From news.cs.tut.fi!news.funet.fi!funic!nic.funet.fi!compuserve.com!70247.3516 Tue May 18 17:47:47 EET DST 1993
Article: 20226 of rec.radio.shortwave
Newsgroups: rec.radio.shortwave
Path: news.cs.tut.fi!news.funet.fi!funic!nic.funet.fi!compuserve.com!70247.3516
From: 70247.3516@compuserve.com (George Wood)
Subject: SCDX 2179
Message-ID: <930518134608_70247.3516_EHB35-1@CompuServe.COM>
Sender: root@nic.funet.fi (The FUnny NET guru)
Organization: Finnish Academic and Research Network Project - FUNET
Date: Tue, 18 May 1993 16:46:09 +0300
Lines: 434
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:: MediaScan ::
:: SWEDEN CALLING DXERS ::
:: from Radio Sweden ::
:: Number 2179--May 18, 1993 ::
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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 SCDX2179
All times UTC unless otherwise noted.
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ARIANE:
ASTRA--The Ariane mission 56 launched from French Guiana in the early hours
of May 12th, carrying with it the Astra 1C and Arsene satellites. Twenty
minutes later Mission Control had the happy news that European satellite TV
viewers had been waiting for, Astra 1C was successfully separated from the
rocket. (For some reason, at this point the Dutch RTL 4 channel, which was
covering the launch, broke in to play a "Star Trek" parody music video.)
Astra 1C will put a further 20 satellite channels at the same position over
Europe where the current two Astra satellites are providing 32 channels. At
Mission Control, Dr. Pierre Meyrat, the Managing Director of SES, the company
that owns Astra, expressed his pride in the the performance of the technical
teams from Arianespace, Hughes, SES, and their launch support contractors:
"The Astra satellite system can now truly live up to its ambitions of being a
'Cable in the Sky', offering an unprecedented choice of television and radio
channels to audiences through-out Europe."
He also announced: "This third satellite is almost half full. All the
transponders are either sold to customers who are waiting anxiously or are
still under negotiation, and will be filled in the next few months."
Astra 1C is now being moved to its position in geostationary orbit. Jan
Johansson tells us that it will first be placed at 14.5 degrees East
longitude, where testing will begin on May 20th. After the tests, Astra 1C
will be moved to its proper position alongside the other two Astra satellites
at 19.2 degrees East. The satellite is to be fully operational by the end of
June.
There are 16 regular transponders, Astra numbers 33 to 48, starting at 10.964
GHz and running up to 11.186 GHz, with about 14 MHz between each channel.
There are also two more transponders, numbers 63 and 64, on frequencies
outside the range of most receivers, at 10.921 and 10.935 GHz. These are
reportedly to be used for exclusive relays to cable networks.
ARSENE--Meanwhile, ham radio operators around the world held their collective
breathes, as they waited to hear the fate of the French amateur radio
satellite ARSENE. Successful separation from the rocket came four minutes
after Astra.
At first only weak and unusable signals were picked up from the satellite.
But later the main control station in Toulouse was able to make contact.
The satellite was successfully moved into its final orbit at 11:45 hrs
Monday. At its farthest from the Earth, ARSENE is 37,000 km, covering a third
of the planet. At its closest it will be 17,500 km away. It should be
available to users for up to 20 hours at a time, and then out-of-range for
another 60 hours before it comes back around. ARSENE is supposed to function
as a packet radio repeater in the sky, relaying digital amateur radio
communications down to Earth on 145.975 MHz.
EUROPEAN SATELLITE RADIO NEWS:
WRN--The World Radio Network, now on Eutelsat II-F1, is about to return to
Astra, with some very interesting relays. Here's WRN's Karl Misoga.
KM: We're still going to maintain the Eutelsat service, which is actually a
distribution service for international broadcasters in various languages. But
we are starting our service which we more or less piloted at this time last
year, which is the all-English service.
We're going to be starting that on Astra, hopefully some time in August, with
test transmissions beginning sometime in July.
RADIO SWEDEN: What are you going to be broadcasting? Last time you had a
collection of international broadcasters.
KM: We'll be doing more or less the same thing, except that this time we will
have quite a substantial amount of programming from public radio in the
United States. We'll still have many other national and international
broadcasters, but there will be quite a substantial amount of programming
from live North American radio.
RS: When you say public radio, you mean people here in Europe will be able to
listen to programs like "All Things Considered" and "Morning Edition" from
National Public Radio?
