From: SCHMIDT@LSTC2VM.stortek.com (Jon Schmidt)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.football.college
Subject: Where to look (Was: Michigan vs. Houston Tape)
Date: 30 Sep 92 22:06:02 GMT
Organization: StorageTek SW Engineering

In article <1992Sep28.211622.24913@cbnewsh.cb.att.com>
brown@cbnewsh.cb.att.com (john.carl.brown) writes:
>
>  I spent Saturday afternoon in a sports bar with 50 TVs, planning
>on seeing the ABC regional coverage of Michigan vs. Houston.
>They were unable to find it, which tee'd me off until folks who
>had ordered it pay-per-view showed up after it failed to materialize
>at their homes.
 
Although I had a ticket to the Iowa @ Colorado game last Saturday, I
stayed home and browsed the skies for college football.  I hadn't really
had a chance to scan satellites since the season moved into high gear
and I was particularly interested in whether I could watch all four of
ABC's regional games.  The information below should provide you, or the
dish dude at your sports bar, with some good hints about where to start
looking for particular games in the near future.
 
But first, some terminology.
 
ITC - An acronym for "in the clear."  It means that a transmission is
not scrambled or encrypted and can be received without any special
decoders or descramblers.
 
Backhaul - This is a transmission that is uplinked from the game site.
College football backhauls are usually commercial-free and ITC.  For
example, ABC will uplink a game on satellite A for reception at ABC
headquarters in New York (the backhaul).  Headquarters inserts
commercials and breakaways, runs the signal through an encryption box
and uplinks the finished product on satellite B for reception by its
affiliates (the network feed).
 
C-band - This is the frequency range used for transmission of all cable
services and most network feeds.  All satellite systems intended for
for home (and bar) use can receive C-band.
 
Ku-band - This is the frequency range that is favored for uplinking
special events such as live sports and news.  It is also used by NBC for
its network feeds.  Since Ku-band satellites usually do not carry
regular scheduled programming and have not been around as long as C-band
satellites, many home satellite systems (especially older ones) cannot
receive these signals.
 
All the transmissions decribed below were ITC unless noted otherwise and
all times are Eastern.
 
Now, with respect to the 3:30 ABC regional games last Saturday, I found
all four of them ITC.  The commercial-free backhauls were on the
following Ku-band satellites:
  G-Star 1 - Iowa @ Colorado
  G-Star 1 - Houston @ Michigan
  G-Star 1 - San Diego St @ UCLA
  SBS 5    - Mississippi @ Georgia
Additionally, two of the games were fed ITC on Galaxy 1 (G1), a C-band
satellite:
  G1/07 - Iowa @ Colorado
  G1/14 - Mississippi @ Georgia
Before game time, each of these two G1 feeds had continuous promos (both
audio and video) for their respective games.  The video had a countdown
(until game time) clock running and the names of the teams that would be
playing.  These feeds were obviously targeted at cable companies, most
of which have a dish dedicated to G1, until recently THE major cable
services satellite (HBO, Showtime, ESPN, etc.).  I was very surprised to
find ABC feeds on this satellite and ITC.  These feeds contained all of
ABC's commercials, and had a "warning" to that effect on the pre-game
video promo.
Finally, a PPV service targeted to home dish owners on Telstar 301 (T1)
called TVN carried all four games.  These feeds were all scrambled and
required a VCII+ decoder.  I guess these were for dish owners with lots
of money who couldn't be bothered to look around for the ITC
transmissions.  TVN's phone number is 1-800-232-4886.
 
I found the Jefferson Pilot Sports ACC game of the week, NC @ NCSU, at
three different locations:  Galaxy 6, channel 7 (G6/07), Galaxy 6,
channel 12 (G6/12) and ASC-1, channel 8 (AS/08).  The JPS SEC game of
the week, South Carolina @ Kentucky, was uplinked on Spacenet 1, channel
23 (S1/23).  JPS backhauls on Sep 5 were located on Galaxy 2, channel 2
(G2/02) and Telstar 302, channel 17 (T2/17).
 
