From: xberri@europa.aero.org (Jason E. Berri)
Newsgroups: rec.radio.shortwave
Subject: SCDX 2148
Date: 1 Feb 92 20:26:00 GMT
Reply-To: xberri@arecibo.aero.org
Organization: The Aerospace Corporation
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41
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:: MediaScan ::
:: SWEDEN CALLING DXERS ::
:: from Radio Sweden ::
:: Number 2148--Jan. 21, 1992 ::
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Satellite, shortwave and other electronic media news from Radio Sweden.
This week's bulletin was written by George Wood.
Packet Radio BID SCDX2148.
All times UTC unless otherwise noted.
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SATELLITE RADIO:
EUROPE--Following the departure of Nordic Channel (now TV5 Nordic) from
Eutelsat 2-F1, Radio Voice has also moved to the Tele-X satellite (at 5
degrees East). It can be found now on the TV4 transponder on 12.207
GHz, using the audio subcarrier at 7.74 MHz. (Jan Johansson, Sweden)
"Radio Peace" - a Middle Eastern-based radio station which will
have hourly-broadcasts in Russian, German, English, French and Italian is
likely to broadcast on audio subcarriers on the MTV Europe
transponder on Astra 1A on 11.421 GHz. (Mark Anderson, Fidonet satellite
echo, via "SatNews")
NORTH AMERICA--Interlink Broadcast System transmits 24 hours a day on
the Spacenet 3 satellite (87 degrres West) channel 3, using the audio
subcarrier at 5.8 MHz. It features current event, talk, topical guests,
financial, real estate, automotive, and music request shows.
("Satellite TV Week")
EUROPEAN SATELLITE TELEVISION:
N3--According to Wolfgang Schulz on Internet, the German satellite
channel Norddeutscherfundfunk-3 (N3) has replaced its text message
advising viewers that "..due to copyright reasons, this program cannot be
showed by satellite.." to a composite display of teletext pages, showing
channel schedules and information. ("SatNews")
HOME VIDEO CHANNEL--The Home Video Channel was reportedly planning to
commence overnight broadcasts on Astra 1B from January 17. ("SatNews")
MPTV--Live television transmissions from the British House of Commons
were due to start January 13th on a new television channel
relayed over Intelsat satellite at 27.5 degrees west. The new service
will be primarily aimed at cable television operators in the U.K.,
although the signal will not be encrypted.
The service, known as The Parliamentary Channel, hopes to
broadcast on the Marco Polo satellite (home of the former British
Satellite Broadcasting service) when BSB's licence expires at the end
of this year. Coverage from the House of Lords and the European
parliament is also planned. ("SatNews")
ORIONSAT--British Aerospace Space Systems Ltd. has begun building two Ku-
band Orionsat satellites for the Washington-based Orion Satellite
Corporation. The first satellite will be launched in the Summer of
1994, and the satellites will be located at 47 and 37.5 degrees West. Once
launched, the satellites will be used for US-European
communications and will carry business traffic, video, telephonic
and data transmissions.
Each satellite contains 34 Ku-band transponders, and both have an estimated
lifespan of 12 years. (SatNews)
TV ASIA--A new television channel aimed at Asians living in the U.K. is to be
launched this month. The channel, called TV ASIA, will be initially delivered
over cable television networks. An encrypted transponder aboard an Astra
satellite is also planned. The channel will broadcast in various languages
spoken in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Sources say that the
channel is likely to use the off-air broadcast capacity of either Sky One or
Sky Sports, and will use the Videocrypt encryption standard. ("SatNews")
ASIAN SATELLITE TELEVISION:
INDIA--The world's first international television channel in Hindi was
schedule to start on January 1st. The Asian Television Network, ATN,
uses the former Soviet Union's Stationer 13/10 satellite, and should be
visible from Siberia in the north to Indonesia in the south, and from
Nigeria in the west to Japan in the east. Programming is to be between 04:00
and 18:00 hrs Monday to Saturday and 16:00-07:00 hrs on
Sundays/Mondays. (BBC Monitoring)
PAKISTAN--Pakistan Television has begun test broadcasts on Asiasat-1,
which also carries the five Star-TV channels. ("The Nation" via BBC
Monitoring)
NORTH AMERICAN SATELLITE TELEVISION:
SCOLA--We've reported before on the Scola Satellite Network, which
rebroadcasts TV newscasts from around the world to North America on the
Spacenet 2 satellite at 69 degrees West, channel 23. However, the
weekday relays of Sweden's TV4 are not at 05:00 hrs UTC as reported.
