ViaSat SurfBeam 2 and TRIA teardown 

you can replace those heatsinks with cheap glue-on aluminum ones after peeling the old ones off to see what those two chips are. the Marvell chip next to the ethernet magnetics transformer is likely an ethernet PHY. I'm curious what SoC(s) it's running; given the era, the smaller chip under a heatsink is giving me Marvell Kirkwood vibes.

RF "nobody can tell you with a straight face how this works". Thank you for risking your baby, this was fascinating.

Hi Derek, thanks for all the super interesting videos, you have inspired me to start experimenting with satellite reception, it would be interesting if you could do a series on some of the different satellites that have interesting downlinks available to receive, what they transmit and how to receive them, maybe starting with geostationary satellites

LOL since I've no idea how LNBs work every time I heard those clicks I thought that the LNB applied a strong magnetic field to change the magnetization of some piece of steel to also change the polarization, because it sounds very similar to the clicks that output transformers of fence chargers make when a high voltage capacitor (bank) is discharged into the primary using a thyristor. The original Surfbeam "1" (SM2000/SM2100) modems and their TRIAs had the two coax connectors but it seems the newer Surfbeam 2 (RM4100) works with the same early TRIAs just by putting a terminator on the RX F connector of the TRIA. I was looking at pictures and it seems that units that were upgraded by their "certified" techs have a terminator covered with a heatshrink cap but others have the RX F connector replaced by a male threaded terminator that resembles and allen screw and that looks more like factory work, maybe those are refurbished units. And of course there are some with the cheapest unbranded terminator that may be for indoors and not even have a sealing oring, those are probably amateur "upgrades" Then the later RT4000N TRIAs already came without the hole on the casting for the RX connector. Anyway if that's the case the TX connector was always a combined TX/RX/POWER and the RX was... to make a simple and/or cheaper modem?

Unfortunately, these devices are blocked from accessing the internet. You will get Uplink and Downlink (data traffic) if you contract a plan with the VSAT operator, just having the Ka band signal does not guarantee access. When you contract an internet plan with the operator, they grant access through your modem's MAC and configuration software that the operator's technician loads onto this modem.

I had to take apart some 5G prototype hardware (LTE picocell) for a job back around 2010, and it had anti-tamper features: A battery-backed up RAM with the encryption keys and subscriber information, and a thin wire, embedded into both halves of the plastic case, connected the two. It was like a spider's web. I was warned of this situation so was able to find and bypass wire before opening. :D

Cool kool from England UK thanks

Super Video

That "waveguide" with the ribs is actually a polarizer / depolarizer. It converts from circular polarization at the feedhorn to linear polarization going into the LNB/BUC. There's not really much to see to take it apart - they're deceptively simple (physically - I'm sure a lot of work went into the design / simulation of it to make sure it actually works at 30GHz), and the have alignment pins so the go back together easily. And yes, the older systems used 2 separate coax - one for Tx and one for Rx, so that's why there's another footprint for an F connector on the modem.

Will somebody PLEASE get this man a spudger!? Thanks for the great content, but seriously man, get a nice spudger set. It’s tough to see you almost cut yourself 😅

I would guess that the SOIC-8 packge next to the PA is just a run-of-the-mill P-FET that switches the power to the PA. Pins 1-3 and 4-8 are shorted together, and hat big heap of caps right next to it also points in that direction.

I think you might have an option to add another channel there for greater bandwidth. Super interesting though. Thanks for the great video!

You can get serial terminal via this pin headers and then use uboot to extract firmware of this modems. Super interesting platform to learn hardware hacking and e.g. repurposing this platform as SDR as you have access to ADC and DAC on rf front end. There is also access to JTAG but you need to bridge couple of resistors. Overall powerful hardware platform considering design date. There is no much difference between modems for civilians and modems for army :)

You wouldn't need that many pins for programming, but it could be extra I/O used as debug/trace outputs. It seems more likely to me that J9 (on the other side of the FPGA) is the programming port, it is about the right number of pins for JTAG. Same with J22 for the SoC.

you need to take a look into your lighting solutions for video recording. that circular led light looks bad on video on anything reflective.

RF voodoo magic in the LNB

34:32 rat race coupler used as balun.

it has an ALTERA FPGA

Your content is awesome, like, I wish more people made more videos like this... and btw at 9:10 - maybe J-TAG, ----> aka. fun stuff lol (18:50 too)