IRAN: U.S. satellite feeds to Iran jammed

MSNBC news ^ | July 9, 2003 | Robert Windrem

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

U.S. satellite feeds to Iran jammed

May be linked to the anniversary of student uprisings

By Robert Windrem
NBC NEWS PRODUCER

NEW YORK, July 9 — U.S. government officials as well as Iranian Americans and communications satellite operators confirm that all U.S.-based satellite broadcasts to Iran are being jammed by an unknown group or individual, possibly Iranian agents operating out of Latin America.

   OVER THE PAST several months, private Iranian-American groups have begun increasing their broadcasts into Iran using Telstar-12, a communications satellite over the eastern Atlantic. All are trying to encourage protests against the regime in Tehran.
       Iranians, using small satellite dishes, have been able to receive the broadcast, whose mix of news, entertainment and exhortations to protest have gained a large audience, particularly in Tehran. Then on Sunday, the Voice of America began its Farsi-language broadcasts.
       Not long afterward, the jamming intensified.
       Over the past few days — as the fourth anniversary of the country’s most widespread protests approached — the broadcasts have been jammed, not in Iran but somewhere in the Americas, according to officials and investigators.
       
 Iranian students cancel protests
       The Farsi language broadcasts by the VOA as well as Los Angeles-based ParsTV and Appadana TV are uplinked in the United States via Telstar-5, which is over the United States. It is then turned around at the Washington International Teleport in Alexandria, Va., and uplinked again to Telstar-12 over the eastern Atlantic Ocean.

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       It is Telstar-12 that is being jammed, say investigators for companies working with the broadcasters, cutting off broadcasts not only in Iran but in Europe and the rest of the Middle East as well. In the past, the Iranian government, using high-power transmitters on towers in cities such as Tehran have been able to jam it locally. The fact that TV viewers elsewhere can’t see it was the first hint that the jamming was happening on this side of the Atlantic.
       Loral, which operates the satellite, declined comment on what it is doing in response.
       “The jamming appears to be linked to the anniversary of the student uprisings,” said one investigator for a company working with the broadcasters who preferred to remain anonymous. “It’s malicious, not a prank. For us, it began yesterday, continues today. Not only are the Iranian signals jammed, but those of other nearby broadcasters are as well. We have a Chinese client who is being jammed.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

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[TigerLikesRooster]

Re #1

Death to mullahs! Fry them with microwave.

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[risk]

Hello, Navy artillery? Prepare to take a free fire location please. I'd like to call in a heavy strike at the following coordinates...

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

It may come to that!

[risk]

It would be the perfect antecedant to Powell's groaning submission to the mullahs.

[flamefront]

Cuba

And just who is the Chinese client who is being jammed - Taiwanese?

Let me guess, the Chinese elint facility on Cuba is involved.

From the article:
A representative of one of the Iranian-American broadcasters said he suspected the jamming came from Cuba, which has excellent relations with Iran, but offered no proof.

And MSNBC would not dare try to support any publishing of supporting proof, like even mentioning the advanced elint facility.

No MSNBC probably wants to set up their own facilities in Cuba and want to curry the favor of Fidel.

[DB]

We don't take kindly to having our satellites jammed.

It shouldn't take very long to locate the source if we're serious about finding it.

[risk]

Time for BAY OF HOGS.

[flamefront]

ping

July 6th: BREAKING: Persian opposition Satellite TV jammed to Iran and Europe

[Khashayar]

I think Cuba, Venezuela helped Mullahs jam the senders.
Any update about it so far?

[risk]

Just this old news, but it indicates a pattern of broadcast interference:

TV Marti is a U.S. govt.-run TV station in Miami used to promote democracy in Cuba. It costs U.S. taxpayers almost $10 million a year to keep TV Martí going. But few — if any — Cubans see it. (ABCNEWS.com)

Newscast to Nowhere U.S. Taxpayers Pay for a Cuban Broadcast That No One Sees By Jeffrey Kofman June 11 — It's the newscast to nowhere — courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer.

