Antenna and satcom installation and removal in Busan

Satellite antenna work on a vessel alongside is decided before anyone goes aloft. We start with a line-of-sight and blockage survey: walking the monkey island, mast platforms and funnel deck, plotting obstructions by azimuth and elevation, and checking what crane booms, kingposts and the radar scanner do to the beam in service. That survey fixes where the dome lands, how long the cable run is, and whether the job fits the port call. We do this across Busan, in Gamcheon fishing port, the Yeongdo repair yards and Busan New Port.

Mounting is a structural job as much as an electrical one. A VSAT pedestal needs a flat, stiff foundation, so we check the landing for flatness, shim where required, and stay off the top of a mast where whip and vibration keep the stabilisation loop working harder than it should. Bolted pedestals and adapter plates are usually faster alongside than welding and avoid a hot-work permit; where a welded foundation is unavoidable we arrange the permit with the vessel and the yard. Dissimilar metals are isolated and the dome bedding is sealed properly rather than smeared.

Cabling is where installations quietly fail. The ADE-to-BDE run carries L-band IF, DC and control on one coax, and the loss budget at the top of the band limits how long that run can be, so we measure the real route rather than the drawing and pick cable to suit. Deck and bulkhead penetrations go through proper transits or glands with drip loops below them, coatings are made good, and the run is kept clear of HF antenna tuners, radar cable and high-current circuits. Grounding is bonded to ship structure with short, low-impedance straps, with coax surge arrestors at the entry point.

Commissioning is done with the airtime provider on the line. The antenna control unit needs a clean heading input, gyro NMEA HDT or a satellite compass, and a correct bow offset, or the dome will find the satellite and lose it on the first turn. We set skew for linear polarisation, check cross-pol isolation and compression with the teleport before TX is enabled, log RX level and Eb/N0, and load the satellite and beam maps. Blockage sectors and RF radiation-hazard zones are programmed as TX-mute so the transmitter stays down when the beam points into a mast, a crane or a working deck.

Antenna removal is a real job, not an afterthought. Before drydock, a vessel sale or a change of provider we dismount the dome and pedestal, cap and label cable ends so a refit is straightforward, blank and seal the penetrations, and crate the unit for shipment. We will also tell you what has to happen on the provider side: a terminal that is physically removed but still registered keeps generating airtime charges. If the antenna comes back after docking, the alignment record from the original fit shortens the reinstallation.

Satcom rarely arrives alone. On most of these jobs we are also in the router, the firewall and the VLAN split between crew Wi-Fi and ship business traffic, or setting failover between VSAT and an Inmarsat FBB or Iridium backup so the bridge keeps email when the dome is blocked. Say so at enquiry stage: planning network and antenna in one visit is cheaper than a second call.