The 2007 Site News.
This is the news that was on the front page of the site during 2007. Ive shifted it here since it was taking up rather a lot of room.
27th December 2007: The 11 year old Measat 1 from Malaysia has drifted into the skies above Europe. No idea whats happening with it at the moment..
6th December 2007: According
to the German language Transponder News website, 10744H analogue will cease on December
31st.
This tp carries CNBC & TV Shop. CNBC has already reappeared mornings only on the Das
Vierte tp - 10714H.
29th November 2007: CNBC has appeared in the mornings on the Das Vierte frequency (10729V). This is in preparation for the analogue shutdown of 10744H which is to be digitalised in the near future :-(
18th November 2007: several bits of satellite
news to catch up on:
Astra 1C has been turned off at 4.6E
Astra 1D has moved from 23E to 31E and according to reports has been loaned / hired to the
Turksat operation. Shes currently operating a Turkish beam so is unavailable to western
Europe.
Sirius 4 was successfully launched from Baikonur last night and is heading for 5E.
8th November 2007: According to the Lyngsat sat tracker, Astra 1D was removed from 23.5E last week. Shes currently reported out near 33E and moving rapidly eastwards. :-( Has she been sent to junk orbit??
28th October 2007: There are rumours on several German language forums that 10744H on 19E (CNBC) will be closed in the near future and converted to digital for ARD expansion.
27th October 2007: Astra 1D
has been switched off at 23E. All traffic moved to 1E. There is no indication at the
moment of her fate
Astra 1B has been spotted by the Sat Obs lads - as usual with dead sats she is tumbling
slowly in her eternal orbit.
18th October 2007: Astra 1E has been lit up at 23.5E. Traffic is slowly being shifted over from 1D.
14th October 2007: Apologies
if you have been unable to get in this evening - Demon website hosting have been having
problems again.
Astra 1E has been withdrawn from 19E and has a new home at 23.5E. She will be replacing
the elderly Astra 1D
4th October 2007: Today is the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik 1. The Russian satellite was the very first man made satellite launched. Sputnik 1. Sputnik weighed just over 180 pounds. The 22-inch aluminum sphere, scarcely wider in diameter than a modern home satellite dish, orbited the Earth every 96 minutes and was launched from what is now Baikonur
3rd October 2007: The final 5 channels have been removed from Astra 1E and she has been turned off. Phoenix (11009V) / WDR (11053H) / Viva (11127V) / Tele 5 (11553H) / NDR (11582H). All have moved over onto Astra 1L.
2nd October 2007: 2 more channels removed from Astra 1E. Das Erst (11494H) has moved to 1KR, RBB Brandenburg (11656H) has moved to 1L
30th September 2007: 4 channels switched from Astra 1E to Astra 1KR (Sonnenklar 11464H / DSF 11523H / MTV 11621H / NTV 11641H) This must be in preparation for 1E moving to 23E.
29th September 2007: The elderly Arabsat 2B at 30.5E has suffered a minor glitch, and drifted off station. She has ended up at 29E. Oops!
25th September 2007: WDR are reported to be looking to shut down their 19E analogue channel at some point soon due to the high running costs....
19th September 2007: The solitary analogue testcard on 10832H on Astra 1D at 23E has been turned off. :-(
14th September 2007: Sept 16th sees the 20th anniversary of the launch of Optus A3 which is currently slotted at 31.5E. She is radiating a few low powered test signals for SES Astra.
4th September 2007: All quiet recently.
25th August 2007: Astra 2C fired up with the first blank test carriers at 28E yesterday.
19th August 2007: More dead European broadcast sats spotted by the sat obs boys: Hispasat 1A, Eutelsat 2F3, DFS 1, Eutelsat 2F2
11th August 2007: Astra 2C has been removed from 19E and is on her way to 28E :-) The chart has been updated to reflect the current situation at 19E
1st August 2007: Numerous changes at 19E in
the last couple of weeks whilst Ive been in Crete - Astra 1L has come into service causing
a big swap around of channels:
10714H Kika-Primetime / 10759V QVC moved to Astra 1KR
10964H - ZDF / 10994H - Arte / 11141H Bayerischen Fernsehen / 11171H 1-2-3.tv moved
to Astra 1L,
14th July 2007: As a follow up to the dead satellite observations noted last week, Turksat 1B has also been spotted :-)
July 11th 2007: SES have released a press release stating Astra 1L is ready for service at 19E. There will be a channel shuffle in the near future, since 1L cannot cover the low "band D" analogue channels that 2C carries, It is known that Astra 2C will be moving to 28E in the autumn, and Astra 1E will be redeployed to 23E probably around the same time.