From http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/YourMoney/wnt_CubaTV030611.html

Fifty-five reporters, editors and producers — all U.S. government employees — work seven days a week in a television newsroom in Miami. Each day they earnestly assemble, record and broadcast 4½ hours of news and information programming in Spanish.

And no one sees it.

The intended audience is the people of Cuba.

Like those Voice of America radio broadcasts the United States used to beam across the Iron Curtain during the Cold War, TV Martí is meant to promote democracy in Communist Cuba. But since it began in 1990 the only thing it has successfully promoted is scorn here in the United States.

Because from the beginning, the Castro government has successfully blocked the TV Martí signal. It costs the Cuban government just pennies a day to operate the jamming antennas that are strategically perched on top of Havana's highest buildings.

It costs U.S. taxpayers almost $10 million a year — more than $100 million since TV Martí began — to keep broadcasting TV Martí's anti-Castro invective into the ether.

ABCNEWS Havana producer Mara Valdes checked to see if people on the streets of the Cuban capital had ever heard of the U.S.-based newscast that is produced just for them.

"No," said one man as he shook his head, "because I haven't seen it on TV."

"Never," added a woman, "because it can't be seen."

'Never Been Seen in Cuba'

"TV Martí has just never been seen in Cuba," said Republican Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., one of chorus of congressmen who think TV Martí's funding should have been cut long ago. His conclusion: "It's a jobs program. Frankly, I think it's a political payoff."

According to Flake, TV Martí is zealously protected by Miami's three Cuban-American congressional representatives who reward their hardline supporters with jobs.

"I'd like to say it's something different, but given the amount of time and effort we put in trying to change it and the resistance we had, you can only conclude that it's a jobs program," he said.

The newest director of TV Martí and its sister operation Radio Martí (which is heard in Cuba, although even U.S. reports suggest it has very few listeners) is Pedro Roig. A real estate lawyer with no broadcasting experience but deep roots in the anti-Castro exile community in Miami, Roig gets a salary of $132,000 a year.

"I am not looking at the past, but at the future," said Roig when asked what he has to say to critics of his newscast to nowhere. "And my answer to the critics is this: This could be a valid criticism. Give us a few months. Give us time."

Roig wants time to explore alternative methods of transmission. Possibly from a satellite — although few Cubans have satellite dishes — and possibly from a U.S. government broadcast plane that would make daily flights just outside Cuban airspace. He doesn't know what that would cost. And while he and others explore options. The news goes on. To nowhere.

[risk]

And this: http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/7-8-2003-42679.asp
----
Iran acts to stop anniversary student protest

The Iranian government is taking action to pre-empt possible unrest tonight on the eve of the anniversary of a crackdown on student protests by banning rallies and jamming satellite broadcasts from exiles in the US.

[risk]

http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030612030728.d43r4jgw.html

War of the frequencies being fought out over Iran's capital
TEHRAN (AFP) Jun 12, 2003
Like thousands of other Iranians, 19-year-old Elham enjoys watching Persian-language satellite TV broadcasts from overseas, even though viewing such channels and owning the equipment to receive them are strictly banned.

But in recent weeks, her television has been causing her problems: every so often, the picture drops out, giving way to streaks of interference or nothing at all coupled with the message "No or Bad Signal".

"They are sending those parasites again," she says with a sigh. "That was my favorite programme."
...

[Momaw Nadon]

I'd like to call in a heavy strike at the following coordinates...

I agree.

Lock and Load

[kerosene]

Firing for effect!

[JohnnyZ]

I hope it's not . . . RASPBERRY.

There's only one country who would DARE give us the raspberry --

Lone Star!

[hchutch]

No, no, no.

You configure the seekers on a couple dozen HARMs to go for the frequency. You then shut off the feed to Telstar 12.

Then you send the HARMs after the jammers. :)

[jriemer]

The jamming story hit the "big news". Read on.