KM: Absolutely, yes. We are planning to be on Sky News, audio subcarrier 7.74
MHz. If listeners tune to that during July, they should hear some kind of
test broadcasts, with the actual service beginning in August.
However, while European satellite monitors will be gaining National Public
Radio, they will be losing VOA Europe:
VOA--Richard Caldwell, Director of Telecommunications for satellite services
at the Voice of America has sent an update to our recent item about VOA
satellite programming going digital. The four channel VOA Worldsource service
went digital on April 1st. VOA Europe will continue in analog on the Eutelsat
II-F1 satellite until September 25th.
For more VOA news--see under Medium and Shortwave below.
LOVE FM--Love FM has, as expected, disappeared from an MTV transponder on
Astra. (James Robinson)
EUROPEAN SATELLITE TELEVISION:
IRELAND--The Irish sports channel we've reported was destined for Astra 1C,
Setanta Sport, has already appeared, on the Olympus satellite at 18.8 dgrees
West, on 12.570 GHz. (Bertil Sundberg in "Paa TV")
WIRE-TV--The new "Lifestyle"-type channel on Intelsat 601, called itself
Wire-TV (rather than "The Cable Network" as in its test cards) went it
appeared on May 4th, on 11.505 GHz. ("Sky Guide" and Bertil Sundberg in "Paa
TV")
ADULT CHANNEL--The Adult Channel, with which Radio Sweden shares our
transponder on Astra, has added a weekly slot for gays on Thursday
nights/Friday mornings, making it the first broadcaster to cater for Europe's
gay community. The Adult Channel is also planning to expand beyond Britain,
selling subscriptions across Europe. ("In Orbit" and "Sky Guide")
FAMILY CHANNEL--An agreement has now been announced between International
Family Entertainment and British Sky Broadcasting, for the launch of the
Family Channel to Britain later this year on Astra 1C. The network will be
part of the BSkyB subscription package. ("Satellite Journal")
SKY UNWRAPS THE PACKAGE--The British Sky Broadcasting subscription package
that begins October 1st will include three levels of service:
Level 1: Sky One, Sky News, Discovery, Bravo, Nickleodeon, the Family
Channel, probably the Sci-Fi Channel, amd three more channels.
Level 2: The basic ten plus Sky Sports.
Level 3: All of the above, plus Sky Movies Plus, The Movie Channel, and Sky
Movies Gold.
Advertising of the new package will begin in July. Sky is quoted as
forecasting the loss of "only" 300,000 viewers as a result of the new
agreement. ("Sky Guide")
This appears to ignore hundreds of thousands of viewers to Sky One and Sky
News across Europe. Sky News is included in cable systems all over
Scandinavia. It is also reminiscent of when the original Sky Channel dumped
its considerable European audience for a miniscule British public when it
switched to four channels on the first Astra satellite. There is one report
that Sky may create a separate Sky News channel for Europe.
EUROPESAT--Germany's Telecom has pulled out of the Europesat project,
Eutelsat's attempt to compete with Astra. The idea was to launch a high-
powered satellite with 14 channels. Telekom says that if there had been 12
customers, the project would have worked economically. Unfortunately, there
were only 6. (Reuters)
Europesat was intended to carry programming in the D2-MAC and HD-MAC systems,
both of which are essentially dead now that the European Commission had
abandoned its attempts to impose them on broadcasters, and is permitting the
development of digital high definition television instead.
EKSPRESS--The first of Russia's new Ekspress satellites, which will replace
the current Ghorizonts, is to be in orbit at the end of the year. The
satellites will better be able to maintain the correct inclination in orbit,
and will carry 24 channels, as well as four back-up transponders. (Russia's
Radio via BBC Monitoring)
NORTH AMERICAN SATELLITE BROADCASTING:
BBC--IDB Communications Group Inc. has announced that it has signed an
agreement with BBC World Services Television to provide services for the
first full-time commercial transatlantic transmission using digital
compression technology.
This will allow the BBC to transmit 4 video channels and up to 16 audio
channels via one satellite transponder. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
will also receive the signal as part of its rebroadcast agreement with the
BBC.
