From: xberri@quark2.aero.org (Jason E. Berri)
Subject: SCDX 2153
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Reply-To: xberri@arecibo.aero.org
Organization: The Aerospace Corporation
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 03:21:00 GMT


  :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
  ::           MediaScan             ::
  ::      SWEDEN CALLING DXERS       ::
  ::       from Radio Sweden         :: 
  ::    Number 2153--April 7, 1992   :: 
  ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 


Satellite, shortwave and other electronic media news from Radio Sweden.

This week's bulletin was written by George Wood.

Packet Radio BID SCDX2153

All times UTC unless otherwise noted.

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SWEDEN:

SWEDISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION--Sweden's center-right coalition government
has reached a compromise over the future of the Swedish Broadcasting
Corporation. Because of objections from the Center Party, the Liberals and
Conservatives have backed down on their plan for the state to take over the
company. Swedish Broadcasting will continue to be a share company with the
stocks held by representatives of business, the press, and popular movements,
and in addition, cultural and scientific organizations will be included. But
the proponents of state ownership left themselves a backdoor by saying that
the current owners can sell their interests to the state.

Unusually, the government has sought to interfere in programming policy by
blocking plans to merge the news departments of the two public television
channels. As a commentator for the respected Stockholm newspaper "Dagens
Nyheter" has written: "One wonders what interests prefer two poor news
departments to a single strong one?"

COMMUNITY RADIO--Meanwhile, Swedish Telecom has announced it will turn off
the transmitter of the controversial Radio Nova on April 9th. Radio Nova is a
community radio station about one hundred kilometers southwest of Stockholm.
Swedish community radio is supposed to consist of individual non-commercial
programs from various organizations over a common transmitter. But the groups
behind Radio Nova have broadcast a single unified program with commercials.
One by one, each group has lost its licence, but the station has continued. 

Last week an appeals court upheld a ruling that Radio Nova has violated the
community radio law. 

While in government until last September, Sweden's Social Democrats opposed
the introduction of commercial radio and television. But now the Social
Democrats in the city of Karlstad have announced that they also intend to
break the law and will broadcast commercials in their community radio
programs. (TT)

SATELLITE RADIO--We hope those of you with satellite receivers have
discovered the joys of listening to Radio Sweden on the Astra satellite on
11.597 GHz, audio subcarrier 7.74 MHz. 

(The English editions of MediaScan this Tuesday and next include an interview
with Susan Newstead, General Manager of the community radio station KZYX in
Philo, California.)

We've been joined on the Tele-X satellite by another Swedish radio
broadcaster, Radio Z, which until now has essentially been a two hour a day
TV program alternating between Sweden's TV3 and TV4, consisting of music
videos with a camera in the control room. A number of community radio
stations here have relayed the program, defying the law against commercial
radio broadcasting. Radio Z is now sharing the Tele-X direct broadcast
satellite with Radio Sweden on a more regular basis. They're on the TV5
Nordic transponder on 12.474 GHz, audio subcarrier 7.74 MHz, between 04:00
and 08:00 hrs. ("Paa TV")


EUROPEAN SATELLITE BROADCASTING:

RADIO--The long-expected Solar Radio has made its appearance on Astra, on the
Sky Sports transponder at 11.509 GHz, audio subcarrier 7.38 MHz. They seem to
be relaying a lot of American programming. (Raymond Ian Woodward in
"Satnews") But for some reason, the signal is very weak. 

ASTRA--Thames Television, which lost the London regional commercial
broadcasting franchise from the end of this year, has received a licence to
broadcast via satellite. The channel is set to air its extensive back catalog
of classic comedy and drama. Thames is a shareholder in Astra, and has
options on two Astra transponders. ("Satnews" and "What Satellite")

With the dispute over the future of the D2-MAC and PAL standards in Europe
apparently settled, one of the main PAL proponents, British Sky Broadcasting,
is reported to starting test broadcasts in wide-screen D2-MAC, using 11.641
GHz between 09:00 and 17:00 hrs until April 15th.
("Satnews" and "What Satellite")

EUROSPORT--The Eurosport transponders have been rearranged. Transmissions
have ended from the direct broadcast satellites Telecom 1A and Kopernikus.
Eurosport has returned to Astra transponder 22, 11.538 GHz, in parallel with
11.258 GHz, and is now also reported on Eutelsat 2-F1 on either 11.005 or
11.667 GHz. ("Satnews")

EUTELSAT--Germany's international radio broadcaster, Deutsche Welle, has
entered the world of satellite television, having taken over the facilities
of the Berlin-based American station RIAS. Deutsche Welle is broadcasting on
Eutelsat 2-F1 with three blocks each two hours long between 14:00 and 20:00
hrs over Eutelsat 2-F1 on 11.162 GHz. The first 90 minutes each time is in
German, followed by 30 minutes in English. Spanish is to be added later this
year. 

