🚀 go-pugleaf

Has Satillite Television Reached Too Far?
Has it become a powerful weapon of the powerful states?
Programs relayed by it, do they have a place in some parts of the world?

As you read this some 12 channels, heavy with US content like
Black Entertainment Television Jazz
CNN International
VH1 (European Stream)
MTV (European Stream)
Select TV (mostly US movies)
ESPN International
Cartoon Network
TNT (mostly US movies, shows)
Hallmark Entertainment Network
Bloomberg Information TV
CNBC (European Stream)
Discovery Channel...

beam down to African from Panamsat (now merged with Hughes) as part of the MULTICHOICE TV Service - a DBS service originating at Randburg South Africa. None of the 3 x 24 hour news channels originates in Africa, save SABC TV.

Currently a DBS Service is being launched to Latin America (Mexico + Central & South America) it will carry CNN Latin America, but no local or regional 24hr news service. It will also be the place of launching of the regions first 24hr XXX network. 

There are plans afoot for the delivery of US and European programming to be delivered to the Arab World (Gulf States) when there is an adequate change in government to allow these services to be received. Most of these societies have only really left the industrial age, and have not really had time to evolve adequate media infrastructures. 

Most of the population in the world is living at the subsistence level, and most UN and other independent agencies are of the opinion that this will continue for some time.

Many will openly agree that people living in these areas need greater access to information. However most of these people will broadly agree that mindless entertainment is the last thing any person needs in a developed or developing society needs. 

It is highly likely that the process of "forcing" by infrastructural will television from the developed world, to the developing world, will continue due to its considered strategic importance, irrespective of its real cultural impact. The major powers to the developing world, especially the US in the form of Hollywood (largely financed by New York, London, and French media owners)irrespective of the cultural effects to the target areas in the developing world. 

This poor relationship between broadcasters and program producers in the western devloped world and those in the developing world, and lack of any real free trade in programs will continue for some time. 
Therefore the only real and logical solution to end the disparity is for the signals from the western developed world (beamed into the developing world) to be jammed. If it fails to obtain the necessary effect, then signals from the originating countries must be jammed. This is a simple and cheap proposal, that can be managed by any dedicated group of people that feel wronged by the current status quo. 

A great deal has been said on how one can overpower one signal with
another. Certainly jamming satellite television (STV) poses some technical challenges that would not normally exist in the context of radio or shortwave. It all can be summed up in two words "Jamming margin". It is related to signal to noise ratio (snr) or s/n. Most TV broadcasters try to maintain for sat-tv s/n ratio of 6db, and at the beam edge 3db. This is for C band. For Ku a different scheme is used that uses degrees Kelvin as a noise measurement scheme.

Yet, in engineering terms the idea is the same. It is the goal of those
engaged in jamming to produce a signal that is about 1.5db in power away from the main signal.
 
What does this mean for those producing the equipment for jamming? If a
transponder is fed a 400 watt signal from the ground, then a 200 - 300 watt jamming signal would be effective in making the signal unrecoverable. This is more effective with signals that are already scrambled. Descrambelers & decoders can be very wanting of high quality signal, and any disruption can render the signal useless across 80% - 90% of the target area. Most Sat-tv broadcasters may use up to 1000 watts for their unlink, and some may use as much as 2000 watts the further away from the equator they are.

Signal shaping is important. It is necessary to create a signal that has very high peak effective power (pep). Effective signal jamming means having signal peaks across a broad band to confuse the decoders. For guarantee success, there must be more energy directed towards the main carrier wave.

If one can create a signal for jamming purposes that is 250 Hz from the main carrier wave, then the signal will likely be totally lost. There is one complexity in all of this, and it is a recent satcom broadcasting innovation...

"Cross Strapping" 

What is cross strapping? All cross strapping means is that the broadcaster can send up a signal in a different band that what is "downlinked" to the target area on earth. This is why I feel that there will always be a need to have broadband jamming, at high power levels using tubes usually intended for radar.

With cross strapping an uplink in C band can become a downlink in Ku. 

Example:
C ---> Ku or Ku ---> C or in some cases Ku ---> S or S ---> C

Or visa versa... It makes jamming difficult because you do not know what transponder to transmit on to jam the target programming...
There is a need for very good intelligence to defeat cross strapping...otherwise one will just have to use guesswork and luck...yet it is not insermountable. 

However, if the jamming system design is frequency and band agile enough, then it would be easy to try jamming each transponder individually. Many channels are subscription and thus scrambled, this makes planning more difficult. Thus the need to have some remote party able to monitor the event to aid in this possible irritant to coordination of jamming. (It is just an irritant, tolerate it. Not
all sats have it) article suggestions (to improve technical accuracy)

To jam one transponder, much less dozens of transponders that supply television to national target areas requires a great deal of coordination and cooperation to be fully effective in achieving the required political goals. These are some of the preliminary conclusions I have come to as to what you need to coordinate such matters.

