| Communications World Script: 29 July 2000 Links open in a new browser Some material below, marked in italics, was broadcast in the half-hour edition only. Segment A OMTAPE: (:17) KIM: Welcome to Communications World for the weekend of July 29th, 2000. Later in the program, a review of John Figliozzi's book, The Worldwide Shortwave Listening Guide. And your chance to win one of five copies of the book -- so have your pen or keyboard ready. Listener feedback, too, including a discussion of GPRS via GSM. I'll explain later, but first, the media news. I am especially pleased to inform you that as of Saturday of this weekend, VOA News Now, and specifically Communications World, is now restored to Africa Saturday at 2130 to 22 Universal Time. Frequencies are 6035, 7375, 7415, 11975, 15410, 15445, 15580, and 17785, plus 909 kilohertz medium wave to southern Africa. The 1530 kilohertz medium wave to central Africa will not be available Saturday at 2130 to 22. Try those shortwave frequencies even if you are not in Africa. To free up funds for this restored half hour, News Now to Africa Monday through Friday at 11 to 1130 is canceled. Some VOA listeners may be suprised this weekend by other transmission and program changes instituted with less than a week's notice. For example, at 2133 Saturday, listeners in central Europe expecting to hear Communications World on 1197 kilohertz medium wave, will be hearing instead VOA Bosnian. The following changes on 1197 are effective Saturday of this weekend: VOA News Now replaces VOA Polish at 20 to 21 Universal Time, VOA Serbian replaces News Now at 21 to 2130, and VOA Bosnian replaces News Now at 2130 to 22. Friday was the last day on the air for the majority of broadcasters in the VOA Polish, Hungarian, Czech, Slovene, Latvian, and Lithuanian services. These services are now greatly reduced in staff size and daily output as part of a reorientation of language priorities ordered by the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors. Here are the last few seconds of the VOA Polish broadcast on Friday... TAPE: VOA listeners expecting this weekend to hear one of the repeats of Talk to America will instead hear this TAPE: "On the Line" is a weekly discussion program produced by the International Broadcasting Bureau's Office of Policy, which also writes the daily editorials heard on VOA. Last week, the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee called for more policy programming in English on VOA, and the committee report specifically mentioned On the Line. On the Line has not been heard in English on VOA since the News Now format began in May 1998. It has continued on Worldnet-TV, and the content of then program has been translated by some VOA non-English services. The schedule for On the Line on VOA News Now is Saturday at 633, 1433, and 2233, and Sunday at 233, 1033, and 1833 Universal Time. And beginning Monday, the number of editorials broadcast on VOA News Now will also increase. The editorials will be heard at additional 555 and 2355 Universal Time Monday through Friday. Saturday and Sunday, the editorial will be heard every four hours, beginning at 255. The VOA English-language program Zimbabwe Forum, heard daily at 1730 to 18 Universal Time, was canceled Friday. The program began June 19th to focus on the Zimbabwean elections. Funding, which came from the Open Policy Institute of the Soros Foundation, has ended. Daily correspondent reports from Zimbabwe will continue on VOA English-to-Africa news programs. On 909 kilohertz medium wave to southern Africa, Talk to America returns Monday through Friday at 1730 to 18, VOA Portuguese to Africa Saturday at Sunday at that same time. The substitute shortwave frequency of 17580 kilohertz for Talk to America, which was heard far and wide with a good signal at 17 to 18, also ended Friday. Another cancellation in special broadcasts to southern Africa. Andy Sennitt of Radio Netherlands, quoted in Glenn Hauser's DX Listening Digest, announced that the relays of Angola's Radio Eccl‚sia via Radio Netherlands shortwave transmitters, have ended. A live feed of Radio Ecclesia is still available on the Internet. And the Web site of the Clube Dxista da Amazônia in Brazil has this mp3 excerpt of the station. TAPE: CUT 1 (1sneak at *, full to :13, then fade under to Kim and lose) KIM: That's when it was on 15175, at 19 UTC, via Flevo in the Netherlands. CD: Polynesia, track 3 (sweep at :50, establish then under to Kim and lose) Back to VOA home news. Three 90-meter-tall towers of the former VOA relay facility at Lualualei, Hawaii, were dismantled on July 21st. That site relayed VOA and other U.S. government broadcasts to East Asia from World War II until the 1960s. The towers, on what is now a U.S. Navy communications facility, were rusting and susceptible to collapse during a hurricane. According to the Honolulu Advertiser newspaper, the towers were last painted in 1972 by a sailor names Riggers, who left his