From: skingsle@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Stuart A Kingsley)
Newsgroups: rec.video.satellite
Subject: Post-Election Comments
Date: 12 Apr 92 15:21:03 GMT
Article-I.D.: magnus.CMM.0.90.2.703092063.skingsle
Organization: The Ohio State University


This is my first posting since just after the BBC election night feed
started at 4.55 pm EST on Thursday evening.  Some comments . . . .

Soon after I posted the announcement that the Beeb was available on PanAmsat's
transponder 12, it moved down to transponder 9.  As it turned out, the
birds really lit up on Thursday evening, both Intelsats, PamAmsat and
domsats.

For some of the time our "party" watched via Intelsats and PanAmsat, having
the choice of both the ITN and BBC election night programs.  At 7.30 pm,
I moved the dish over to G1 to take in 25 minutes of crazy British humour -
the first airing of Rowan Ackinson's Mr. Bean 02.  For most of the rest
of the evening we remained on the BrightStar Washington domsat feed on
W5, Tr. 22.  Most of the time it relayed the BBC, but later it
switched to ITN.  After the domsat relay was switched off, we moved the
dish back to the Intelsats and PanAmsat.

We did not notice any feeds on Canadian birds, and C-SPAN 1 only gave
occasional coverage, as its charter requires it to give the House of
Representatives priority when it is in session.  However, C-SPAN 1 did
give tape-delayed replays of the Beeb during the early hours of the
morning.  Our party broke up at 1.30 am EST (Friday morning).

My uncle, who has a winter home in Florida phone me twice during
the evening to inquire about the results.  All in all it was a pretty
exciting election, and only one of us (who happened to be a socialist) was
disappointed with the result.

The previous evening I had recorded part of C-SPAN's preview, where they
showed one election broadcast from the Conservatives, Labour, Liberal
Democrates and the Natural Law Party.  I played back these recordings
during the course of the evening.  One of my American friends couldn't
believe that the Natural Law Party's broadcast was for real - he assumed
that it must have been a spoof.  When I assured him that it was truly a
"serious" election broadcast, he became convinced that we British had gone
off our rockers!

We would like to congratulate the BBC for a fine broadcast and studio
presentation - we could certainly see where the license money went!
ITN had nice high-tech graphics and computer simulation of the House of
Commons, but it didn't measure up to the colorful, busy high-tech
BBC studio, and studio guests.


Again, congratulations to the BBC and David Dimbleby from:

Dr. Stuart Kingsley, scientist and electrical engineer
Professor Neil Tennant, philospher
Clive Goodall, philosopher
and others.


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 * Dr. Stuart A. Kingsley, CEng,                                           *
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