Tech Forum

Somewhere I read or was told that we were supposed to leave our satellite receivers on all the time, but I just heard in the LDS Tech conference session on the satellite system that we should turn them off when not in use. Any other thoughts on this?

You might call satellite support and see what they have to say.

First question I'd have is where is the power switch? There's none on the receiver. And the rack I have doesn't have one.

From a technical standpoint, I'd be concerned about the environment. Clearly the A/C isn't going to be on 24/7, so the question is if the environment would exceed "10 º C to 40 º C" and humidity of "80% up to to 31 º C, decreasing linearly to 50% at 40 º C". The humidity is a killer for me. It's not all that usual to have 80F and a humidity to match.

russellhltn wrote:First question I'd have is where is the power switch? There's none on the receiver. And the rack I have doesn't have one.

We used to pull the plug from the socket. But now that the rack has gotten too full to reach through to the back, we just pop the circuit breaker for a moment and then reset it when we are asked to "reboot" the satellite receiver.

We have always left the receiver on, because we are never informed when headquarters is going to send commands to the satellite to set it for special broadcasts.

lajackson wrote:

russellhltn wrote:First question I'd have is where is the power switch? There's none on the receiver. And the rack I have doesn't have one.

We used to pull the plug from the socket. But now that the rack has gotten too full to reach through to the back, we just pop the circuit breaker for a moment and then reset it when we are asked to "reboot" the satellite receiver.

We have always left the receiver on, because we are never informed when headquarters is going to send commands to the satellite to set it for special broadcasts.

I emailed the GSC and they confirmed that the policy now is to shut the receivers off when not in use. Aside from pulling the plug there is no off switch. I'm also concerned about having it come up properly after being off for what could be months between broadcasts.

techgy wrote:I emailed the GSC and they confirmed that the policy now is to shut the receivers off when not in use.

Okay, then. I suppose now that if we were to "accidentally" hear about this new policy we would start complying.

An email to the STS, a note to the stake president, a call from the FM Group, an announcement in the next broadcast pre-roll? I wonder how we will find out about this new policy.

I have lost my mind reading skills as my age has advanced over the years. [smile]

Good point about special broadcasts. I guess you'd want to turn it on a month or so before. And certainly a week or more before an expected broadcast to make sure everything's OK. Still a little goofy not having a power switch or shutdown command.

I discussed this with the FM people and they had heard nothing about it.

They contacted people higher up in the chain and their people have heard nothing about this.

They called GSC and nobody in tier 1 or tier 2 had heard anything about this.

Unless it can be properly documented with valid source this should NOT be considered to be an official policy.

aclawson wrote:I discussed this with the FM people and they had heard nothing about it.

They contacted people higher up in the chain and their people have heard nothing about this.

They called GSC and nobody in tier 1 or tier 2 had heard anything about this.

Unless it can be properly documented through a valid source this should NOT be considered to be an official policy.

I agree that it's strange not getting this through some official channel. At this point I plan on ignoring this until it's made official.

And if it is made an official policy then the policy should be given an immediate review and be overturned because it would be a bad policy.

Positives of turning the device off between uses:

1. Save a few pennies per month on electricity
2. Theoretically extend the life of the device (but see negatives)

Negatives:

1. Since there isn't a power switch on the device people are going to either have to reach through the cables to pull the plug or a switch will have to be added.

2. More people are going to have to tinker with the equipment which is probably going to result in additional problems.

3. Finding people who are willing to remember to turn on the monitor next to the receiver once a month to verify that there is a good video/audio signal is hard enough. Finding people willing to power up the receiver, wait for the boot sequence, wait for signal acquisition and do the test is going to be significantly more difficult. Sure, the STS can do it, but in my case that would mean an extra 8-10 hours of driving each month. I gladly do the rounds to make sure that everything is working properly but when somebody who doesn't understand the situation makes a decision that brings about significant effort on my part and not only results in no benefit but major disadvantages my enthusiasm wanes to some extent.

4. Thermal stress of power down/power up is more taxing than leaving a device powered up 24/7 when that device is designed to be on 24/7

5. When a powered on unit fails the failure is more likely to be detected quickly - with time to repair/replace - than a device which is powered on only 15 minutes before a broadcast.

aclawson wrote:4. Thermal stress of power down/power up is more taxing than leaving a device powered up 24/7 when that device is designed to be on 24/7

On that I'll disagree. These units were meant to run in a controlled environment. We run them in a uncontrolled environment.

I'd imagine that some units have environments that go outside of the specifications when the HVAC system is off. Operating a system outside of it's operating specifications is more stressful then thermal cycling.

There is another issue. There may be a change to the setup or a upgrade that's sent over the air. If it's powered down, it will miss that. When powered up, it will have to wait until the next time it's broadcast. So 15 minutes before broadcast may not work very well.