If you ask me a question, that as a forest officer, how would I entertain myself in a remote forest where there is no electricity, no television, no magazines, no newspapers to read, and no friends to talk to, I would reply by saying, ''I LISTEN TO ROCK, POP, JAZZ, INDIAN AND WESTERN CLASSICAL MUSIC, FILM SONGS BOTH OLD AND NEW, COMEDY SHOWS AND LIVELY DISCUSSIONS, IN STATIC-FREE STEREO SOUND.''
Surprised?.....Very much possible with the advent of satellite radio! The next time you go trekking, you can include one in your back pack too. Infact, some of my friends who spend their time in scuba-diving and researching the coral reefs off the coast of Andamans, tell me that this is their only mode of entertainment.
The idea of satellite radio was first floated in the U.S., keeping the sailors on high-seas in mind. It was felt that there should be a mechanism by which radio programs are made available to them irrespective of their geographical location.
Meanwhile, an Ethiopean (yes...not Japanese, not German) named Noah Samara, who had made it big as a lawyer in the United States, was seriously thinking in the 1980's about providing an information medium to all those millions of Africans affected by HIV, and wanted a mechanism by which an awareness campaign could be launched even in the remotest parts of Africa.
After 10 years of research, a mechanism was developed wherein digital radio signals could be beamed from the geo-stationary satellites standing above the earth to the radio-receivers in our homes, just as in case of television. Since the signal is digital, this kind of transmission would not have any static (noisy interference) unlike the FM transmission. Following this, in 1992, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission allocated a spectrum in the ''S'' band (2.3 GHz) for nationwide broadcasting of satellite-based Digital Audio Radio Service (DARS). In 1997, FCC gave permission to two companies, the CD Radio (now Sirius Satellite Radio), and the American Mobile Radio (now XM Satellite Radio run by Sony), to undertake such broadcasting. Today there are three satellite-radio broadcasters in the world. While the Sirius Satellite Radio (has two satellites) and the XM Satellite Radio (has three satellites) concentrate upon the U.S., the third company, WorldSpace, which is Noah Samara's own and has two satellites (Afristar & Asiastar), concentrates on Asia and Africa.
Each of the WorldSpace satellites transmits three ''signal beams'' (=signal foot-prints of a satellite transponder). It is from the southern and western beams of AsiaStar that the listeners in south India get the WorldSpace signals. There is minor variation in the channels broadcast from the southern and western beams of Asiastar though, as each beam gets customized programming content for the audience of different regions of Asia. Each beam inturn would have two "carrier-frequencies" (=polarization that splits each foot-print into two). Thus south India gets about four ''carrier-frequencies'', two from each beam (numbered 54 & 58, 75 & 80). Each carrier-frequency is capable of accommodating about 20 channels. Each channel can again accommodate upto 8 different programs (2x20x8=320 programs from each beam). Some of the channels are meant for downloading data in the form of music and multimedia, given that your WorldSpace receiver is equipped with a data-port. Each beam covers about 5.4 million square miles or 14 million square kms of geographical area. The frequency range of the channels is in 1,467 MHz -1,492 MHz segment of the L-Band spectrum.
There are millions of people living in WorldSpace's projected listening area who cannot pick up a signal from a conventional radio station, and it is estimated that WorldSpace has a potential audience of about 4.6 billion listeners spanning five different continents. Some of the channels on WorldSpace are free-to-listen. Others now require annual subscription (it was not the case when I bought my receiver in 2001). There are yet others which demand an additional premium fee, the so called Gold Package.
Coming to the choice of the receivers available, WorldSpace has given licences to companies like Joy-ear, Tonghsi, Polytron, JVC, Hitachi, Panasonic, Sanyo, and BPL to manufacture the receivers. These companies manufacture the receivers while adhering to the basic standards laid down by WorldSpace. All these receivers can run on batteries, and are connectible to your existing home-stereo through line inputs.
There are two kinds of antennas available to be used along with the Worldspace receiver, the Book-Antenna, and the Yagi-Antenna (which is similar to a TV antenna in looks). While the book-antenna is compact and portable (good for carrying in back-packs for picnics & treks), the reception with Yagi-Antenna is the best. In either case, you have to point the antenna towards open south-eastern sky, such that the antenna is in line of sight with the satellite. You can easily do it with little practice, watching the signal meter on your receiver.
So far Worldspace receivers remained unusable on mobile platforms (such as cars) since the ''line of sight'' criteria can not be fulfilled in a car. This technological barrier has been reportedly overcome recently, and a Chinese company called Jast ( http://www.jast.ch) is now manufacturing car-antennae for the Worldspace Radio.
CRITICISM:
1.) Though the satellite radio companies including Worldspace would have you believe that their transmission is of "near CD quality", it is never so, owing to the limited bandwidth available for this mode of transmission. To transmit more channels in the limited bandwidth available, the digital signal is severely compressed. The sound quality never even approaches that of a well recorded 128 kbps MP3, not to speak of a CD. The strength of Worldspace is its content, particularly of the channels like Maestro & Riff, and its accessibility from locations where terrestrial radio transmissions are not available, and not its sound quality.
2.) I personally feel (the reader is free to differ) that advertisements too are part of the entertainment in radio, and listeners in India would have enjoyed the "Vividh Bharathi" format (advertisement - song - advertisement sequence) better. That would have also made many Worldspace channels free to the regular radio listener, and brought in a dedicated fan following for the Worldspace Radio from the rural folks. Presently, Worldspace Radio follows advertisement-free, pay-for-listening business model.
3.) The channels are not well thought of. For example, there is hardly any need for separate channels for 1960’s rock, 1970’s rock and 1980’s rock, especially when each redundant channel requires further digital compression to be employed to accommodate it, and further deteriorates the sound quality. A channel such as BOB that already broadcasts rock-music, could have contained programming content of each vintage. Worldspace Radio needs to take a serious look into the layout of their channels, the programming content, and the RJ-ing. There is a difference between RJs and "announcers"!!!
