Apparently-to: scdx@get.pp.se
From: "George Wood" 
Grupo Televisa. 
The new network is expected to wage a fierce battle with Canal 
Satelite, an already operating digital-TV network headed by Spain's
largest media company, Grupo Prisa. Along with subscribers, the two
networks are expected to contest for the right to use their own
descrambler technology. Via Digital president Pedro Perez said that
his consortium will use the "multicrypt" descrambler technology while
Grupo Prisa has already begun broadcasting to some 40,000 subscribers
using its "symulcrypt" descrambler. 
Since parliament decided in April that only one type of descrambler
will be used in Spain, the two sides must negotiate a compromise
within two months. If no compromise is reached, Via Digital system
would become mandatory. Via Digital plans to begin broadcasting in
September with 35 channels, mostly in Spanish but some using the
country's regional languages of Catalan, Basque and Galician. Perez
said Via Digital will offer pay-per-view channels featuring films,
sports, and multimedia services. (AP)
The Spanish package on Hispasat is back on 12.631 GHz in MPEG-2 with:
TV G, TVE 1, TVE La 2, Galavision, TVE Int., Tele Deporte, Canal
Classico, and Mosaico. ("SATCO DX Chart Update")
AMOS--Correcting the report last time, Attila Kardos tells us that
Babylon Blue is not Hungarian, but rather aimed at the Romanian cable
market and uplinked from the Czech Republic.
ARABSAT--Besides Eutelsat II-F3, Libya's Jamahirya Satellite Channel
has started on Arabsat 2B on 4.167 GHz in PAL. Iran's Baztab is on
4.126 GHz as well as 4.085. ("SATCO DX Chart Update")
ASIA
JAPAN--Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch's JSkyB Co may seize an edge over
his rivals in Japan's digital TV market next spring, when Japanese
viewers will be offered 360 digital satellite channels by three
competing TV operators, analysts say. On May 14 Murdoch unveiled the
shape of his digital satellite broadcasting venture, Japan Sky
Broadcasting Co, now reinforced by Fuji Television Network, a powerful
Japanese TV network with a large cache of programming. 
Analysts say the stronger framework, which also brings in 
electronics giant and Hollywood studio owner Sony Corp, will give
JSkyB the edge in the competition for subscribers. This is despite the
fact that, when it begins its 100-channel service next spring, JSkyB
will be the last of the operators to begin broadcasting, after
PerfecTV and Hughes Electronics' DirecTV. 
PerfecTV, owned by a consortium of Japanese trading companies, began
service last year and plans to boost its number of channels to 110
this spring. DirecTV will start offering 100-channel service this
autumn. (Reuters)
On May 1 PerfecTV added three new channels: CNN International, The
Golf Channel, and Asia Business News. (Goro Amihari)
CHINA--On May 14 China successfully launched the Dongfanghong ("The
East is Red") 3 communications satellite from its Xichang Satellite
Launch Center in Sichuan Province. Rumor has it that the (unannounced)
launch was originally planned for May 5 but then postponed.
DFH 3 carries 24 C-band transponders. Its life span in geostationary
orbit is about eight years -- almost half that of modern satellites.
This is probably (at least partly) owing to the reduced
station-keeping capabilities of indigenous Chinese satellites which,
as a consequence, consume more fuel because their position has to be
corrected more frequently.
Xinhua reports that the satellite will be positioned at 125 degrees
East. ("Tele-satellit News")
NORTH AMERICA
MURDOCH--Rupert Murdoch is copying Ted Turner by trying to buy his own
baseball team, in this case the Los Angeles Dodgers (Turner owns the
Atlanta Braves). According to reports, the Australian media mogul is
offering USD 350 million for the Dodgers and their stadium. There's
little chance the move would bring the Dodgers back to Brooklyn, as
Murdoch reportedly wants to make himself and his News Corp a Los
Angeles sports power, rivaling Disney's baseball and ice hockey teams
in nearby Anaheim. Besides copying Turner in carrying his own baseball
team on satellite across North America, Murdoch could use his existing
and planned satellite services to broadcast Dodgers games to baseball-
crazy Japan and Latin America (and Europe for that matter). Apparently
Murdoch would also like to bring American football back to Los
Angeles, and might headquarter a franchise at Dodger Stadium. He
reportedly is also interested in buying either the LA Lakers or the LA
Clippers basketball teams. (AP and NPR)
MORE MURDOCH--Echostar said May 9 that it is suing Rupert Murdoch's
News Corporation for USD 200 million. The company said it has filed
for a Declaratory Judgment in the United States District Court for the
District of Colorado and it confident of winning. Apparently, News
Corporation had promised to loan Echostar the money when they
announced plans to jointly begin digital satellite broadcasting in the
United States. Under the plan, News Corp was to take a 50-percent
stake in Echostar for USD 1 billion. Recently American Sky
Broadcasting chief Preston Padden quit the company and rumors began
circulating questioning the relationship between the two companies.