You will need to have 2 people as a bare minimum running the jamming transmitter system. This is necessary for coordination purposes. The equipment, if it is well designed only needs one person to get it running. However, once it is running someone has to be on the lookout, and someone has to be in coordination with headquarters. To have any less coordination would be silly! I mean it!

 
This is presuming those jamming desire to do it under the helm of an organization. This may not be a true case all the time. Many seeking to jam these signals may be entirely state funded. Therefore, having a SW receiver and a "one time pad" to receive encrypted messages may be useful.

In order to achieve effective jamming, you need to have multiple groups of 2 and 3 people working together, with sat-tv jamming mechanisms as I have described, spread across the hemisphere where the jamming is to take place.

For example : Americas (US); one would require 20 scattered units across South & Central America to achieve effective "harassment" of the 20 top sat-tv broadcasters in the US. To be able to have an effective blackout probably would require 60 units, possibly 80. The need of clear & effective coordination is obvious. As I write, I am amazed that HAMAS, the PKK and other Islamic social welfare organizations in the Gulf States (where the offense is perceived to be the greatest) have not been successful in jamming US television. It is very easy to jam the signals, too easy. I just make it sound hard

To be effective however, you must "take down" an entire satellite. This requires a 20kw TWT warfare system system at peak working order. This means a 50kw generator (to keep off the mains), or a mains hook up. This is harder to achieve without being on a boat, where one has generally 100kw AC generators. This creates additional technical
and coordination difficulties. One is forced spend money on a satcom tracking system, because boats do not make stable sat-tv dish platforms.

Unless you are going to be "taking down" (slang term) an entire sat-tv bird (like Galaxy 5), then consider the real effective advantage of having many coordinated jamming units spread across the continent whose disliked state you wish to jam its TV.

Endnotes
This estimate is based on 20 units having 200 watt jamming systems.
What I mean is one can be in say Zaire, and "Jam" European TV
Never jam the sat television of the country you are resident in...

JAMMING TARGETS (CHANNELS)

US Market

US NEWS & INFORMATION
CNN Financial News / International 
CNN Headline News 
CNN Airport Channel 
CSPAN 
CSPAN2 
Court TV 
Bloomberg Information TV 
All News Channel 

US SPORT
Classic Sports Network 
Empire Sports Network 
ESPN 
ESPN Alternate 
ESPN 2 
ESPN 2 Alternate 
The Golf Channel 
Home Team Sports 
KBL Sports 
Madion Square Garden Network 
Midwest Sports Channel 
Prime Sports 
Prime Sports Southwest 
Speedvision 
SportsChannel - Chicago 
SportsChannel - Cincinnati 
SportsChannel - New England 
SportsChannel - New York 
SportsChannel - Ohio 
SportsChannel - Pacific 
SportsChannel - Philadelphia 
SportSouth 
Sunshine Network 

US FILM CHANNELS 
Cinemax - East 
Cinemax - West 
Cinemax 2 
Encore 
Encore 2 Love Stories 
Encore 3 Westerns 
Encore 4 Mystries 
Encore 5 Acition 
Encore 6 True Stories / Drama 
Encore 7 WAM! Youth 
HBO - East 
HBO - West 
HBO2 - East 
HBO2 - West 
HBO 3 
The Movie Channel - East 
The Movie Channel - West 
Showtime - East 
Showtime - West 
Showtime 2 
STARZ! 
STARZ! - West 

Special emphasis must be placed on jamming movie channels that use compression to save transmission costs

US DOMESTIC NETWORK CHANNELS 
ABC - East 
ABC - Mountain 
ABC - West 
CBS - East 
CBS - Mountain 
CBS - West 
FOX - East 
NBC - East 
NBC - Mountain 
NBC - West 
UPN 
WB 

Special emphasis must be placed on jamming movie channels that use compression to save transmission costs

US VARIETY
America's Talking 
Cartoon Network 
Disney Channel - East 
Disney Channel - West 
E! Entertainment TV 
The Family Channel 
Lifetime 
Nickolodian 
Outdoor Life 
Sci-Fi Channel 
TBS Superstaion 
Turner Newtork Televison 
USA Network 
Z TV
MTV
MTV2

Latin American Market
CNN Latin America 
TNT Latin America 
MTV
VH1  

European Market (draft 5 OCT 96)
CNN International
CNN Nordic 
USIA Worldnet Television 
MTV Europe 
VH1 Europe 

Asian Market (draft 5 OCT 96)
CNN International 
USIA Worldnet Television 
HBO Asia 
MTV Asia 
PRIME SPORTS 