mark at the base of one of them. However, I wonder about that, because people who work on large antenna systems are called riggers. Perhaps it was a group signature. This item from the Honolulu Advertiser, July 21st, via Brock Whaley, via Glenn Hauser. I found on the Web a picture of Lualaulei, Hawaii, which shows the transmitting towers. I have a link to it at the script for todays's program at the Communications World Web site. CASS: One more news item with something of a VOA connection. Finger Lakes Productions of Ithaca, New York, is owner of Radio Voyager, the 24-hour international contemporary music service modeled after the old VOA Europe. Presently, Radio Voyager includes in its programs the same CNN radio news summaries that we hear on radio stations in the United Stations. Now Finger Lakes and CNN have agreed to create a new service, CNN Now, with news summaries focusing more on world news and less on U.S. domestic affairs. This will be distributed by Fingers Lakes to radio stations worldwide, and heard on Radio Voyager, beginning sometime later this year. The CNN Now newscasts are two minutes long on the hour, and one minute on the half hour, and they are targeted to the 18 to 34 year old age group. BBC World Service and Worldspace announced Wednesday that World Service programs will continue to be heard on the Worldspace satellite radio broadcasting system. World Service programs have been heard on the Worldspace Afristar system for the past six months as an on-air test. On Afristar, BBC English and French will be transmitted on the West beam, English and Swahili on the southeast beam; on the Afristar northeast beam, World Service will have two channels, one in English and one in Arabic. Details are less specific about World Service programming on the Worldspace Asiastar satellite, but Worldspace says it will consist of English and major regional languages such as Hindi. BBC World Service said it "remains committed to maintaining its global shortwave distribution as the most effective means of reaching the largest possible audiences." However, Chris Gill, BBC Controller for Technology an Resources, said Worldspace provides World Service with an exciting opportunity for the delivery of programming in digital quality. BBC World Service is paying Worldspace an undisclosed amount for access to the Afristar and Asiastar channels. Via the Sat-ND Web site, The Nation newspaper of Kenya reported that Worldspace has launched a 400 thousand dollar marketing campaign to boost the sales of its receivers in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. The newspaper reports four thousand of the receivers have been sold since December 1999. The campaign includes a 25 percent reduction of the price of Worldspace receivers, so they now cost between 245 and 312 dollars. CART: Fidelio (establish then fade under to Kim and lose) In other international broadcasting news, Deutsche Welle has extended the lease of its 36 megahertz C band transponder on the AsiaSat 2 satellite. DW sublets this transponder to a bouquet of European television stations including the French-language TV5, Italy's RAI International, TVE of Spain, and MCM of Paris. International radio services using the transponder include DW, RAI Italy, Radio Exterior de Espana, Radio France International, Radio Netherlands, Swiss Radio International, YLE Radio Finland, Radio Canada International, and World Radio Network. This is a C-band transponder, requiring a larger receiving dish, thus it's more for relay purposes than direct-to-home use. Radio France International and Cameroon Radio and Television signed and agreement July 21st for the relay of RFI broadcasts on FM in Yaounde, Douala, and Bafoussam. RFI said the broadcasts will be "essentially cultural and musical," and they will be in both French and English because of Cameroon's bilingual nature. Spain's Radio Nacional de Espana began digital radio broadcasting on Tuesday. RNE's Radio One and Radio Five are available as digital transmissions in Madrid, and Radios One and Four in Barcelona. As elsewhere in Europe, an impediment to the adoption of digital terrestrial radio is the cost of the receivers, about 800 dollars. This item from Spain's TVE Internacional via BBC Monitoring. CD: Trekking, track 8 (establish then under to Kim and lose) KIM From the Communications World comparative television file: Perhaps to its credit, Botswana is one of the last countries not to have television. That will change this week, when the Botswana Television Service begins operation. There will be a launching ceremony in the national stadium in Gabarone Saturday of this weekend. Radio Botswana reported regular transmission will begin Monday, but the Daily News web site in Gaborone said that for financial reasons, the programs will begin August first. But that's a difference of only one day. Both Botswana TV items were via BBC Monitoring. Afghanistan used to have television, but it was shut down