("Tele-satellit News")
CYPERSPACE
SHUTTLE--Streaming video of the space shuttle Atlantis' link-up with
Mir can be found at:
http://www.techinter.com/nasa/nasa_webcam.cgi
Europeans can check out:
http://www.mattheij.nl/nipkow/main.html
Sound is supposedly carried using a program called Speak Freely, but
we can't get the thing to work. Mission sound continues from the
"Houston Chronicle" in RealAudio at:
http://www.chron.com/content/interactive/space/missions/live/live.ram
Unfortunately sometimes this sound doesn't match the video stream!
SWEDEN--The Stockholm daily "Svenska Dagbladet" has put together a Web
site that allows users to compose a personal TV schedule. Initially
this will involve some 60 channels. In August the offering will be
expanded and users will be able to subscribe to electronic TV guides
carrying 110 channels. The service was presented at the Cable and
Satellite Show in London at a forum called "Electronic Programme
Guides".
It's syupposed to be online sometime this month. Unfortunately, the
"Svenska Dagbladet" site doesn't seem to be working yet. At least,
there's no mention of it at www.svd.se 
But there is a Swedish site that will put together customized TV
schedules, but just for Swedish channels (and all in Swedish), at:
http://www.tv-site.se
NET RADIO--There's an impressive list of radio stations that broadcast
live on the Internet (in both RealAudio and Streamworks) at:
http://www.comfm.fr/sites/rdirect
The pages are in French, but if you can recognize national flags (or
know the name of the country in question in French) there's no
problem.
TRANSMITTER DOCUMENTATION PROJECT--Everything you ever wanted to know
about shortwave transmitters is at:
http://www.ping.be/tdp
SATELLITE NEWS--There's European satellite news in German, Dutch, and
English at:
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/4476/geosat.html
and mirrored at:
http://users.skynet.be/tim/sat.html
INTERNATIONAL DX DIGEST--Jim Renfrew's "International DX Digest"
column, about medium wave DXing, has been posted on the National Radio
Club's Web site at:
http://wcoil.com/~gnbc/idxd/idxd.htm
(Fred Vobbe)
ABC--ABC News has launched its new Web site:
http://abcnews.com
KCBS--Hooray! My home town all-news station, KCBS in San Francisco
(not to be confused with KCBS TV and FM in Los Angeles), finally has a
Web site:
http://www.kcbs.com
Unfortunately, unlike sister station WCBS in New York or rival KNBR in
San Francisco, KCBS has yet to offer RealAudio, but we can always
hope.
BASEBALL--Major League Baseball is apparently trying to gain control
over game webcasts, with an appeal to radio stations to discontinue
streaming live games. ("Wired News" via Pointcast) They are being less
than successful. For example, "The Gate", operated by the "San
Francisco Chronicle" and the "San Francisco Examiner", is not only
continuing with its live broadcasts of Oakland Athletics games, it's
also added an archive of previous game webcasts. See:
http://www.sfgate.com
PUBLICATIONS
WRTH--Last month we talked to Andy Sennitt of the World Radio TV
Handbook about the new edition of the book sometimes called the
shortwave listener's Bible. What we didn't have time for was the
WRTH's plans for new media, putting the book on the Internet or out on
a CD- ROM. But As Andy tells us in today's edition of "MediaScan", the
chances we'll be surfing to www.wrth.com in the near future are slim.
(You wouldn't want to put the whole book on the Web, since then people
might not want to buy the book.) The WRTH will be setting up a smaller
site as part of Tom Sundstrom's (http://www.trsc.com/) site PICS:
http://www.pics.com/index.shtml
There's better news on the CD-ROM front, as there's a good chance a
future issue of the WRTH will include a CD-ROM disk. (Here's an
opportunity to link to a closed Web site from the CD-ROM, for
updates.)