The same transponder is carrying Deutsche Welle radio programs on audio
subcarriers, with German on 7.02 MHz, other European languages on 7.2, and
Asian languages on 8.1 MHz. 

Deutsche Welle plans to put its TV programs on an Intelsat over the Atlantic
to relay its signals to North America, beginning this Fall. Unlike BBC World
Service Television, Deutsche Welle is uncoded. (Wolfgang Schultz, Germany)

The American government's WorldNet program is moving to Eutelsat 2-F1 channel
29 on April 15th. WorldNet has shared the French TV5 transponder, but TV5 is
expanding to 18 hour a day operation. (Karl Grabe, Ireland)

MARCO POLO--The merger that created British Sky Broadcasting made Britain's
two Marco Polo direct broadcast satellites superfluous. There are now reports
the Swedish Space Corporation wants to buy one of the satellites, and move it
next to Tele-X at 5 degrees East. ("What Satellite")

ARABSAT--MBC TV, which broadcasts to Europe, the Middle East, and North
Africa in Arabic, has switched from Arabsat 1B to Arabsat 1C, at 31 degrees
East. Parallel transmissions continue on Eutelsat 2-F1 on 11.554 GHz. (BBC
Monitoring and "Elektronikvaerlden")


ASIAN SATELLITE BROADCASTING:

PAKISTAN--Pakistan's PTV-2 is now testing over AsiaSat. Malaysia's RTM-3 is
also expected to start a new service soon. (Bindu Padaki in "Shortwave
Magazine")

PALAPA--Hong Kong Telecom International is offering a compilation of CNN,
Home Box Office, and the sports channel ESPN over the Palapa satellite as
competition to the Star-TV service on AsiaSat. ("Shortwave Magazine") 

SINGAPORE--Singapore has for the first time opened its airwaves to CNN and
HBO, under strict controls. Singapore's Cablevision will initially
rebroadcast the two American services and a Mandarin Chinese entertainment
channel on local UHF frequencies. The system plans to eventually send the
signals to subscribers by cable. Talks continue with BBC World Service
Television and Japanese companies. Individual satellite dishes will remain
forbidden. (Reuters)

TURKEY--The Turkish State Television TRT began testing a satellite channel to
Central Asia on April 1st. TRT hopes to reach as many as 57 million Turkic
speakers in the 6 new Moslem states of the former Soviet Union. To reinforce
the Latin alphabet used in Turkey since the First World War, TRT will run
Latin-alphabet subtitles several hours a day. Regular service begins in May.
TRT is using an Intelsat 5 satellite above the Indian Ocean. (Probably the
one at 66 degrees East.) (Reuters)


NORTH AMERICAN SATELLITE BROADCASTING:

GALAXY 5--The Galaxy 5 satellite was launched into orbit on March 13th. It is
due to go into service around May 8th. It will replace Westar 5 at 125
degrees West. The Family Channel has booked a transponder on the new
satellite. (Robert Smathers and others in "Satnews") 

CARTOON NETWORK--Turner Broadcasting, which operates CNN, has confirmed it
intends to start a 24 hour satellite channel for children. The Cartoon
Network will begin on October 2nd in the US, and is to be followed by a
European service. Speculation about such a channel has been high since Turner
bought the Hann-Barbera cartoon library last year.

Disney, which initially planned to go onto Europe's Astra satellite when it
was first launched in 1989, is again looking at taking a satellite
transponder. ("What Satellite")

LOCAL CABLE NEWS--Whereas Stockholm's cable network has just begun its first
regular programming, a "no-budget" telephone talk show for two hours three
nights a week, local cable programming is widespread in the United States.
New York and Washington are now starting their own 24 hour local news
channels.