According to Scola, these programs are carried at 20:00 hrs UTC. But
monitoring by our DX Editor reveals that they actually begin sometime
between 20:30 and 20:40 hrs, and are abruptly cut-off at 21:00 hrs. (DX
Editor)
SCIENCE FICTION CHANNEL--American satellite and cable television
viewers have been waiting for the long-promised start of the "Science
Fiction Channel". Jim Schneider called them and was told that they
hadn't as yet bought space on any satellite. They were leaning toward a
Galaxy satellite that hasn't been launched yet (possibly G5). Their
target date for starting service is now around mid-year 1992. (Jim
Schneider, via CompuServe)
SKYPIX--The Seattle-based direct broadcast satellite venture SkyPix
announced its plans at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las
Vegas. SkyPix plans to buying and launch their own DBS satellite or
become a major partner in one. For the time being they're on the SBS-6 Ku-
band satellite at 99 degrees West, transponder 2 with a few
channels. If you look at that transponder with conventional TVRO gear
you'll get a grey sparkled picture. That's the digital code for what
may be about a dozen compressed channels. (Bob Lyle on CompuServe)
According to the consumer electronics trade journal "TWICE",
SkyPix will debut in April, with the cost of the receiver and special
antenna at a price of USD 850, about USD 150 more than originally
expected. They have apparently added some features to their receiver,
including output ports and a "software cartridge slot," which they
claim will make the system upgradable to evolving standards of digital
compression, etc. They also say that 2,000 outlets will have the units in
stock on the rollout date, and that 80 channels will be available on March 1.
SkyPix president Rick Selvage says they will begin
broadcasting 24 channels this month.
The service will cost USD 13 a month, plus pay-per-view. And the fourteen or
so basic channels will include SkyPix's own offerings and
not much real cable fare. (Fred Zimmerman on CompuServe and "Satellite TV
Week")
SOUTH AMERICAN SATELLITE TELEVISION:
BRASILSAT--French International television, a mixture of French
channels, and Germany's ZDF are now being relayed by Brasilsat-2 for 10 hours
a day. The 160,000 Brasilsat receivers can find these signals on channel 11.
(AFP via BBC Monitoring)
SHORTWAVE:
AFGHANISTAN--Since January 1st shortwave transmitters in the former
Soviet Union are no longer heard to relay the Radio Afghanistan
domestic and external services. Beginning in 1979, the USSR had made
about 6 transmitters available to the authorities in Kabul.
So far, the Radio Afghanistan domestic service has only been heard on a
single SW channel, 7200 kHz, as well as medium wave 1107 kHz,
01:30-18:30 hrs. The second program of Radio Afghanistan continues to
be heard on 6100 kHz. The external service has been heard only only
9635 kHz, with English at 13:00 hrs, Russian at 16:00, Arabic at 16:30,
Pashto and Dari at 17:00, German at 18:00, English at 18:30, and French at
19:00 hrs. (BBC Monitoring)
BOUGAINVILLE--The island of Bougainville declared independence from
Papua New Guinea on May 17,1990. In December, 1991 an appeal was issued for
aid, and an organization called the International Amateur Radio
Network Australia has responded by helping to set up the first
broadcasting station and amateur radio station in Bougainville. The
amateur radio station has the call C15A.
Here is the planned schedule for the new Radio Free Bougainville:
National Service on 3890 kHz 09:00-12:00 hrs in local languages.
International Service on 21500 kHz or lower using upper sideband: 22:00
and 01:00 hrs to America; 04:00 and 07:00 hrs to Asia, Pacific,
and Africa; 13:00 and 16:00 hrs to Europe.
The address for reports is: Sam Voron, 2 Griffith Ave., East
Roseville, Australia 2069. (Al Quaglieri, via Dan Ferguson on
CompuServe)
GEORGIA--As the crisis continues in the former Soviet republic of
Georgia, it may be interesting to monitor the transmitter on 7125 kHz
located in the Moscow area, which usually carries a relay of Georgian
Radio's domestic service from Tbilisi. On December 23rd at 15:35 hrs
BBC Monitoring heard firing and explosions with occasional shouting in the
backround. This lasted until the transmission disappeared at around 16:00
hrs. (BBC Monitoring)
JAPAN--Between January 5th and 30th, Radio Japan is relaying some
programs from the NHK domestic first radio network, as an experiment.