Prime Network shows a Big Eight game of the week on a tape-delayed basis
every Saturday evening.  I found a live backhaul for this game last
Saturday afternoon (Arizona St @ Nebraska) on Ku-band satellite SBS 4.
 
There appears to be a Big East network.  They carried the Michigan St @
Boston College game live last Saturday on C-band satellite Satcom 4,
channel 20 (F4/20).  This satellite carries most of the SportsChannel
network feeds and, thus, many cable companines have a dish dedicated to
this satellite.  F4/20 would be my starting point when searching for
future Big East network broadcasts.
 
Raycom shows a South West Conference game of the week.  The live
backhaul for last Saturday's TCU @ SMU game was on C-band satellite
Galaxy 6, channel 24 (G6/24).  This game was also shown live on KTVT
(S3/05), a Dallas/Ft Worth independent TV station available to home dish
owners with a VCII descrambler and the appropriate superstation package
subscription.
 
The Sunshine Network shows a replay of every Miami (Fla.) game.  Their
live backhaul of the Arizona @ Miami game last Saturday was on Ku-band
satellite SBS 6.
 
The Sunshine Network also carries every Florida St game on tape-delayed
basis on Saturday nights.  The live backhaul for last Saturday's Wake
Forest @ Florida St game was on Ku-band satellite SBS 6, but it was
encrypted with a very weird system.  The encryption was probably due to
the fact that this game was offered as a PPV by the Sunshine Network.
The game could be orderd from Satellite Sports Network 1-800-766-7766
and then viewed with a VCII+ descrambler on Satcom C1, channel 18
(F1/18).  The Tulane @ Florida St game on Nov 14 will also be available
on a PPV basis and can be ordered from SSN.
 
The CSU @ LSU game last Saturday was also available live via PPV on
satellite Spacenet 1, channel 3 (S1/03).  This was the famous
TigerVision PPV, which has been doing LSU games on PPV for 10 years now.
Other TigerVision PPV games ($34.50 each!) scheduled for this year are:
  LSU @ Florida    1:30
  Kentucky @ LSU   8:00
  LSU @ Mississipi 7:00
  Alabama @ LSU    8:00
  Tulane @ LSU     8:00
These games can be ordered from Netlink at 1-800-642-8080.  They won't
sell you the game unless (you say) you live in either Louisiana or the
opponent's state and you probably need a VCII+ descrambler.
 
The Penn State Sports Network uplinked the Maryland @ Penn St game live
on Ku-band satellite SBS 6.  I also noticed a few weeks ago that the
Penn St @ Cincinatti game was uplinked live by the Penn State Sports
Network on a Ku-band channel of hybrid satellite Spacenet 1.
 
Below is a summary of the other live backhauls I observed last Saturday.
 
Uplinker  Satellite      Time  Game
ESPN      G6/20         12:30  Missouri @ Indiana
SC        SBS 6 (Ku)    12:30  Lehigh @ Cornell
SC-NY     G-Star 2 (Ku)  1:00  Columbia @ Fordham
Sports So SBS 4          1:00  Georgia Southern @ Furman
????      G6/24          1:00  Alcorn @ Howard
????      SBS 6 (Ku)     2:00  New Mexico @ Air Force
SC-NY     G-Star 2 (Ku)  7:00  Hofstra @ Towson St
ZZ Sports SBS 6 (Ku)     7:00  Tennessee Tech @ Eastern Kentucky
ESPN      S4/04          7:30  Clemson @ Georgia Tech
Prime NW  G-Star 1 (Ku)  8:00? Oregon St @ Utah
KRNV      SBS 6 (Ku)     8:00  Nevada @ Tulane
????      SBS 6 (Ku)     8:00  Boise St @ S.F. Austin
Prime NW  SBS 6 (Ku)    10:00  Washington St @ Fresno St
 
-- 
Jon_Schmidt@stortek.com  Storage Technology Corporation
(303) 673-3581 - voice   2270 South 88th Street
(303) 673-6039 - fax     Louisville, Colorado 80028-5209
Newsgroups: rec.sport.football.college