IDB will also downlink the signal at its Los Angeles International Teleport,
and retransmit the service to Pacific Rim customers. Jeff Hazell, BBC WS TV's
sales and distribution director comments:
"We are now poised to take advantage of this cost-effective new technology to
add Japan, Australia, the United States, and Latin America to our existing
markets of Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and Canada." ("Satellite
Journal")
Note: According to this item, the Atlantic relay is to be via the "Intelsat
307 East" satellite, and the Pacific link via "POU 180". Neither satellite
appears to exist, so there's probably a misprint.
DBS--The DirecTV direct broadcast satellites are due to be launched in
December 1993 and March 1994. So far, the following channels have signed up:
CNN, Headline News, The Cartoon Network, TBS, TNT, the USA Network, the Sci-
Fi Channel, the Nashville Network, Country Music Television, and the Family
Channel. There are pay-per-view agreements with Paramount, Sony, MGM, and
Disney. ("Satellite Journal")
LATIN AMERICAN SATELLITE BROADCASTING:
TWR/HCJB--Two major Christian shortwave broadcasters, HCJB in Ecuador, and
Trans World Radio, have announced they are launched a 24 hour Latin American
satellite radio network. The target date is November 20th, and they'll be
using digital technology to reach a network of affiliate stations from the
US-Mexican border to the southern tip of Chile. (TWR via BBC Monitoring)
CARTOON NETWORK--Turner Television's Cartoon Network, scheduled to begin in
Europe later this year, is now on the air to Latin America, transmitting to
300,000 subscribers maining in Argentina. The channel will eventually have
three audio subcarriers for English, Spanish, and Portuguese. ("Satellite
Journal")
ASIAN-PACIFIC SATELLITE BROADCASTING:
AUSTRALIA--We reported recently that a number of major Australian media
interests, including Rupert Murdoch of Sky and Fox Television fame, had
applied for the two new Australian pay TV licences. They didn't get them--
they went to two small and and little know companies, Ucom and Hi Vision. An
independent inquiry is being launched into the bidding process.
The third pay TV licence is reserved for the Australian Broadcasting
Corporation. (Radio Australia via BBC Monitoring)
PALAPA--Canal France International is now broadcasting over Palapa B2P on
3860 MHz. The network beams a variety of programs including news, features,
filmes, debates, sports, and children's programs produced by the main French
channels TF1, France 2 and France 3. For the past 18 months, CFI has used an
Intelsat V satellite, which is coming to the end of its useful life. Other
channels on Palapa include CNN, Australia's ABC (TV Australia), and various
Thai channels. (BBC Monitoring)
JAPAN--Japan plans to propose that Asian countries work out rules for cross-
border satellite broadcasting to avoid possible political and cultural
frictions. Government officials say the proposal will be put forward at the
first Asian forum of broadcasting regulators, to be held in Tokyo in June.
The proposed rules will be patterned after similar ones set by the European
Community Commission for cross-border broadcasting in Europe. The officials
say the proposal may be snubbed by China and Malaysia, which have bans on
viewing cross-border television programs.
Japan's move comes as China, Taiwan, South Korea, and Indonesia are expected
to launch telecommunications satellites in the next few years, marking the
advent of a borderless age for telecasting. (Kyodo news agency via BBC
Monitoring)
WORLD TELECOMMUNICATIONS DAY:
May 17th was World Telecommunications Day, an event largely noticed only by
the International Telecommunications Union, which sponsors it. But the ITC
has sent out a cassette filled with sound bites in honor of the day, uttered
by some interesting people.
For example, this is what former Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweikart has to
say:
"The smaller the technology, the less expensive it is, the more decentralized
it is, then the more responsive it is to individuals. In fact I just a minute
ago sent an electronic mail message to my secretary in San Francisco. It took
no time at all. That kind of capability to reach around the world and
communicate with people is happening and it's happening at lower and lower
cost. So the answer is, if it gets small enough, if it gets decentralized
enough, if it gets personal enough, then the answer is yes, we're going to
have a lot more of the members of the family of humanity coming together to
help protect this planet of ours." (ITU)
MEDIUM AND SHORTWAVE:
SWEDEN--Our medium wave transmitter in Soelvesborg returned to regular
service (after a serious fire) on May 10th.
SHORTWAVE STEREO--The Voice of America will be carrying out special
broadcasts during the upcoming meeting of the European DX Council, including
the world's first stereo shortwave transmission.
The frequency to look for is 10869 kHz. On May 28th, it will be carrying VOA
in French at 21:30-22:00 hrs, in upper side band. That will be followed at
22:00-23:00 hrs by VOA Europe, with the left stereo channel in lower side
band and the right stereo channel in upper side band.