Time Warner New York Cable will launch its new service to all 800,000
subscribers in September. NewsChannel 8 is the new news channel in the
nation's capital. ("Satnews" and "Antennen")


SHORTWAVE:

ESTONIA--Radio Estonia is now broadcasting a news bulletin in English
weekdays at 16:20 hrs on 5925 kHz. (Ehtel Halliste, Radio Estonia)

IRAQ--A new station, apparently aimed at Saudi Arabia, called "The Radio of
Iraq, Call of the Kinfolk", has been heard on 11860 and 11880 kHz, announcing
broadcasts at 10:00-12:00 hrs. Iraq used 11860 kHz to broadcast its "Voice of
Peace" to the American troops in Saudi Arabia. (BBC Monitoring)

The clandestine Voice of Iraqi Kurdistan has not been heard on 4175 kHz since
March 27th. However, on March 29th, another station, called Iraqi Kurdish
Radio appeared on 4130 kHz, announcing a schedule of 16:00-17:00 and 04:00-
05:00 hrs. (BBC Monitoring)

KUWAIT--More than a year after the end of the Gulf War, Radio Kuwait's
English service has returned to the air, heard at 18:00-21:00 hrs on 13620
kHz. (BBC Monitoring) Before the Iraqi occupation, the pop music oriented
prorgramming was very popular among shortwave listeners from South Asia to
Europe. 

RUSSIA--The Radio Moscow Russian service is now the "Voice of Russia". The
foreign language service has become part of Russia's new Ostankino state TV
and radio company. Russia's Press and Mass Media Minister has assured the
staff that the Russian government will do everything possible to maintain and
develop the service. (Radio Moscow via BBC Monitoring)

According to a letter from Radio Pamyat, the station of the National
Patriotic Front of Russia, they've changed to 12040 kHz for their program
between 13:30 and 15:00 hrs. (Rainer Henrich, Switzerland)

Radio Space in Moscow has switched from 11945 to 12075 kHz, at 14:00-14:45
hrs. (BBC Monitoring)

UKRAINE--Radio Ukraine has been heard on the out-of-band frequency of 7970
kHz from as early as midnight 38 UTC until past 02:30 hrs. This is in
parallel with 9685 kHz. (Richard Langley, Canada)

USA--"Yet another religious broadcaster", WJCR, is on the air, testing on
7490 kHz. Ralph heard them from 05:30 hrs until after 06:00, and again around
14:00 hrs. (Ralph Brandi)

Another American station, WWCR, at the last minute cancelled a change of
frequency to 5920 kHz. The station is apparently still using 7435 kHz. (Will
Martin via Internet News)

ZAMBIA--Following the ending of the Radio Freedom broadcasts on behalf of
South Africa's African National Congress, and the funds which paid for it,
Radio Zambia's external service has run out of money and has been
discontinued. (BBC Monitoring)

We'll be back with more in two weeks, including a report from this year's
Satellite and Cable Show in London. Until then, take care!

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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 20:30-21:30 hrs on medium
wave 1179 kHz, as well as shortwave 6065 and 9655 kHz, and via satellite on
Astra 1B (19.2 degrees East) channel 26 at 11.597 GHz, audio subcarrier at
7.74 MHz, and on the Tele-X direct broadcast satellite (5 degrees East) at
12.207 GHz, audio subcarrier 7.38 MHz.

That program is also broadcast to the Pacific and the Far East on 17730 kHz.

We're also relay our half hour program at 12:30 hrs on satellite, otherwise
it's being carried to South Asia, the Pacific and the Far East on 15170 and
17740 kHz.

The rest of the Radio Sweden English schedule is (half hour programs):

To Europe:

   22:30 hrs 1179 and 6065 kHz

To the Middle East and East Africa:

   15:00 hrs on 15270 kHz

To Asia/Pacific:

   13:30 hrs 17740 and 21570 kHz
   01:00 hrs 9685 and 11730 kHz

To North America:

   15:00 hrs 17870 and 21500 kHz
   02:00 hrs 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!

--
Jason Berri  [berri@aero.org or berri@arecibo.aero.org]
[SPEEDX Column Editor - send email for more info on the SPEEDX SWL club]