Broadcasts are between 21:00 and 00:00 hrs on 17810 kHz to the Pacific and
Southeast Asia and on 11815 kHz for continental Asia. (Radio Japan via BBC
Monitoring)
LITHUANIA--Radiocentras is broadcasting in English and Esperanto on the last
Saturday every month at 07:00-08:00 hrs on 9710 kHz. The German
programs planned to begin in November have not been on the air yet.
Radiocentras is now broadcasting over Lithuanian Radio's second program for
16 hours a day on FM 71.81 MHz, as well as over a network of 6 FM
transmitters around the country for 7 hours a day. (Radio Vilnius via
BBC Monitoring)
POLAND--Radio Polonia has changed its name back to "Polish Radio
Warsaw" and has reduced airtime. Languages are now Polish, English,
German, Swedish, Finnish, Belorussian, Lithuanian, Russian, Ukrainian,
French, Italian, and Esperanto.
One hour English broadcasts are: 06:30 hrs on 6135, 7270, and 9525 kHz;
16:00 hrs on 9525 and 11840 kHz; 20:00 hrs on 7145 and 7270 kHz;
and 22:00 hrs on 1503, 5995, 6135, and 7270 kHz. (Radio Polonia via BBC
Monitoring)
RUSSIA-We reported last time that after Russia's Radio's take-over of
the Radio Moscow World Service, the future of the foreign language
broadcasts was in doubt. On January 5th, the English service announced that
despite budget cut-backs, it hopes to continue at the present
level. (BBC Monitoring)
TURKEY--The Voice of Turkey is now broadcasting in English: 13:30-
14:00 hrs to Asia on 9675 kHz, 21:00-22:00 hrs to Europe on 9445 kHz,
and 23:00-00:00 hrs to Europe and the Middle East on 7185 and 9685 kHz.
Russian is broadcast at 15:00-15:30 hrs on 11735 kHz.
German is at 17:30-18:30 hrs on 9795 kHz and 20:30-21:00 hrs on
9445 kHz.
French is at 22:00-23:00 hrs on 9445 kHz. (BBC Monitoring)
IDENTIFIED--In edition 2145 a station on 6305 kHz was reported
"identified" as "La Voz del CID" or "Weekend Music Radio". Both are
incorrect. There has been a short-lived station, probably based in
Ireland, called Radio Harmony. It operated last October regularly all
night on 6305 kHz. The mailing address was: P.O.Box 1651, Frinton on
Sea, Essex, UK. Earlier reports on this station gave the mailing
address as: Box 7, Venus, TX 76084, USA.
The unidentified station on 4860 kHz, mentioned in SCDX-Bulletin
2147, is the Hungarian Service of Radio Moscow. They obviously have
their own interval signal. (Kurt Ringel, Germany)
WEST COAST SWL NET--A new amateur radio gathering for shortwave
listeners in Western North America has started, the West Coast SWL Net. The
net meets every Saturday at 18:00 hrs on 7268 kHz. The net control operator
is N6IFO, Jim in San Francisco. Coverage is good throughout
California and in Oregon, Utah and Nevada. The East Coast SWL Ham Net
continues to meet Sunday mornings at 15:00 hrs on 7240 kHz LSB with
KW3F and N8JQX as net controls. (Alan Mayer, via CompuServe)
FORMER USSR:
RUSSIA--A new private radio station has gone on the air in Moscow,
using the Western 88-108 MHz FM band. The station, Radio Maximum,
broacasts on 103.7 MHz. According to the station there are some 2
million receivers in Moscow that can receive the Western FM band.
(Russia's Radio via BBC Monitoring)
Meanwhile, a Soviet-American joint venture has launched a
subscription TV service called Kosmos-TV. Besides the five existing
Soviet TV channels, the new service offers 8 European and American
channels. These include channels for news, music, sports, and children for
100-150 rubels a month. A night-time channel and new feature films will be
available only to viewers with hard currency. (TASS via BBC
Monitoring)
COMPUTER CORNER:
BBS--The Solar Terrestrial Dispatch computer bulletin board carries
information about solar conditions that affect radio
propagation. The telephone number, in the United States, is 403-756-
3008, and the parameters are 8-N-1. The system runs at 300, 1200, and
2400 baud. ("WRTH Downlink")
There's a new computer bulletin board system in Ireland for
satellite television hobbyists, the Special Projecys BBS. Following the
country number for Ireland (353), the number is: 51-50143. ("Satellite
Trader" magazine)
FUTURE TECHNOLOGY:
HDTV--Last time we reported on the set-back for supporters of the HD-
MAC high definition television system in Europe. Opposition from
broadcasters and consumers forced the European Commission to back down on a
plan to impose HD-MAC and the transition standard D2-MAC. HD-MAC
has been criticised as being already obsolete since it is partly
analog, and a future HDTV system should be all digital, like the system being
developed in the United States. (Ironially, Philips and Thomsom, two of the
companies trying to force HD-MAC on Europe, have teamed up
to develop one of the contenders for the North American digital
standard!)