by the Taliban government when it captured the capital Kabul in 1996. In fact, it is illegal to own a television set in that country. Echo of Moscow Radio reports that the Taliban information minister has rejected press reports that television might be re-introduced in Afghanistan. Thanks to Sergei Sosedkin for translating and sending this item. CD: Futurezone, track 19 (establish then under to Kim and lose) KIM: News of new technologies. The big Internet story in the United States this week involved the court case against Napster, the popular and controversial Web site through which people share .mp3 music files. A federal district court judge ordered Napster to shut down after concluding that the service encourages a wholesale infringement of recording industry copyrights. Napster lawyers argued that the same federal laws that allow a person to copy a television program to a videotape also allow the copying of music via Napster. Napster is appealing the decision. The reception of Internet audio has become a bit more portable. The Sonicbox iM Remote Tuner is now available for sale. Using the iM Remote tuner from point A in your house, you can remotely access audio files from your personal computer at point B, even if it's in another room, and make the audio come out at a stereo or speaker at point C. The $100 hardware includes the remote tuner, which is 22 by 10 centimeters in size, there is a transmitter that you connect to your computer, and a receiver that you connect to the device where the sound will come out. http://www.sonicbox.com . The Japanese electronic manufacturer Aiwa is now offering a front panel input on all its car stereo receivers. This allows portable mp3 players to be heard through the car's speaker system. This is an analog input, so it can be connected to the earphone jack of any portable audio device, such as a cassette player -- or a portable shortwave radio. Aiwa car radios also have a feature that automatically tunes in a favorite radio program every day, even if a CD is playing, or the unit is switched off. Some significant recent developments concerning the access to media by blind persons. The National Federation of the Blind, based in Baltimore, agreed Wednesday to drop its lawsuits against America Online, the largest online and Internet provider in the United States. In return, AOL will makes the next version of its software accessible to the blind and will adopt companywide policies to make AOL services available to people with disabilities. On July 21st, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission adopted rules to make television more accessible to persons with visual disabilities. [See FCC press release.] Television broadcast stations affiliated with the four largest networks in the top 25 markets must make available at least 50 hours per quarter-year of described prime-time or children's programming. Described programming has an audio subchannel with narration describing the visual scenes of a television program. Cable and satellite television systems are also subject to rules about described program. As reported in Broadcasting and Cable magazine, this issue involved some controversy between two U.S. organizations of blind persons. The American Council for the Blind largely represents persons who lost their sight late enough in life to appreciate the descriptions provided by the audio subchannels, so they advocated described programming. The National Federation of the Blind primarily represents people who have been blind since birth. The NFB is less concerned with visual descriptions and instead asked the FCC to concentrate on descriptions of on-screen text, especially emergency warnings, such as approaching storms. The FCC ruling does include language about making critical details of emergency information available to the visually impaired. Segment B CD: Fresh, track 31 (establish then under to Kim and lose) KIM: This is Communications World on the Voice of America. I'm Kim Elliott in Washington. The latest edition of the Worldwide Shortwave Listening Guide, edited by John Figliozzi, has just been published. John edits a column for Monitoring Times magazine about international radio programming. English-language international radio programming is the focus of John's reference book. The 112 pages of the Worldwide shortwave Listening Guide are spiral bound, so the book lies flat on your desk while you are tuning your radio. After a concise nine pages of useful introductory material, the book quickly gets down to its task at hand: a minute-by-minute guide to what program is on what international radio station on what frequencies. This is done with tables with seven columns. The first column is the exact UTC start time of the program. The second column in the name of the station, and, if applicable, the stream. For example, VOA News Now is listed at VOAn, VOA English-to-Africa as VOAf. The next column indicates the day or days of the week the