While you wouldn’t necessarily compare a VSAT to an iPad, there is one thing they do have in common: they both come with a range of accessories so you can get even more out of them. Here, we look at some of the accessories available.

To the casual observer, a VSAT consists of a handful of major components: a satellite modem, a block upconverter and an antenna. But if you look a bit more closely, you see that there are accessories that can be added to the basics, which will increase a VSATs basic functionality, increase its flexibility or enhance its protection from the elements.

Accessorizing a VSAT allows both end–users and satellite service providers to take standard, off-the-shelf gear and enhance its capability or flexibility, thereby offering a terminal with increased utility. Many large shared hub operators also manufacture VSAT hardware. As a value-added service, these vertically integrated businesses provide hardware options, such as VSAT mounts and de-icers. Teleports and satellite service providers also provide different options to enhance their VSAT offerings as well.

To keep costs as low as possible, major VSAT manufacturers prefer to standardize components that are included with outdoor and indoor equipment. Not only does standardization keep hardware costs low, it minimizes the amount of engineering required to help keep sales prices as low as possible. While low VSAT pricing is certainly desirable, a one-size-fits-all approach isn’t the bargain end users believe it to be. Options are often afterthoughts and dealt with in the pricing schedules of contracts. Sometimes problems arise during network rollouts and disagreements between vendor and customer regarding changes, which aren’t included in the contract can be contentious. It is always a wise business practice to understand the full range of options a service provider offers, as well as their pricing, specifications, and costs to deploy them before network deployment begins.

Once a network deployment begins, however, there are accessories that can boost the efficiency of VSATs. Some companies are carving a niche in this area, providing companies with ways to get more from their VSAT deployments. A VSAT mount is one type of accessory that could find favor with companies that deploy VSATs in challenging locations. 

Energy Industry

In particular, the energy industry utilizes a large number of non-penetrating roof mounts in remote locations. One reason is quick deployment. A non-pen mount can be trucked to a drilling site where a forklift unloads the fully assembled VSAT skid and the unit is then ballasted down. The total time to set up is less than 30 minutes.

Another benefit that non-pen mounts provide is safety. In some pipeline applications it is safer to use a non-penetrating mount rather than excavate a hole for a post mount. In regions, like Mont Belvieu, Texas, which is a major pipeline hub on the Gulf Coast, there are so many abandoned pipelines that no one is really sure what is under the ground. Rather than take the chance of hitting an active or abandoned pipeline, companies prefer to err on the side of caution and use a non-pen mount instead of digging a hole for a pole mount.

Another often overlooked benefit that non-penetrating mounts provide is the ability to deploy ground-based VSATs when the soil is frozen. Rather than waiting until it thaws in the spring, a non-pen mount can be deployed while the ground is still frozen.

“VSAT mounts are often glossed over but it is important that they are sized correctly,” says Sean Abbas, president and co-owner of Baird Mounts. “End users should be wary of a pre-packaged, one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to a mount. When high winds occur, no one wants their VSAT to blow off the roof or cause damage to the roof.”

The company manufactures a wide range of penetrating and non-penetrating roof mounts, wall mounts and mounts for wireless antennas and solar arrays.

“When selecting a non-penetrating roof mount, several different variables need to be considered. One of the most important is roof loading. Landlords generally want the roof loading be 20 pounds/ft² or less, and in many cases 10 pounds/ft² or less. This is accomplished by choosing a larger frame to distribute the total ballast,” says Abbas.

Abbas notes that non-penetrating roof mounts slide in high winds as well as tip over. “The surface below the mount, and its corresponding co-efficient of friction, has a lot to do with the final design. The roof’s surface might be concrete, tar and gravel, or a rubber membrane. Most of our mounts are rated to avoid sliding in winds up to 150 miles per hour and, depending on the style mount, will avoid turning over in winds up to 90–120 miles per hour,” Abbas continues.

While non-penetrating mounts were originally designed for roof duty, Abbas sees more companies deploying them on the ground. He says, “There are lots of good reasons to use this type of mount on the ground. Non-pen mounts are quick and easy to deploy because they don’t require a special foundation. Level the ground a bit, add the proper amount of ballast and you are ready to deploy your antenna.”

He continues, “Teleports are using non-pen mounts, all the way up to 5.0 meter antennas, because they are considered temporary structures. A non-pen mount costs much less than the permitting process and construction costs. If there is a hard surface available, such as a corner of a parking lot, you can erect an antenna very quickly.”

To help ensure that teleport operators and satellite service providers choose the correct mount and use the proper amount of ballast, the company has a design tool that looks at different variables. “Ballast changes depending on the situation. More weight isn’t always the answer. Using our design tool, we saved one client eight truck loads of concrete blocks. Besides the cost of the ballast, consider the labor savings, hauling all that weight to the roof,” Abbas adds.

Baird Mounts offers other mounting solutions beside non-penetrating mounts. Wall mounts are quite popular on buildings where air conditioning vents take up much of the real estate. I-beam mounts are used extensively in the convenience store market, allowing the VSAT to be connected directing to a steel I-beam in the roof. A selection of pedestal and king post mounts round out the product mix.