KLINGENFUSS--But the Klingenfuss 1997 Super Frequency List is
available on CD-ROM right now. Besides utility stations, such as
marine, air, diplomat, press, etc., this now includes all broadcast
stations worldwide (with schedules), some 11,500 entries. There are
both German and English verisons on the same disk, which is for
Windows and Windows 95. In reviewing earlier editions of the CD-ROM
we've complained that the interface was less than obvious, and it was
hard to work out the country codes used and do incremental searches,
that is, first all the utlity stations in Sweden, then narrow down to
just the radioteletype stations in Sweden. The new version is much
improved, and much more user-friendly.
Klingenfuss Publications has also published its 1997 "Internet Radio
Guide", which is a good overview of Web sites (and newsgroups) for
international broadcasters, radio clubs, equipment manufacturers,
publishers, amateur radio, satellites, press, navigation, aviation,
solar and geophysical data, and even intelligence organizations.
Essentially the book is a print-out of hundreds of Web home pages.
Things change fast on the Internet, but the press blurb says "all
sample pages were downloaded in early 1997". In the case of the Radio
Sweden page this must have been in late January, because our opening
page was rearranged shortly afterwards (and you can see the typo on
the page that claimed we had 690 accessers during all of 1996).
The book is impressive and useful. More information about other
publications (such as "Shortwave Receivers Past and Present" by Fred
Osterman, the "1997/1998 Guide to Worldwide Weather Services" and
"Visual Radio"), is available from:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Klingenfuss/
Hyperlinks to all the sites mentioned in the Internet book are also
supposed to be on the site, but we can't find them.
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Sweden Calling DXers/MediaScan is the world's oldest radio program
about international broadcasting. Radio Sweden has presented this
round-up of radio news, features, and interviews on Tuesdays since
1948. It's currently broadcast on the first and third Tuesdays of the
month.
Radio Sweden broadcasts in English:
Europe and Africa/Middle East: 
Satellite:
12:30 and 17:30 hrs on Eutelsat II-F1 (NBC Europe -- 10.987 GHz, audio
7.56 MHz)
19:30 hrs (21:30 CET) via the World Radio Network on Astra transponder
22 (VH-1) audio 7.38 MHz
Via WRN to Africa and the Middle East on Intelsat 707 3.9115 GHz
Right-hand circular polarization, Symbol Rate 8.022 Mbaud, FEC 3/4, in
MPEG-2, Audio Stream "WRN1", Saturdays only also at 00:30 UTC (02:30
CAT). This can also be heard in South Africa on SAfm 104-107.
The WRN relays can also be heard in South Africa on the MultiChoice
digital direct-to-home service on PanAmSat 4, 68.5 degrees West, Audio
Channel 51.
Shortwave:
17:30 hrs    1179, 6065, and 13800 kHz (Sundays 9590 and 13800)  19:30
       1179 and 6065 kHz  20:30        1179, 6065, and 13625 kHz
(weekends only) 21:30        1179, 6065, and 9430 kHz 
Asia/Pacific:
Satellite:
Via WRN on AsiaSat-2 on 4.000 GHz, Vertical polarization, MPEG-2 DVB,
Symbol Rate 28.125 Mbaud, FEC 3/4 (Select WRN1 from audio menu),
Saturdays only at 00:30 UTC (10:30 AET).
Shortwave:
12:30 hrs    13740 and 15240 kHz
13:30 hrs    13740 kHz
01:30 hrs    9435 kHz
North America:
Satellite:
Via WRN on Galaxy 5 transponder 6 (WTBS), audio 6.8 MHz at 9:30 PM
EST, 6:30 PM PST
Across Canada on CBC Overnight Monday to Friday at 2:05 AM local time,
weekends at 3:05
Shortwave:
11:30 hrs on 11650 and 15240 kHz
13:30 hrs on 11650 and 15240 kHz
02:30 hrs on 7135 kHz
03:30 hrs on 9430 kHz
Latin America:
01:30 hrs on 7290 kHz
Each program Monday to Friday, recorded at 13:30 hrs UTC, is available
in the RealAudio format at:
http://www.sr.se/rs/english/sounds/english.ram
Our World Wide Web page is at:
     http://www.sr.se/rs
An html and a RealAudio version of this bulletin can be found at:
     http://www.sr.se/rs/english/media/scdx.htm
Earlier versions of the bulletins in text and RealAudio or au-format
recordings:
     http://www.sr.se/rs/english/media/media3.htm
Contributions can be sent to DX Editor George Wood by fax to
+468-667-6283 or by e-mail to: george.wood@rs.sr.se
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
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We welcome comments and suggestions about the electronic edition,
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And for general questions, comments, and reception reports, our e-mail
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Thanks to this week's contributors            Good List
--- NetMgr 1.00.g4+
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