Newsgroups: rec.radio.shortwave
From: 70247.3516@CompuServe.COM (George Wood)
Subject: SCDX 2167
Organization: Finnish University & Research Network
Date: Tue, 1 Dec 1992 14:00:34 +0200
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:: MediaScan ::
:: SWEDEN CALLING DXERS ::
:: from Radio Sweden ::
:: Number 2167--Dec. 1, 1992 ::
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Satellite, shortwave and other electronic media news from Radio Sweden.
This week's bulletin was written by George Wood.
Packet Radio BID SCDX2167
All times UTC unless otherwise noted.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING:
VOA--To celebrate its 50th anniversary, the Voice of America recently hosted
a conference on the future of international broadcasting. Among the 132
broadcasters taking part was Jonathan Marks, head of the English Service at
Radio Netherlands, and host of the popular "Media Network" program, who gave
a talk and slide show.
Called "Finally the Main Points Again" it was a look back at international
broadcasting over the past 10 years, and pointed out that things have
changed, perhaps faster than many have realized.
"The technology is moving so fast," Jonathan Marks told Radio Sweden, "that
in some of the target areas, especially in the developed parts of the world,
satellites are very much here to stay. Unless international broadcasters
actually change their philosophy and stop being shortwave broadcasters as
such and think more as international program suppliers, they may not be
around in 5 years."
But shortwave isn't completely dead. "What came out of the conference",
Jonathan Marks says, "is that we have to be multi-media operations. We have
to look at satellites and look at shortwave. For the moment, because there
aren't any direct broadcast satellites up and running, shortwave is the most
important medium for reaching especially the developing countries, and will
remain so for 10 to 15 years."
"So most radio stations are now looking at their target areas by target. In
other words saying, what are we doing as Radio Netherlands or as Radio Sweden
in North America, what are we doing in the Pacific, what are we doing in
Asia, and then sitting down and being, I think, quite brutal in some ways,
and saying what's the best way of reaching as many listeners as possible?"
NORDIC MEDIA NEWS:
ASTRA--Kinnevik, the company owning Scandinavia's TV3, TV1000, and three
cable channels in Sweden, has sold its 3.4 percent share of SES, the company
behind the Astra satellites. However TV3 and TV1000 will continue to
broadcast via Astra. (TT)
RADIO SWEDEN--Radio Sweden's Latvian broadcasts on the Tele-X satellite are
to be relayed by Latvian Radio. Hopefully the relays will start as early as
next week.
Don't miss Radio Sweden's holiday programming. We'll have Christmas specials
on December 24th and 25th, and a round-up of the Sports Year 1992 on the
28th. The Media 1992 Review will be on December 29th. And our review of the
Swedish and Nordic Year 1992 will be broadcast on January 1st and repeated on
January 6th. We hope you can spend some of the holiday season with Radio
Sweden.
TV NORGE--The Norwegian government closed the private satellite broadcaster
TV Norge for several days last week, as punishment for failing to follow the
laws covering advertising. TV Norge is said to have violated the law by
broadcasting commercials in the middle of programs, and for filling too much
of the schedule with commercials. (TT-NTB)
THOR--Norway's newly bought Marco Polo 2 satellite, renamed Thor, has begun
test transmissions from its new location at 1 degree West. Ther are test
pictures on 11.785 and 11.862 GHz, and more signals are expected from 11.939,
12.015, and 12.091 GHz. However, the Norwegians continue to insist on
broadcasting in the relatively obscure D-MAC standard, which makes it hard to
understand how they are going to attract viewers in Scandinavia. (Bertil
Sundberg in "Paa TV)
EUROPEAN NEWS CHANNELS:
CNN--The Cable News Network, CNN, is expanding in 1993, and Peter Vesey, the
Vice President in charge of CNN International, has been travelling about
presenting their plans. These include more programs from London, two hours a
day of rebroadcasting in Moscow, dubbed into Russian, four hours daily in
Poland, dubbed into Polish, a separate Spanish soundtrack for one daily half
hour, and some subtitled programs in French and Japanese, for those markets.
Speaking with Radio Sweden, Vesey said that CNN is definately looking more to
direct to home broadcasting: "I think on a global basis, direct satellite to
home delivery is where were are going to see our greatest growth."
CNN International is currently broadcasting directly to homes from Astra to
Europe and from Superbird to Japan, and Vesey says "we anticipate that there
will be more DBS satellite coming up in the future, and one of the things
that we are looking at is whether we want to be a part of those, although
most of those plans are longer range."
Despite losing two recent court cases in France which allowed hotels to carry
CNN for free, Vesey told us CNN has no plans to encrypt its signals to
Europe.
N-TV--CNN is getting some competition. On November 30th the first all-news
channel in German, called n-tv, started from Berlin. They use the former ARD
frequency on the Kopernikus 1 satellite, 12.525 GHz. Programming does include
some English, half hour segements from BBC World Service Television. Plans
for three other all-news channels in German have been announced for the
coming months, including one involving CNN. (AP, Bertil Sundberg in "Paa TV"
magazine and BBC Monitoring)
EURONEWS--The new Euronews channel, scheduled to begin on January 1st, will
be using Eutelsat 2-F1, 11.575 GHz. There will be separate sound channels in
German, English, French, Spanish, and Italian, with Arabic coming later.