MORAL ASPECTS OF JAMMING TELEVISION

There is much to be said on the international morality on this particular issue. This is by no means a new geopolitical event. One must remember "Captian Midnight" who put up a protest note on the transponder serving HBO (before it became a much larger network with 2 time zone feeds and international service. Although Captain Midnight did eventually end up in prison, the effect was obvous. It proved that it was possible for ordanary people to interfere with national and
international broadcasting. HBO did not lose its profitability, and the American broadcasting scene went on as usual. However, its overall effect on subscription rates was on the whole rather positive, and there are now 4 movie nets that also fill the place of HBO. In spite of the fact that this ought to have caused innovation and more freedom in programming in the US it has not. 

Due to deregulation, network (net) ownership is becoming more concentrated, and the internet so far does not have the bandwidth to allow, for example, an upstate New York resident to watch TVNZ programmes on the net, or via the internet. Many say that the
problem will be fixed, and there is the issue of copyright that is not entirly settled, but when only 3.5 % of the population is using the internet, it is by demographics too elite. Why must a small percentage of the world population get access to this vast horde of information, when it forces its now vast surplus of programming and idealology on the rest of the world community. There has to be, and in the end must be some kind of balance between access to information and mindless
entertainment.

In the long run it is probably up to the Islamic community to break the current status quo, or any other community wronged for that manner. That is to say that only one community must do this, many communities, be they in the Latin America, or Gulf states do have a say in what is broadcast. They have no right to set back and wait for the US to dictate or interfrere with their cultural norms. Broadcasting by its very nature is designed to transfer information, be it from the simple spark gap morse code messages to high definition tv service (HDTV.) Radio monitoring is not good for much else unless you are into radio astronomy. 

Jamming can only be successful for a short time frame, at least to target areas like Europe and USA. Threre is a reason for this : ISDN (Intigrated Digital Services Network) - and to a lesser degree SONET, ATM and SMDS. It is and simple and inexpensive (for the level of revenues involved) for each TV station and cable system to order enough ISDN connections to allow for the transfer of TV programmes with great ease. This internet is partly responsible for this.
	Most US TV stations are on the Internet, and European stations are well on the way. Even if the US were to have 90% of its Sat-TV Transponders jammed, there is enough spare capasity to - with digital compression - continue programming as ususal. Also, with the advent of Direct To Home (DTH) Television, the signals are far more jamproof (uless you are willing to find the gaps in the technology that make this not be entirly true)...than traditional single transponder delivered signals.
	This makes it easy to group HBO (a offensive movie channel even in the US market - to many) with TV Asia (ethnic television), like Direct TV does. So, if one starts jamming, one must be very selective.

PROGRAMME JAMMING RULES

jam only programming & feeds deemed nominally offensive to the "mainstream" of the target socity

only jam during the duration of programming, to evade detection
select special events for disruption

sport content easiest to jam, and has powerful effect

poltical channels but not during news coverage best target time

content that gives a false or distorted view of what is going that would have a long term impact on that socity 

broadband jamming (entire satillite) only if one is in dire circomstances needing to make a point

set up decoy transmitters (1 watt EIRP) nearby, so as to help evade detection

never jam signals that are not televison signal except for radio subcarriers using TV channel, as broadcasters choose who to lease from!

Here is a list of what you need to jam a single transponder

(32/36/18) mhz width Traveling Wave Tube Amplifier (200 watt)
Baseband TV Signal Randomizer (sends semi-random TV sync signals;
"home-brew")
3 metre dish, mesh (appears ready for reception)
Coax Feeder Line 6 metres (for high power, UHF/SHF Service)
Feed Elements (C/Ku dual band)
Left / Right Hand Circular Polarization
Horizontal / Vertical Polarization
Satellite TV Exciter (Analog, 1 - 20 watts)
10 Kw Desil Generator (if you want to avoid the mains)
30 AC mains connectors ( I I or / \ etc...)
Automobile, type Van to hold all equipment
Mounting Equipment (to hold material in van)


EQUIPMENT COSTS FOR JAMMING

All prices in US Dollars, subject to regional change

Dish 3m C/Ku 
$1000

C/Ku broadband amplifier 
$10000 - $50000

AC Generator 10kw
$2000
 
Baseband TV Signal Randomizer (home-brew)
$50

Coax Feeder Line 6 metres (C / Ku)
$300

Feed Elements (C/Ku dual band)
Left / Right Hand Circular Polarization 
Horizontal / Vertical Polarization 
$2500

Satellite TV Exciter (modified surplus, or surplus)
$2000

AC mains connectors
$100

Van, Used (to hold all equipment) 
$2000

Mounting Equipment
$200