|
Communications World Script: 14 August 1999 Links open in a new browser Some material below, marked in italics, was broadcast in the half-hour edition only. Segment A OMTAPE: KIM: Welcome to the program. We begin media news with VOA home news. Another VOA shortwave transmitting site will closing. On September 30th, VOA's shortwave relay station at Poro, the Philippines, will be taken out of service. The Poro site consists of seven shortwave transmitters with powers ranging from 35 to 100 kilowatts. The million-watt VOA medium wave relay at Poro, on 1143 kilohertz, will remain in service. Also remaining on the air is VOA's other shortwave relay in the Philippines, at Tinang. Some of the gap created by the closure of Poro will be taken up by the new VOA relay at Tinian, in the Northern Mariana Islands. Three shortwave transmitters are now operating from Tinian, and three more will be added sometime this winter. However, VOA must share the Tinian site with Radio Free Asia, which has not been allowed to use VOA relay transmitters in the Philippines. Near Tinian is Saipan, home of a shortwave site owned by Radio Free Asia. Relays of programs of the Christian Science Herald Broadcasting service, via Saipan, ended on August 5th. The Christian Science Church sold the Saipan site to Radio Free Asia in July 1998. The terms of the sale allowed Herald Broadcasting to continue to use the Saipan site to beam its programs to Asia until a few days ago, when it began leasing shortwave transmitter time in Taiwan. The Saipan site, now with two 100 kilowatt shortwave transmitters, has an interesting history. It began operation in 1980s at KYOI, an short-lived attempt by a U.S. company to beam Japanese-language top-40 commercial programming to Japan. CD: Balkan Affair, track 3 (establish then under to Kim and lose) KIM: Balkan broadcasting news. On Wednesday, the Serbian state broadcaster RTS accused the United States of circling Serbia with FM transmitters which are operating on RTS frequencies. RTS said those frequencies were awarded to Yugoslavia by international convention. U.S. State Department spokesman Jamie Rubin denied this charge. He said the frequencies of the FM transmitters, which carry VOA, Radio Free Europe, BBC, and Radio France International programs, were carefully chosen to avoid any interference to existing FM stations in Serbia. Mr. Rubin said the frequencies were chosen based on data from the International Telecommunications Union and the World Radio TV Handbook. The Italian public broadcaster RAI has set up Radio West, a network of transmitters covering all Kosovo. It broadcasts in Italian to Italian military personnel in Kosovo, and in Albanian and Serbian to the local population. Two other international broadcasting news items: The BBC World Service Arabic Service will be transmitted on FM in Sudan. The agreement between BBC and the Sudan National Broadcasting Corporation was signed last weekend in Khartoum. For its part, BBC will provide training scholarships for radio journalists and engineers of Sudan radio. Michael Behrens, head of the English Service at Deutsche Welle in Cologne, has announced he will be leaving the German international broadcaster to take a job at Daimler Chrysler in Stuttgart. The German government is cutting Deutsche Welle's budget, and the consequences of that cut will be announced in the next few weeks. CD: Science & Beyond, track 18 (establish then under to Kim and lose) KIM: The Internet could eventually replace shortwave as the predominant means to impart information across national boundaries. Shortwave, however, is transmitted directly from country to country, and it usually cannot be jammed with complete success. The Internet involves common carrier circuits in the target country which can be blocked or filtered by the target country's government. The Paris-based international press freedom group Reporters Sans Frontiers has issued a report naming 45 nations as enemies of the Internet because they restrict or ban Internet access. According to RSF, the worst enemies of the internet are countries in which Internet users must use a single state-run Internet service provider. These countries are Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia and Vietnam. RSF specifically mentioned China's blocking of dissident and international news Web sites. VOA listeners in China tell us they cannot access the VOA Web site in that country. USA Digital Radio, or USADR, is a consortium of broadcasters and electronics manufacturers who hope to develop a standard for digital radio broadcasting in the United States. The system would be in-band, on-channel, or IBOC, meaning that analog and digital signals will coexist on the same AM and FM frequencies until analog radio receivers are finally replaced by digital sets. USADR is beginning the final phase of testing by