Tests are due to begin today, December 1st. (Bertil Sundberg in "Paa TV")
EUROPEAN SATELLITE NEWS:
EUROPE CHINA SATELLITE TV--Super Channel on Eutelsat 2-F1 is carrying three
hours of Far Eastern programming every night, at 2:00-5:00 AM European time.
Called Europe-China Satellite TV, as well as China News Europe, this brings
together reports from Hong Kong, China, and Taiwan, in English, Cantonese,
and Mandarin. (Super Channel)
FRANCE--The French government having surrendered its demand for D2-MAC
programming, ten channels appeared on the Telecom 2A satellite (8 degrees
West) on November 3rd. Seven are in SECAM, one in PAL, and three in
widescreen D2-MAC. After a few days, the SECAM channels began coding in
Nagravision. (Bertil Sundberg in "Paa TV" and BBC Monitoring)
PORTUGAL--RTP International has announced it will be broadcasting to the
Americas from sometime this month. (BBC Monitoring) Presumeably this would be
via either Panamsat or Intelsat-K. RPT International broadcasts to Europe on
Eutelsat 2-F3, and to Africa and Asia on Ghorizont 12.
UNITED KINGDOM--A charity station called Radio Cracker is now broadcasting on
Astra, using the Sky News transponder with audio at 7.38 MHz. This annual
short-term station transmits over local transmitters around Britain during
the weeks before Christmas. This is the first time it's used satellite.
("Satnews", "In Orbit")
SHORTWAVE:
AUSTRALIA--Radio Australia introduced a Cambodian (or Khmer) service on
December 1st. The schedule is 05:30-06:00 hrs on 17670 and 17880 kHz. (BBC
Monitoring)
BOSNIA-HERCEGOVINA--Radio Bosnia-Hercegovina Studio Sarajevo has moved to
6220 kHz, still operating in upper sideband (indicating probable use of an
amateur radio transmitter). (BBC Monitoring)
CROATIA--Croastian Radio-Studio Zagreb is currently heard on the following
shortwave frequencies: 5025, 6150, 9830, and 13830 kHz. 6150 kHz is heard 24
hours, while 5025 kHz is only used during the evening and night, and 9803 and
13830 kHz daytime only. (BBC Monitoring)
NETHERLANDS--Radio Netherlands is now broadcasting from relay stations in the
Commonwealth of Independent States. English is now at midnight 30 to 03:25
hrs on 11675 kHz, and 09:30-11:25 hrs on 7260 and 9810 kHz. Other
transmissions are in Dutch and Indonesian. (BBC Monitoring)
NORWAY/BURMA--The Democratic Voice of Burma, which broadcasts from Norway,
has changed frequency for its 14:30-15:20 hrs broadcast. The new frequency
announced by the station is 15140 kHz, replacing 17840 kHz. (BBC Monitoring)
RUSSIA/GERMANY--Deutsche Welle has begun mediumwave relays in Moscow (702
kHz), St. Petersburg (1188 kHz), and Blagoveshchensk (585 kHz). German is
being carried at 03:00-04:00, 04:50-16:00, 18:00-21:30, and 22:20-23:00 hrs.
Russian is at 04:00-04:50, 16:00-17:00, and 21:30-22:20 hrs. The transmitter
in Blagoveshchensk may also be used to relay the Deutsche Welle Chinese
service aat 12:00-13:00 hrs. (Deutsche Welle via BBC Monitoring)
PUBLICATIONS:
The most recent edition of our book "The DXers Guide to Computing" is now two
years old, which in the computer world is a very long time. So we're giving
away the remaining copies on our shelves. There's still some useful
information there, so if you don't have a copy of "The DXers Guide to
Computing", by all means write in now. On the other hand, we're almost out of
the most recent edition of "Communications in Space: The DXers Guide to the
Galaxy". But an updated version will be available in the new year.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 on 21:30-22:30 hrs:
on medium and shortwave: 1179, 6065 and 9655 kHz
via satellite: Astra 1B (19.2 degrees East) channel 26 (Sky Movies Gold/TV
Asia/Adult Channel) at 11.597 GHz, audio subcarrier at 7.74 MHz,
Tele-X (5 degrees East) (TV4 transponder) at 12.207 GHz, audio subcarrier
7.38 MHz.
We're also relay our half hour program at 13:30 hrs on satellite
The rest of the Radio Sweden English schedule is (half hour programs):
Europe:
23:30 hrs on 1179 and 6065 kHz
Middle East and East Africa:
16:00 hrs 15270 kHz
Asia and the Pacific:
13:30 hrs on 15240 and 21625 kHz
21:30-22:30 hrs on 11955 kHz
01:00 hrs on 9695 and 11820 kHz
North America:
16:00 hrs on 17870 and 21500 kHz
02:00 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.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks to this week's contributors Good Listening!