program is broadcast. Then a column with the name of the program and, if necessary, a description in parentheses. The next two columns indicate the target of the program transmission and a code denoting the program category, such as NX for news, or ST for science and technology. Finally, a column with the frequencies. The Guide lists programs directed to all parts of the world from about 100 shortwave broadcast stations. Those directed to North America are listed in bold type. But shortwave listeners know that shortwave transmissions directed to one part of the world are often heard in other parts of the world. So, for example, on page 62, at 1335, we see that Radio Romania International has on Sundays a program called Skylark, described in parentheses as Romanian folk music. It's coded MF, for folk and indigenous music, and it's beamed to Europe and the Americas. Frequencies are 15250, 15390, 17770, and 17790. In the last few pages of the book, there is a listing of ten categories of programs, such as programs about health and medicine, and listener mail and listener contact programs. For each category, these are arranged by station, then time; you have to go to the main section to get the frequency. In deference to the new technologies, John has a section about international radio via the Internet. And he lists Web URLs for the 100 stations represented in his book. CD: Fresh, track 38 (establish then under to Kim and lose) The Worldwide Shortwave Listening Guide is the most comprehensive and convenient guide to English programming on shortwave. It would be even more convenient if the programs were arranged by days as well as by time. But this would probably not be practical. Daily, weekday, and other multi-day programs would have to be listed on more than one page, making for a fatter and more expensive book. Also, any printed schedule of shortwave broadcasts soon becomes outdated by frequency and time changes. The World Wide Web would be a more suitable medium for such volatile information. But people are less inclined to pay for information received via the Web than from a print publication. In fact, an abbreviated version of John's program schedule information [the WWW Shortwave Listening Guide] is available at the Web site of the North American Shortwave Association. Using the Guide, one can find that there is some good programming to be heard among the generally uninspired fare heard on shortwave. In future editions, John might use a star or asterisk to indicate programs that he finds especially appealing. In past years, the Worldwide Shortwave Listening Guide was distributed through Radio Shack stores. Now John is publishing it independently. It's sold for 23 dollars postpaid worldwide, from Shortwave Listening Guide, 7101 North Ridgeway Avenue, Lincolnwood, Illinois, 60712 USA. It's also sold through the shortwave equipment distributors Grove Enterprises, Universal Radio, and C. Crane Company. I have links to those companies on the script for today's program. And I am holding a drawing to give away the Worldwide Shortwave Listening Guide to five lucky winners. Just send a postcard, or a latter, or an e-mail, telling me the day and time you are hearing this edition of Communications World, and the frequency, or satellite, or Web site. I'll repeat these requirements and give my postal and e-mail addresses at the end of the program. Segment C OMTAPE: CUT 10 (in full to :08 then open Kim's mic) Two listeners have written about an interesting new combination of technologies. Tracy Wood passed on an item from the America's Network Web site about GPRS, or General Packet Radio Service, via GSM, or Global System for Mobile Communications, the leading wireless digital technology. German GSM operator T-Mobil recently launched a GPRS system. It allows the access of data, such as what we now get from World Wide Web sites, on small wireless cell-phone-type devices. Australia's Telstra recently demonstrated GPRS via GSM at 50 kilobits per second. I have a link to information about GPRS via GSM from the GSMWorld Web site on the script for today's program. And Kjell-Ingvar Karlsson in Sweden just got the Ericsson MP3 Handsfree HPM-10, a accessory that works with GSM mobile telephones. Using it, K-I downloaded the DX show from World Beacon, 57 minutes of almost FM quality mono sound, roughly 10 megabits in size, in about 10 minutes. K-I asks, understandably, when will VOA have an MP3 feed? Well, for just this reason, the availability of Communications World as an mp3 file is one of my short-term goals. K-I sent a Web link for information about the Ericsson MP3 Handsfree, and I will put that on the script for today's program. Let's consider what's happening now to audio. With conventional radio and its portability, you have audio anywhere but not anytime. That is, radio does not have an on-demand feature, so you are beholden to the program schedule established by the radio station. With Internet audio, you