transmitting digital signals on ten FM and AM stations in five cities. This includes, in Washington, three FM stations and the all-news AM station WTOP, 1500 kilohertz. I have let USADR know that I am keen to ride in their receiver testing van and to get some recordings of analog versus digital reception. USADRžs main rival, Lucent Digital Radio, has already begun tests on a noncommercial FM radio station in New Jersey, using equipment manufactured by the Armstrong Transmitter Corporation. On Wednesday, Iridium, the Washington-based global telephone service using 66 low earth orbiting satellites, defaulted on 1.5 billion dollars of loans. The company is considering options to reorganize its capital structure. Iridium has not been able to meet its goals for numbers of subscribers and revenue. Amid this financial uncertainty, Iridium will soon face competition from Globalstar, its main rival in the global satellite telephony business. That was the media news on Communications World. For VOA News Now, I'm Kim Elliott in Washington. OMTAPE: CUT 7 (:28) CD: Science & Beyond, track 18 (fade out at 1:00) Segment B OMTAPE: CUT 8 KIM: Last week in this segment, we discussed the objections of some U.S. television broadcasters, led by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, to the digital television transmission now being developed in the United States. Specifically, Sinclair and its allies believe that the 8-VSB modulation scheme will not permit adequate reception for urban viewers using indoor antennas. They would like the Federal Communications Commission to give serious consideration to changing to the European COFDM modulation system. Now Sinclair has sharply criticized the Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association ž CEMA -- for proposing a new radio and data broadcasting service using spectrum now occupied by UHF television channels 60 through 69, channels which will be abandoned with the changeover from analog to digital television. This proposed new system would use the COFDM modulation scheme to allow mobile reception. At the same time, CEMA supports the 8-VSB system for digital television. Sinclair contends that CEMA is more interested in creating a competing broadcasting service than in improving reception on digital television receivers. CEMA calls its proposed system the Mobile Multimedia Broadcast Service. The specific frequency ranges are 746 to 764 and 776 to 794 megahertz. For details about this proposal, I spoke to Michael Petricone, CEMAžs director of technology policy. TAPE: CUT 1 (6:00) KIM: Michael Petricone in director of technology policy at the Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association. CEMAžs Web site is http://cemacity.org . Thatžs charlie-echo-mike-alpha-charlie-india-tango-yankee. The Sinclair Broadcast Group Web site is http://www.sbgi.com. Thatžs sierra-barvo-gulf-india. For VOA News Now, Ižm Kim Elliott in Washington. Segment C OMTAPE: CUT 10 KIM: Wednesday saw the full eclipse of the sun over parts of Europe and Asia. Many people in Europe were disappointed because clouds obscured their attempts to see the eclipse during the moment of totality. For those of us of the radio persuasion, clouds are no problem during eclipses. In fact, we don't even have to be close to the places where the eclipse is occurring. Shortwave propagation is affected by daylight versus darkness. Because an eclipse causes momentary darkness, unusual reception is possible. At the suggestion of Dan Ferguson of the VOA Frequency Division, Merlin Communications had a special transmission of BBC World Service Wednesday at 9 to 11 Universal Time on 7325 kilohertz. Becaise 7325 is in the lower portion of the shortwave spectrum, that frequency would normally propagate over long distances only at night. At 9 Universal Time, it was dark here in Washington, but it is usually daylight in the U.K. and in the North Atlantic. Because of the daylight to darkness situation, we usually cannot hear Europeans on any frequency during the pre-dawn hours. At 9 UTC, I tuned to 7325 and barely heard a carrier. By 930, however, the signal had increased dramatically, and at 10 it was fair and usable. TAPE: CUT 2 (sneak at *, to :21 then fade under to Kim and lose) KIM: By 11 UTC, the signal on 7325 was again virtually inaudible. I'm not sure if this was due to the end of the eclipse, or the fact that it was now daylight here in Washington. Joe Buch of the North American Shortwave Association, in southeastern Virginia, noticed similar reception. He cautions, however, that some of the increase of signal may be due to post-sunrise enhancement, a phenomenon which improves some shortwave signals just after local sunrise. Thanks to those of you in Europe who sent e-mails with reports of reception during the eclipse. Nicholas Mead In Helston, in Cornwall, lives near where the