 'guess' might be receiving 'out-of-band' data feeds to the tower equipment, but that hardly makes any sense either.

[RKASA]

RKASA is talking about Ku Band antennas attached to remote 3G Towers ... like this one pictured below.

I've seen a couple of towers here in Chiang Rai with two Ku Band antennas pointed in different directions.

The big players are supposed to be developing high-definition mobile TV as DVB-H ( as opposed to terrestrial-based DVB-T2 or satellite-based DVB-S2 ) though I haven't seen any indication of this. In Feb 2013, True sent out a press release highlighting their 4G infrastructure, "TrueMove H first to offer 4G Experience at Siam Paragon Feb 21-24, 2013 With Thailand’s First Live HD Television Broadcast via 4G". No idea of how or even why they did this (unless they just wanted to show off the data capacity of their system).

Any broadcast video being sent for delivery over Internet Protocol is currently being done via iptv or individual streams, when it really needs to be MULTICASTING to cut down on duplicate data being sent left, right and center -- so I don't think TRUE pulling in DVB-S2 Ku-Band Video Content and Pushing it anywhere.

Ericsson is working on Broadcast Video over LTE using eMBMS, HEVC and MPEG DASH but those trials are being held elsewhere.

One other 'guess' might be receiving 'out-of-band' data feeds to the tower equipment, but that hardly makes any sense either.

That is the picture I would have if I had a cam on my phone - same thing we have on several towers in area already - so looking at maybe some sort of wireless to provide a defacto local cable in area for true. Those dishes are going to rain fade pretty badly but no worse then what we have around here now. Thanks

[KhunBENQ]

Interesting picture that at least clearly proofs that these antennas are not used for sat TV.

"Ordinary" Ku-band antennas horizontally directed (seemingly). Really new to me.

[Pib]

Interesting picture that at least clearly proofs that these antennas are not used for sat TV.

"Ordinary" Ku-band antennas horizontally directed (seemingly). Really new to me.

Both those KU band dishes have the right look-up angle for satellite reception. And one could very well be pointed at Thaicom 5/6 which True broadcasts from as well as most other KU band TV services in Thailand....of course the other dish is looking elsewhere/in a different direction but appears to have the same lookup angle. Take a look at the dish orientation of a True dish...that is, how much it's point up...you'll see its the same as those in the picture...or at least for sure the one on the left side of the picture where a good view of it's orientation is viewable.

[Satcommlee]

In the photo above although it's no too clear there appears to be no LNB on the dish and in this photo I found below again it is showing no LNB or cable on the dish.. So these are nothing more than decoration surely?

Mystery solved???

Edited November 30, 2014 by Satcommlee

[Pib]

Or maybe the tower is still under construction, all equipment not hooked up. But just putting up a couple of red True dishes would be a good way to advertise its a True tower or just for general True advertisement. Who knows...we are all speculating. Heck, even I still have a gray True dish on my house when I used to use True satellite...but now I'm on True cable....maybe I should send True a bill for advertising their product on my house.