Conference 7.286::space

105.0. "Satellite Transmission Jamming" by PYRITE::WEAVER () Mon Dec 02 1985 12:27

Associated Press Mon 02-DEC-1985 00:43                      Satellite Jamming

       FCC Investigates Jamming Of Satellite TV Signals
                           By BILL McCLOSKEY
                        Associated Press Writer
   WASHINGTON (AP) - For the first time, the Federal Communications
Commission has launched an investigation into what may be
deliberate jamming of television signals sent via satellite.
   Eastern Microwave, Inc., which transmits the signal of New York
City television station WOR via satellite to hundreds of cable
systems around the country, filed the complaint.
   ``EMI has reason to believe the interference may be
deliberate,'' attorney Charles H. Helein said in a letter to the
chief of the FCC field operations enforcement division. The letter
was obtained by the Home Satellite Newsletter of Arlington, Va.
   In its letter, EMI said its satellite signal was subject to
``serious and debilitating interfernce'' on Oct. 23, 24 and 25. On
some occasions, the interference lasted for hours, it said.
   Charles Magin of the FCC's monitoring station in Laurel, Md.,
said a month of checks failed to pinpoint the cause of the problem.
   ``We have very little chance of determining the source of that
radiation,'' Magin said. He noted that any satellite Earth station
transmitter in the United States, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and parts of
Canada and Mexico could send a signal to jam a TV show.
   It would take weeks of tracking an unidentified signal to find
its source, he said.
   The letter to the commission reported that a test of equipment
developed to scramble the satellite signal of ShowtimeThe Movie
Channel was briefly postponed when interference shifted from the
WOR channel to the Showtime part of the satellite.
   Helein suggested that ``those entities who disagree with
scrambling satellite entertainment program feeds may well be
attempting to interfere with scrambling methods and developments.''
   As reported to monitoring stations at the time of the incidents,
the signal contained no programming, but its electronic force
caused interference.
   ``The interfering signal, without modulation, can only be
explained as deliberate interference or transmission testing of
some nature,'' the letter said. ``Recurrence of the problem cannot
be tolerated.''
   Magin said that the FCC is interested in the problem and will
keep trying to identify the source of any interference. However, he
said, ``there is no hard evidence to indicate that it was
intentional.''
   With thousands of Earth stations capable of sending a signal
into space, though, ``it could happen and there's really no way to
stop it,'' he said. Properly connected, $50 worth of equipment can
turn any backyard Earth station into a transmitter.
   The cable TV industry is worried about unintentional
interference as well as the deliberate jamming, because the
mistakes are also costly in satellite time lost and programs
ruined. Many inadvertent disruptive signals are very brief and come
while technicians are aiming mobile ``uplinks'' used by TV crews to
transmit pictures from the scene of news and sports events.
   ``Some people just aren't careful,'' said Steve A. Tuttle,
public affairs vice president for the National Cable Television
Association.
   In addition to TV signals, communications satellite are
routinely used to transmit news copy, data, telephone calls, radio
shows and facsimilies of pages of newspapers to networks of
printing plants.
   Home Satellite Newsletter, in a copyrighted story, quoted Wilson
Dizard, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies at Georgetown University, as saying there have been cases
of military satallite jamming.
   Newer government satellites are built with anti-jamming devices.
But the cost is prohibitive for domestic satellites, Dizard said.