Digital television transmissions in Europe have now taken another step closer
to becoming reality, according to supporters of the VADIS
pan-European digital television project. Thirty-four organisations
throughout Europe are co-operating towards the development of an
audio-visual coding technology which is required to make truly-digital
television a reality. British Telecom, National Transcommunications,
the BBC, Philips and Swedish Telecom are among the participants.
A number of field trials are scheduled for 1993. ("SatNews" and
"Newsweek")
APPLE--At the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Apple
Computers announced it is developing something called "Personal Digital
Assistants". According to Apple Chairman John Sculley, these hand-held
electronic devices could store vast amounts of information for specific uses,
or could send or receive messages from other users. The PDAs
would eventually would link in with digital communications networks
expected to emerge in the next few years, as well as with upcoming
digital television, which would allow TV sets to accept computer data.
Sculley says the first of these portable machines will appear in
1993.
General Magic, company in which both Apple and Sony have invested, is
reportedly working on a portable pen-based computer that transmits
digital data through radio signals.
A week later, at the MacWorld show in San Francisco, a software
program for the Apple Macintosh called Notify was presented. This
allows messages and other data to be sent directly from Macintosh
systems to wireless paging devices. The USD 149 software paves the way for
programs that will tell the computer to automatically send stock
quotes, medical bulletins, or other information directly to the device. (AP
and "San Francisco Chronicle")
DCC--Also at the Consumer Electronics Show, Philips finally announced
the release date for its long-awaited digital compact cassette system. DCC,
as it is known, is digital, with quality approaching that of CDs. But the
machines would also play today's analog audio cassettes.
Philips says it will start selling a USD 700 DCC player in
selected markets in June, and thorughout the United States in
September.
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Sweden Calling DXers is the world's oldest radio program for shortwave
listeners. Radio Sweden has presented this round-up of radio news, features,
and interviews on Tuesdays since 1948.
Radio Sweden broadcasts to Europe in English at 19:30-20:30 hrs on medium
wave 1179 kHz, as well as shortwave 6065, 9655, and 15270 kHz.
The rest of the Radio Sweden English schedule is (half hour programs):
To Europe:
21:30 hrs 1179 and 6065 kHz
23:30 hrs 1179 kHz
To Asia/Pacific:
13:30 hrs 17740 and 21570 kHz
01:00 hrs 9765 kHz
To North America:
15:30 hrs 17870 and 21500 kHz
01:00 hrs 9695 and 11705 kHz
02:00 hrs 9695 and 11705 kHz
To Latin America:
23:30 hrs 9695 and 11705 kHz
15:30 hrs on 17875 and 21500 kHz
02:00 hrs on 9695 and 11705 kHz
03:30 hrs on 9695 and 11705 kHz
Contributions can be sent to DX Editor George Wood by fax to +468-667-6283,
from Internet, MCI Mail or CompuServe (to the CompuServe mailbox 70247,3516),
through the FidoNet system to 2:201/697 or to SM0IIN at the packet radio BBS
SM0ETV.
Reports can also be sent to:
Radio Sweden
S-105 10 Stockholm
Sweden
Contributions should be NEWS about electronic media--from shortwave to
satellites--and not loggings of information already available from sources
such as the "World Radio TV Handbook". Clubs and DX publications may reprint
material as long as Sweden Calling DXers and the original contributor are
acknowledged, with the exception of items from BBC Monitoring, which are
copyright.
We welcome comments and suggestions about the electronic edition, Sweden
Calling DXers, and our programs in general.
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Thanks to this week's contributors Good Listening!
--
Jason Berri [berri@aero.org or berri@arecibo.aero.org]
[SPEEDX USSR Editor - send email for more info on the SPEEDX SWL club]
[Back issues of the SCDX are also available]