July 10th 2007: Yesterday was the 45th anniversary of the launch of Telstar 1 - the first proper communications satellite. Amazingly she is still up there circling the Earth - lost forever with burned out transistors (the damage was caused by large amounts of extra radiation in the atmosphere thanks to a high altitude Yankee nuclear test the previous day!) Some info here
6th July 2007: Ive just been
browsing the Sat-Obs astronomy site. The lads over there have made the following recent
observations of satellites that have operated in European skies:
Astra 1A, Gals 2, Telecom 1C, Arabsat 2A, Hotbird 1, Hellassat 1 Thaicom 3, Intelsat
604, Eutelsat 1F5, Express AM11 Telecom 2B.
All are noted as flashing so are tumbling slowly through space as they drift
16th June 2007: The counter on the front page of the site passed 125,000 today :-)
30th May 2007: CNN have now confirmed that they wont be leaving analogue on June 4th :-)
28th May 2007: The demise of CNN has been confirmed by the Media Network weblog - update 30th May - article since removed
27th May 2007: There are some nasty rumours going around that CNN will leave 19E analogue on June 4th ....
15th May 2007: Hotbird 2 has been redeployed to 9E & renamed Eurobird 9
12th May 2007: Voyages has left its timeshare slot on 10744H on 19E.
27th April 2007 Thor 6 ordered on April 24th.Preliminary details added to the Thor comparison page.
14th April 2007: We have a
new channel!! TMC (Television MonteCarlo) has started on Atlantic Bird 3 at 5W
(11475V audio 5.8MHz) in the usual SECAM
WRN Deutsche is reported to be shutting down their analogue radio service on June 5th.
29th March 2007: Alison
Jarvis has emailed to say the Pixmania
website is currently selling new analogue receivers for £20 plus postage.
Heres a real blast from the past - the Rewind virtual
museum has some really old satellite kit on it! - Including analogue kit with dial
tuning!!
24th March 2007: Some information about the demise of Hotbird 1. In August 2006, Eutelsat began redeployment away from 13E. She was known to be low on fuel, but the Eutelsat tech boys thought she had around a year left. She was being sent to 25.5E to back up Eurobird 2 (ex Hotbird 5). By August 31st Eutelsat had to admit they did not know how much fuel was on board but Hotbird 1 may well not be redeployed to 25.5E. The final fuel level assessment was obviously too low for safety and poor old Hotbird 1 was consigned to oblivion in junk orbit instead :-(
Some old Sky idents :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ13gVPReOU sky
sports
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjdpCm6jkck sky news
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mv77NDIL6c0 sky movies
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBE38Qo42sA sky movies gold
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeHwydbkA7U sky travel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWvdvuk1I64 sky one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaTEbjIJqD4sky soap
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaTEbjIJqD4 sky movies 1995
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0j3eQombGU sky sports 1995
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6dw_gcRtLE Sky Sports Two 1995
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ5_TD7m_Ps sky sports gold 1995
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoPvh6SwTYs sky travel 1995
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BNsVKfGWH4 sky news 1995
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiKXcyWoHHU sky one 1995
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6U8mrGeWCs sky one primetime
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1bs89c0zTA sky premier 98
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQP3LCez1O4 sky moviemax 98
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKNmAWjLllU sky launch ad2
15th March 2007: Eurobird 10 (ex Hotbird 3) has been moved to 4E and renamed again - to Eurobird 4.
14th March 2007: Hotbird 2 was switched off last night and all traffic was transferred to Hottie 8. Eutelsat have announced they have detected an anomaly in the power sub systems, so turned her off as a precaution. None of the relic analogue services were affected, only digital channels.
11th March 2007: Ive been highly amused to find that this website is cited 3 times in the Wikipedia online encyclopedia! Once each for the Madely Earth Station page, Chris Wathans page of how analogue was run down in favour of digital and finally for the BSB/Sky merger page :-)
10th March 2007: Thanks to Kay Batholomaus Ive got the closedown information from the last few moments of the very final D2Mac channel - goodbye to DR2 on 1st July last year. Sadly there wasnt any farewell announcement, the transponder was turned off mid programme!
8th March 2007: All quiet recently.
20th February 2007: some
satellite updates. Thor forthcoming Thor II-R has been redesignated Thor 5 (what happened
to Thor 4??)
Hotbird 1 is in junk orbit - all mention has been removed from the Eutelsat website and
according to the Lyngsat sat tracker shes out over the Pacific.
At 26E, Badr 3 & 4 will take over all traffic from Eurobird 2 during March
Astra 1C has moved to 4.6E and is on air with very strong digital test signals.
16th February 2007: Very quiet on the analogue scene recently, but Ive added the test card currently running off Astra 1D.
2nd February 2007: Cuatro
has ceased off Hispasat 1D 12591H. :-( Hispasat falls off from the list of
satellites with active analogue channels.
Megavision has ceased off Astra 1F 11436V. The transponder has been reconfigured to
radiate digital signals.....
14th January 2007: 19E music
channel Viva Plus has been sacrificed and replaced by Comedy Central on 11303H
Radio channel SWR3 closed New Years Eve as expected.
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