BBC radio

[Peyu75]

Hello, colleagues. I am looking for information from which satellite the BBC's analog radio channels were broadcast in the 1990s, whether it was a 27.5W satellite or maybe one from the 9-10-16 E position.

 

[Burnham Beech]

My memory - fair chance it's wrong. My 1990s dish was aimed at the original Sky satellite, which was at 19°e.

At the time I got the very few Sky channels that were broadcasting, and various other early satellite offerings from 19°e - a few years before I got a motorised dish. I remember MTV was on that satellite.

As to radio, I can't remember ever using satellite to get radio in the 1990s, but if they were anywhere, BBC may have also been on 19°e .

 

[s-band]

From TeleSatellite, I think, 1992:
13E & 27.5W BBCWS various
Non-BBC UK on 19E

 

[SkyWatcher]

I remember and this is backed up by the web, the BBC broadcasting national radio stations on the UK Gold subcarriers on 19.2

There is a detailed explanation here on Page 3 https://www.bbceng.info/Eng_Inf/eng-inf-files/EngInf52.pdf

Somewhere i have a recording of The Treatment hosted by Stuart Maconie (which was excellen) on Radio 5 live from a Saturday night, back when it was still a decent station which I recorded from the satellite subcarrie.

 

[Peyu75]

great, this is what I was looking for. Thank you, colleagues.

 

[xyladecor]

Yes, Radio 1 was on Astra 19,2° too back in the 90s as a audiotrack on a usual TV programme, as it posted before it could be UK GOLD, yes. Have to grab some old INFOSAT magazines with their frequencylists, like it posted before.

I remember that i recorded Lamacq´s Radio 1 in concert, each monday night.

 

[Fisty McB]

From what I can recall from my teenage years, @SkyWatcher posted a link showing that initially the UK Gold transponder at 19E was used for four mono services - BBC Radio 1, Radio 4, Radio 5 & World Service. A little while later, four more sub-carriers were used on the UK Living transponder which then carried BBC Radio 1 & Radio 3 each in stereo (two aub-carriers each), while Radio 2 took the place where Radio 1 originally was on the UK Gold transponder, in mono. This arrangement stayed until both TV services left analogue satellite at 19E IIRC.

Others I can remember include the then Virgin Radio (now Absolute Radio, not the "new" Virgin) having stereo subcarriers on Sky News' transponder, and RTÉ Radio 1 in mono on VH-1's UK signal with WRN also on the same transponder.

 

[Channel Hopper]

The channel lineup in 1993 from the Astra flyer

Satellite television, the home entertainment medium of the future, allows everyone access to a wider choice of TV and radio programmes, many in stereo and with teletext. Broadcasts are extremely simple to receive and more than 3 million homes in the UK are now enjoying the benefits of satellite television. The satellite dish is the television dish of the future.
The full line-up of TV channels available via the ASTRA Satellite System is listed below.
Channel listing in transponder order.

1 RTL 2
2 RTL Television
3 TV3 (Sweden)
4 Eurosport
5 Vox
6 Sat-1
7 TV-1000
8 Sky One
9 Teleclub
10 3 Sat
11 Filmnet +
12 Sky News
13 RTL 4
14 Pro 7
15 MTV Europe
16 Sky Movies
17 Premiere
18 The Movie Channel
19 ARD - Das Erste
20 Sky Sports
21 DSF
22 MTV Europe
23 UK Gold
24 JSTV
25 N3
26 Sky Movies Gold
26 TV Asia
27 TV3 (Denmark)
28 CNN International
29 n-tv
30 Cinemania
31 TV3 (Norway)
32 Documania
33 ZDF
34 UK Living
35 The Children's Channel
35 The Family Channel
36 Sogecable 3
37 TNT/Cartoon Network
38 QVC
39 West 3
40 Sogecable 4
41 Country Music TV
41 The Discovery Channel
42 Bravo
42 The Adult Channel
43 MDR
44 Galavision
45 Bayern 3
46 Nickelodeon
46 TV Asia
47 Blank
48 S3 (SWF/SDR)

In addition to television programming, there are also more than 30 radio stations broadcasting from the ASTRA Satellite System. These include Virgin 1215 and BBC Radio 1, 4, 5, and World Service.

 

[Peyu75]

a great piece of beautiful history of analogue on satellite. Do your colleagues remember where, at what sat position, news services were broadcast punctually every hour with only news and these news services were received by local radio stations in Poland.

 

[steeviebops]

Here's a SATCODX chart from November 1996, showing the subcarriers on UK Gold and UK Living.

SATCO DX Chart: Astra 1A/1B/1C/1D/1E/1F at 19,2°E

 

[Adam792]

Interesting topic, thanks to @s-band for sharing that scan from 1992 showing the situation with the BBC World Service radio feeds on 27.5°W. I'd not heard of "BBC Electrique FM" before, it seems to have been a station that went out on FM in Paris in the 80s and early 90s, carrying 18 hours of BBC World Service content later on - SchooP | La mémoire de la FM > Les fiches radio > Electric FM - FM Plus (75) - www.schoop.fr

The various language sub-carriers must have been what got used to feed the BBC FM transmitters that sprung up in central and Eastern Europe at that time (Czechia, Slovakia, Romania etc).

A look through the web archive of Satcodx can be interesting, like @steeviebops has found. These BBC European feeds switched to digital pretty early on, using a low symbol rate transmission on Eutelsat II F4 (7°E) by the end of 1997 - SATCO DX Chart: Eutelsat II f4 M at 7,0°E

 

[Analoguesat]

I found an old hard drive lying in a box this afternoon. Once Id found where Id hidden my external caddy this popped up

It appears to have been scanned in May 2004 & the date on the sheet is April 1995

There are other scans including programming details for many of the channels if anyone is interested?

 

[lovelyperson]

Wow, certainly a great memory jogger......... the words re: 23.5* E.... 'the only location for Digital Satellite Radio'....really date it. Big thanks.