The following day at 22:00-23:00 hrs the VOA's Sunday Morning program will be
relayed on this frequency. (EDXC)
SOMALIA--The United Task Force station in Somalia, now called Radio Manta,
has relayed the Voice of America in English. This was on 9540 kHz in upper
side band, plus carrier, on April 28th, from around 11:30 to 12:10 hrs. (BBC
Monitoring)
ISRAEL--The Clinton Administration has cancelled plans for the controversial
VOA relay station in Israel, in favor of a relay station in Kuwait. (Voice of
Israel via BBC Monitoring)
THAILAND--Test transmissions are now underway from the new relay station in
Thailand. You can look for English at 12:30-13:30 hrs on 11905 kHz, at 14:30-
15:00 hrs on 11705 kHz, and at 15:30-16:00 and 17:00-18:00 hrs on 7215 kHz.
(Dan Ferguson)
NORWAY/BURMA--Due to technical difficulties, the Democratic Voice of Burma
programs broadcast from Norway have been shortened to 30 minutes, at 14:30
hrs. (BBC Monitoring)
UNOFFICIAL RADIO--The Voice of the Great National Union Front of Cambodia,
operated by the Khmer Rouge, has begun broadcasting in Emglish on Thursdays
at 01:00 and 13:00 hrs. The frequency is 5408 kHz. (BBC Monitoring)
FRANCE/DJIBUTI--Radio France International has signed an agreement to set up
an FM and a shortwave transmitter relay station in Djibuti. FM programs begin
on May 15th next year. Shortwave relays to East Africa and the Indian Ocean
will have to wait for two or three years. (RFI via BBC Monitoring)
CROATIA--Croatian Radio has changed from 6145 kHz to a new shortwave
frequency of 5920 kHz. (BBC Monitoring)
ESTONIA--Estonian Radio reorganized on May 1. Frequencies are now believed to
be:
Radio 1 810, 711 kHz
Radio 2 1332, 1215, 1035 kHz
Radio 3 1512 kHz
Radio 4 1566, 612 kHz
Radio 3 is now only broadcasting in the evening. The daytime hours have been
given to the Trio company for Russian-language commercial broadcasts. (ETA
news agency and Estonian Radio via BBC Monitoring)
LITHUANIA--Radio Vilnius reports that, despite economic troubles, it does
have sufficient funding to stay on the air until August. (BBC Monitoring)
RUSSIA--The transmitter in Kaliningrad on 1386 kHz now broadcasts the Radio
Moscow World Service in Enlgish, replacing Radio Ala. (Arctic Radio Club, via
Euronews)
Radio Baltika in St. Petersburg is now using 684 kHz, instead of 747. This is
a former frequency of Radio Ala, which is now off the air. (Euronews)
GERMANY--We often talk about international broadcasters switching form
shortwave to satellite. But BBC Monitoring reports that a satellite
broadcaster has appeared on shortwave. Germany's Radioropa Info has been
heard testing at 08:00 hrs on 5980 kHz. The station has used longwave 261 kHz
for some time. The tests are not in parallel with this frequency. (BBC
Monitoring)
NOTE: The next edition will be distributed on June 8, with a complete report
on the EDXC meeting.
Thanks to Kauto Huopio for many contributions from Internet news.
OOPS.....Several sharp-eyed readers/listeners have noticed that the schedule
on the end of these bulletins hasn't corresponded to reality. That's becaue I
never updated the file after we changed our schedule at the end of April. The
correct schedule follows, and many apologies for any confusion the error has
caused.
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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 in English:
Europe and Africa:
17:30 hrs on 1179, 6065, and 9645 kHz
21:00 hrs on 1179, 6065 and 9655 kHz and
22:30 hrs on 1179 and 6065 kHz
Middle East and East Africa:
15:00 hrs on 15190 kHz and
17:30 hrs on 15270 kHz
Asia and the Pacific:
12:30 hrs on 15240 and 21500 kHz
22:30 hrs on 11910 kHz and
01:00 hrs on 9695 and 11820 kHz
To North America:
15:00 hrs on 15240 and 21500 kHz and
02:00 hrs on 9695 and 11705 kHz
The broadcasts at 12:30, 17:30, 21:00, and 22:30 hrs are also relayed to
Europe by satellite:
Astra 1B (19.2 degrees East) transponder 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.
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 MediaScan/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!