SatSig topic:

Transponder lease for audio broadcast Africa

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Aug 22^nd, 2008 at 10:37am

We are 7 radio stations in Malawi Africa who have teamed up together to distribute our audio signal for FM terrestial transmission via satellite. So we are looking for space on an satellite with a foot print in our country.

Please contact me direct on my email address artiesithole@yahoo.co.uk this is urgent

Thank you

Artwell Sithole

Aug 22^nd, 2008 at 12:41pm

There is some excellent Africa to Africa transponder capacity available here: ( link deleted - this referred to NSS-7 south africa Ku band spotbeam ) Price was really low at $440 per month per 100 kHz in Feb 2007. Ask for latest prices. Note it may be difficult to lease under 1 MHz, but it is worth asking.

I have looked at this type of broadcast requirement for sound distribution to remote terrestrial radio transmitter sites in Africa several times before and have found it difficult to identify suitable modems.

I operated a dual audio sound broadcast system very successfully using Wegener DR-95 receivers with two high quality mono audios in 128 kbit/s FEC=1/2 BPSK. Unfortunately the equipment is all now obsolete and 1/2 rate BPSK is hopelessly price inefficient.

Cheap DVB-S satellite TV/audio receivers seem attractive till one discovers that you need to transmit mulitiple signals to make up a minimum bit rate of 2 Mbit/s. This is the way to go if you want to broadcast many audio and TV programs. Can you cable your audio to some uplink location nearby where multiple TV/audios are already being uplinked to satellite ?

If anyone knows good ways of converting high quality audio to digital and back again, please say here.

Best regards, Eric.

Aug 25^th, 2008 at 1:54pm

I know that the equipment from https://www.stl-ip.com/ works really well, it can also make use of the multicast capabilities of an IP platform such as iDirect. This means that it should be reasonably easy to work with almost any service provider/hub operator to deliver such a service. Let me know if you need more information.

Aug 26^th, 2008 at 8:39am

Thanxs eric for the reply and advice I thoght it was easy to get space I am begining to see its a mountain to climb I have sent out lots emails looking for satellite space.

We have a problem of distributing our signals to our transmitter sites so we feel going satellite is the answer as we will be able to downlink our signal anywhere.

So if there is someone who can advice on the best capacity of uplinking 7 stereo audio channels.

Aug 26^th, 2008 at 8:51am

The https://www.stl-ip.com/ idea is a brilliant one and I have asked the company for price quotes for multiple units.

Please clarify your requirement. Do you want to uplink 7 stereo channels, all from one site or do 7 sites each want to uplink one stereo channel ?

How many simultaneous signals need to be received at each site.

Best regards, Eric.

Aug 26^th, 2008 at 9:51am

Our requirement is satellite uplink equipment + Satellite space as i have said we are 7 radio station which have teamed up togther to uplink our signals on satellite then downlink it for terrestial fm transmission at different sites across our country Malawi.

So we want to uplink 7 stereo channels from one site and receive them from different sites.

Aug 26^th, 2008 at 10:45am

Would this do what you want ?

Main site: Transmits 7 stereo audio programs.
Uses STL-IP-16 to multiplex 14 analogue audio channels (7 stereo) into one ethernet stream of IP packets.

Other sites. Each site receives all 7 stereo audio programs. Uses STL-IP-16 to extract 14 audio channels (7 stereo) into 14 analogue cables.

There will be a single broadcast carrier on the satellite, one way, from the Main site to all the Other sites.

You will see from the https://www.stl-ip.com/stl-ip-16-features.html web site that a wide variety to bit rates per audio are possible, each with an associated quality.

Assuming 64kbit/s per mono audio, the composite of 7 stereo channels makes a total of 896 kbit/s. With packet header overhead this is adding up to around 1 Mbit/s total, or $4400 per month for satellite capacity.

Would mono operation be acceptable to reduce the satellite cost by half ?

iDirect VSAT as been successfully integrated in a similar configuration, with the added facility of occasional uplinking from the remote sites. Remote telemetry to monitor equipment at the remote transmitters is also possible.

Are your 7 originating program studios all in the same town ? If not, where are they located ? Can one of these locations provide roof or ground space for the multiplex uplink (hub) dish ? Can that hub location receive excellent quality off-air FM signals from the other 6 nearby studios ? Alternatively, can all the studios be physically wired to the uplink dish site ?

Please say if there is any misunderstanding of your requirements.

Best regards, Eric.