have audio anytime, because of the on-demand feature, but not anywhere, because typically you are listening on a personal computer connected to landlines. Now, with high speed data connecting to mobile wireless devices, you now have audio anywhere and anytime. Someone correct me if my logic is deficient, but it seems like we are upon the pinnacle of convenience for the serious radio listener. CD: Trekking, track 25 (establish then under to Kim and lose) My interview two weeks ago with Arthur Liu of Multicultural Radio broadcasting, Incorporated, was mentioned at the DCRTV Web site, according to Dave Hughes, who maintains the site. DCRTV stands for District of Columbia Radio and Television, and it's a good sources of information about the local broadcasting scene in the Washington area. The URL is http://dcrtv.com. Good also to hear from Arthur Thanasayan, radio critic and columnist for The Star, the largest selling English-language newspaper in Malaysia. Arthur's column includes news about domestic radio in Malaysia, and program previews for some international radio stations. You can read it on the Web. The URL is http://thestar.com.my. Then do a search in the news section for Raves - r-a-v-e-s. I received an e-mail from Gary Spence, who says he is 19 years old but does not say where he's writing from. I'm guessing the U.K. because he wants to know if VOA would consider transmitting via the new Sky Digital satellite broadcasting service, which is very U.K. specific. Gary, I would guess not, because it is not presently part of VOA's mandate to broadcast in English, or in any other language for that matter, to western Europe. However, having said that, here's a e-mail from James Cridland, who writes that he listened to Communications World, in quality digital sound, via SkyDigital. I presume that is on the World Radio Network channel on SkyDigital. James is associated with the MediaUK Web site -- http://www.mediauk.com -- which has full listings of radio, television, magazines and newspapers in the Britain. CD: World.Net, track 34 (establish then fade under to Kim and lose) KIM: Two technical inquiries now, about or from Nigeria. Frankie Gittens sends an e-mail. I don't know where he's located, but his domain is caribits dot com, which would suggest the Caribbean. He read in the script for June third that MMDS wireless cable television is successful in Nigeria. He would like to communicate with someone in Nigeria who could tell him a lot more. MMDS is Multiple Multiplex Distribution System. It's like cable television, but wireless. Homes receive the multiple chanels using small antennas. MMDS never proved very successful in the United States as a competitor to cable television, but it is doing well in Nigeria and other African countries. Frankie, I will send you a link to a Web page about MMDS in Africa, and I'll also have that link on the script. And Sam Onyealisi in Nigeria wants to know if broadband Internet access via satellite is available in his part of the world. He asks because he does not have an Internet service provider in his locality. Sam, satellite broadband Internet is an industry that is just getting started globally. Some services, like Teledesic, will provide access using low earth orbiting satellites that will move around above your location in Nigeria. And there will probably also be Internet access from geostationary satellites, each always at the same point in your near southern sky. In either case, Internet access via satellite will almost certainly be subject to the telecommunications regulations and tariffs of Nigeria, and a Nigerian telecommunications partner will likely be involved. MMDS, which we just discussed, is also emerging as a medium for broadband Internet access in Africa, just as it is here in the United States. Let me close with this reminder: If you would like to win a copy of John Figliozzi's Worldwide Shortwave Listening Guide -- we're giving away five -- please send a postcard, or a letter, or an e-mail, telling me the day and time you are hearing this edition of Communications World, and the frequency, or satellite, or Web site. And, as always, your questions, suggestions, and observations about the media scene are welcome; they are a vital paryt of this program. My address is Communications World, Voice of America, Washington, D.C. 20237 USA. The postal code again is 20237. E-mail to c-w at v-o-a dot g-o-v. That's c-w for Communications World, at v-o-a for Voice of America, dot g-o-v for government. And please visit the Communications World web site. You can get there by way of the VOA home page, w-w-w dot v-o-a dot g-o-v. There you can find the script for this and previous programs. The updated Communications World schedule. And links to the program in RealAudio format. Thanks for listening. I'm Kim Elliott. Please join me again next week for Communications World. This is VOA, the Voice of America.
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