Apparently-to: scdx@get.pp.se
From: "George Wood" 
operation is expected to begin in October. ("SATCO")
JAPAN--DirecTV Japan has applied for Posts and Telecommunications
Ministry approval for its 91 channel digital satellite TV service, set
to begin test broadcasts at the end of November. DirecTV Vice
President Akira Yoshigi says the service will include more than 30
channels not aired by rival PerfecTV. DirecTV will carry movie
programming on 8 channels, and will also provide 7 music channels,
which PerfecTV does not carry. (Kyodo)
NORTH AMERICA
GE--Microspace has started a digital MPEG-2 package on the GE-1
satellite on 11.940 GHz, encoded in Nagravision, with this line-up:
WRAL-TV, Serbian Satellite TV, TV Polonia, National Pharmacy TV,
TechNet/Signature Network TV, and Caliber Learning Network. ("SATCO")
Deutsche Welle and GE Americom have signed an agreement to relay DW on
GE-1. Deutsche Welle TV has already started on C-band transponder 22
in clear NTSC. Transmissions on Satcom C4 C-band transponder 5 will
cease on October 31, 1997. ("Tele-satellit News" and "SATCO")
The GE-3 satellite launched on an Atlas rocket from Cape Canaveral on
September 4. Once in final orbit at 87 degrees West, it will be used
for TV relays from Fox, PBS, CNN Financial News, CNN Sports
Illustrated, and others.  ("Tele-satellit News", AP and Reuters)
BARRY DILLER--Slamming the homogeneity of network news, media maverick
Barry Diller last week sketched a plan for a loose nationwide network
of alternative TV news. Eleven new stations - currently referred to as
CitiVision - would aim to unravel the conventions of TV, fashioning a
more woolly variation with homegrown talent, opinionated news, and
programming organized like sporting events, sprawling out of its time
slots as necessary. 
Diller, creator of Fox Television and now chief of the Home Shopping
Network, says that in the spirit of public access with a professional
gloss, the stations will be a direct attack on the conformity of most
programming. 
"Most TV is McTV - pre-processed fast food coming out of national
networks from 3,000 miles away," said Doug Binzak, executive vice
president of broadcasting for Home Shopping Network subsidiary Silver
King Broadcasting, which is producing the channels. "We'll be doing
true local broadcasting with a sense of place." 
CitiVision will debut in Miami in March, with a roll-out in 10 other
markets, including Chicago, New York, Dallas, and Boston, every other
month thereafter. The channel will be available without cable and will
bump the Home Shopping Network, which currently runs in the broadcast
spectrum, into cable. The Miami pilot will feature eight to 12 hours
of original programming, including news, talk shows, sporting events,
and even some forays into semi-dramatic series. 
Urban alternative newspapers are the model for the journalism the
stations will practice, Binzak said. Talent for the programs will be
locally harvested, including recent college graduates and newscasters
stuck doing local news for network-affiliated stations, Binzak said. 
As original as Diller might think CitiVision is, the fact is that many
cities across the United States already have (or will soon have)
homegrown news stations on cable. Linda Moss, programming editor at
cable industry journal MultiChannel News, estimates there are 40
regional news channels already. Some, like Time Warner's New York One
with its 24-hour schedule of metro newscasts, already wield
significant brand power. 
Time Warner plans to start news channels in Orlando and Tampa Bay,
Florida, this fall. Another big player is New England Cable News, a
service for the Boston area that has a subscriber base of some 2
million. 
With some two-thirds of America's households already getting cable,
says Yankee Group analyst Bruce Leichtman, the fact that Diller's
stations will be locally broadcast is not really significant. "He's in
a very crowded field," Leichtman said. ("Wired" via Pointcast)
MONITORING AND SCANNING--Concerning the report last time about the
Tauzin "Privacy" Bill in the US Congress, Larry Magne, editor and
publisher of "Passport to Worldband Radio" offers "a few additional
points that bear on shortwave listening":
First, it would prohibit reception of Maritime Mobile bands, which
includes the band which starts at 6200 kHz.
Second, it would prohibit sale of receivers which can be modified to
receive "forbidden" bands, including of course Maritime Mobile.
Third, in fine Newspeak it refers to "electronic eavesdropping
devices." Our grandparents called them "radios."
Fourth, there is no grandfather clause, so existing radios would be
included, including grandmother's vintage Philco and even boomboxes
with SW coverage.
Fifth, the penalties include several years in the Federal slammer and
up to a half-million dollar fine.... 
What would this mean to listening to shortwave broadcasts?
First, no analog shortwave radios would be valid. To begin with, to a
greater or lesser extent they are general coverage. But even those
that aren't invariably, because of the loose nature of analog
alignment, going to pick up bits of the spectrum above 6200 kHz if
they are to pick up SWBC's most important band, 49 meters.  Finally,
even if they could completely exclude reception of Maritime Mobile,
any analog receiver can be tweaked to change its reception range
somewhat, making it illegal.
Second, although digital receivers could be set up to skip "forbidden"
bands, they would have to be made strictly for the United States
market. Few manufacturers would bother, except for perhaps a handful
of models. Digital receivers with such sophistication are inherently
costly, and with the vastly reduced competition they would almost
certainly be costlier, yet.
So while SWBC wouldn't be prohibited entirely and explicitly, the end
result would be a de facto prohibition, as all but a tiny percentage
of the normal listening audience would bother or be able to afford the
few legal receivers.
The United States and other Western countries have fought for decades,
notably during the Cold War, to have the free access to international
broadcasts to be treated as a human right worldwide.  Back then, many
Western broadcasts were being jammed, so the argument was immediately
relevant.
Although the Cold War is history, other disputes will arise down the
road, and where the battlefront is based on democracy and other
ideals, the unfettered transmission of those concepts and related news
is central.
Imagine Western nations trying to make that same argument later on,
when the chief nation among them has laws against shortwave listening
that are comparable to those of only one other country, North Korea!
(Larry Magne)
SHORTWAVE--World Harvest Radio has begun testing of its new KWHR Angel
4 transmitter. The schedule is:
13:00-19:00 hrs UTC on 6020 kHz
19:00-07:00 hrs on 17555
07:00-13:00 hrs on 11565
(Cumbre DX)
LAUNCHES
INTELSAT--Intelsat 803, scheduled for launch on September 23, is to
replace Intelsat 515 at 21.5 degrees West. The new satellite will have
better coverage and significantly higher power, and Intelsat says it
will offer the greatest coverage by any spacecraft of Africa. C-band
reception will be possible with antennas as "small" as 1.8 meters.
There are programming commitments from Discovery, TV5 Afrique, MCM
Africa, CFI, Canal + Horizons, RTP International, aand RTP Africa.
Others planning on transferring to the 803 include the Portuguese
broadcasters RTP1, RTP2, SIC, and TVI. (Intelsat)
CHINA--China is to launch the Apstar 2R satellite for Hong Kong's APT
Satellite Holdings in early October. The satellite is capable of
covering more than 100 countries in the Asia-Pacific region, as well
as parts of Europe and Africa. (Reuters)
ECHOSTAR--EchoStar announced on September 15 that the EchoStar 3
satellite had arrived at Cape Canaveral for launch with an Atlas
rocket on October 6. EchoStar 3 will be located at 61.5 degrees West,
and will include programming complementary to that offered by the DISH
Network on EchoStars 1 and 2, including expanded educational and
business television. (Curt Swinehart)
Continued in part 2
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