There are also other accessories available to improve the efficiency of your VSAT. C-Com is known for its iNetVu line of auto-acquisition VSAT terminals, but the company also sells an actuator kit that can be retrofitted to traditional 1.2 meter or 1.8 meter antennas. The kit is an aftermarket set of levers and electric motors that mount to the back of a standard VSAT antenna. The kit turns the standard VSAT into an auto-pointing VSAT. A controller tells the actuators how many degrees to point the antenna in one direction or another. “We can add our actuator kit to a fixed antenna and create an auto-deploy platform which is fully motorized,” says Bilal Awada, C-Com’s chief technology officer. “The kits involve actuators for the azimuth and elevation adjustments, and also for the feed. The antenna controller is the same one we sell with our iNetVu systems but the retrofit version has a slightly different software. With the push of a button, the antenna will automatically acquire the designated satellite.”

Awada says the company’s products offer an effective re-pointing solution to customers. “Most of our clients purchase auto-acquire systems at the beginning of a project, some choose to add auto-pointing functionality at a later date. Certain antennas from major manufacturers can be retrofitted very easily with our actuator kit,” he says. “A fully motorized system allows you to easily re-point all of your antennas to a different satellite should there be a catastrophic interruption of service on your primary satellite. These types of events are rare, but when they have happened in the past entire armies of installers must fan out across a continent and manually re-point thousands of VSAT antennas. This can take many weeks to make the transition. Companies and organizations which can’t afford to be down that long now have a cost effective way to re-point all of their antennas to a backup satellite very quickly.” 

Antenna Specific

C-Com’s auto-pointing system is antenna specific with actuators and an antenna control unit that is co-located with the satellite modem. DC power and commands from the control unit are sent to the actuators via a single sheath cable, which can be up to 150 feet in. This eliminates the need to have an AC power outlet installed at the antenna.

Challenging operating conditions are often par for the course for VSAT players. There are also other accessories that can help, particularly in cold weather conditions. W. B. Walton Enterprise, a company that manufactures hot air deicing systems, has several products that keep the elements off a VSAT reflector, thereby improving the terminal’s performance. Its Snow Shield product is a rather simple idea: cover the entire aperture with a shroud to keep snow and ice from forming on the reflector. What isn’t obvious from the product’s name is that it keeps just about anything from forming on the antenna, including water, pollen, sand and grit. The U.S. DoD has successfully deployed the Snow Shield in desert situations. “A sand build-up changes the focal length of the reflector,” says David Walton, vice president of sales and marketing for W.B Walton Enterprise. “The layer of sand acts just like a layer of water and attenuates the signal strength. Sand and dirt is turning out to be a problem in Ka-band terminals.”

The Snow Shield is constructed of a polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) coated fabric, which is manufactured by Gore-Tex. Due to its hydrophobic abilities, snow and ice simply slide off the fabric cover in most conditions. The hydrophobic abilities are just one of the material’s virtues. Ruggedness and heat tolerance are high on the list as well. If the cover gets cut, the rip will not continue to spread, and although the products name traces to its cold weather applications, the fabric has withstood the desert heat. The fabric cover is virtually invisible to all satellite frequencies and has a useful lifetime of 15 years to 20 years.

“It turns out Ka-band satellite terminals have a solar affect issue. This mainly occurs at sunrise and sunset. The rays of the sun warm the metal and deform the aperture of the dish. The Snow Shield covers the reflector and allows a more even heating and cooling curve,” Walton says.

For larger antennas, the company recommends the same product equipped with electric or gas forced air heaters to circulate heated air between the Snow Shield cover and the front of the antenna reflector. “The Snow Shield traps the warm air and warms the Snow Shield cover much more quickly then warming up the back of the reflector. This can lower the power consumption for a deicer and have the ability for a full reflector deicing system,” Walton adds.

Several years back, Walton added a new product called the Ice Quake. It has an electric motor that causes the cover to vibrate at an extremely high frequency. “With the hydrophobic coating on the fabric, it doesn’t take much energy to keep frozen precipitation off of the Snow Shield cover. The Ice Quake system can deice a 4.5 meter antenna reflector with only 200 watts of power as opposed to an electric pad, heater cables or embedded heater cables that would require from 10,000 to 12,000 watts of power. The Ice Quake system can deice antenna reflectors from 0.6 to 6.3 meters in size. The Ice Quake system also keeps water from sheeting on the antenna reflector’s surface, which could cause attenuation of the signal on Ku- and Ka-band antennas.

Walton noted the benefits of the Snow Shield and Ice Quake products compared with other forms of deicing. “The cover is light weight and can be folded and stored in a very small box. These products are faster to deploy and easier to install than traditional deicers. The electrical service to the antenna would only be a single-phase circuit instead of a three-phase circuit for larger antennas. They are also less expensive to ship,” he says.