eclipse was total. Obviously he went to the cliffs to watch the eclipse rather than stay home to listen to the radio. But he did have the tape recorder running, and his radio tuned to 1575 kilohertz medium wave, which is usually silent during the day. When Nicholas returned and played the tape, he heard clear reception of Radio Pamplona in Spain. A bit later he heard his real target, Radio North Sea International, from Clacton in Essex. RNI, named after the famous offshore station of the 1970s, is a restricted license station operating with very low power. Nicholas would normally have no chance of hearing this station day or night. In Reading, Dave Kenny of the British DX Club also noticed several medium wave stations around Europe had suddenly and briefly enhanced signals, include RNE La Coruna in Spain on 639 kilohertz, and Vatican Radio on 1029. Klaus Nindel in Dresden also noticed medium wave stations, normally weak during the day, picking up during the eclipse. This includes his reception of the VOA relay at Munich on 1197 kilohertz, which he said had an echo effect during his reception. Klaus, that might have been caused by receiving 1197 by groundwave and skywave simultaneously. Kai Ludwig took the train to Karlsruhe to observe the eclipse. He also listened from 1005 to 1048 Universal Time, noticing openings to the west at the beginning of that period, including Wolvertem, Belgium, on 1512. At 1042, stations to the east were coming through,in including Thessaloniki, Greece, on 1044. Kai would have identified other stations audible from the east, but he had to catch his train back home. During any interesting event, such as an eclipse or severe weather, Internet audio is also a useful medium. It allows you to listen to local radio stations at places where the event is happening. And so while my shortwave radio was tuned to 7325, I pointed my Web browser to the live audio stream of BBC Radio 5. Radio 5 had reporters on both sides of the English Channel, each checking in at the point of totality moved from west to east. This Radio 5 reporter was at Fort Albert, on Alderny, in the Channel Islands. TAPE: CUT 3 (in full to :50 then fade under to Kim and lose) KIM: From the eclipse let's turn to your e-mails about music. Lester Bearcroft in England has been looking into the jazz programs produced by Russ Davis, host of the new Jazz America program on VOA Music Mix. Russ Davis also produces a program called "New York Jazz Week" on Jazz FM in England. Lester found out in an e-mail from Mr. Davis himself that "Jazz America" and "New York Jazz Week" are two entirely different programs. Lester says Jazz FM has transmitters in Manchester on 100.4 megahertz and in London on 102.2. In his town of Chelmsford, he can hear the London outlet with a good stereo signal. Lester says that everyone in Chemsford has 4 or 5 element VHF yagi antennas strapped to their chimneys and pointed to the BBC transmitting site at Rootham, 48 kilometers away. Those antennas also provide good reception of London FM stations. The "New York Jazz Week" programs is on Sunday evening at 19 hours, according to Lester, and I think he means 19 hours local time rather than UTC. Lester was also surprised to hear Judy Massa's Border Crossings program when he was tuning on shortwave at 19 Universal Time. Yes, Judy, after persistent effort, was able to get some shortwave frequencies for her program. That's Monday through Friady at 19 to 20 Universal Time on 9565, 9840, 11700, 11970, 12015, 13725, and 15235 kilohertz. Mark Hawkins in London is something of a record collector, and he and I have been trying to track down an minor instrumental hit of 1968 called "Soul Coaxing," by Raymond Lefevre and his Orchestra. No, this has nothing to do with radio, but we do digress occasionally on Communications World. Mark finally found "Soul Coaxing" on a CD called "North of Watford, Volume 3 -- 24 rare pop and soul classics, 1966 to 1992." TAPE: CUT 4 KIM: That's Soul Coaxing on the scratchy old mono LP record from the VOA music library. We'll play it in the background while I invite you to write about radio, and any other subject. My address is Communications World, Voice of America, Washington, D.C. 20547 USA. The postal code again is 20547. E-mail to cw at voa dot gov. That's cw for Communications World at voa for Voice of America dot gov for government. And please visit the Communications World Web page. There is a link at www dot voa dot gov. Or the direct URL is www.trsc.com/cw. That's www. dot tango-romeo-sierra-charlie dot charlie-oscar-mike slash charlie-whiskey. There you can find the script for today's and previous programs. The updated Communications World schedule. And links to the program in RealAudio format. For VOA News Now, I'm Kim Elliott in Washington. TAPE: CUT 4 (back up)
-----------------------------
Last revision 15 August 1999 |