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| Latin America |
| Cuba accused of jamming US television programs to Iran |
| 2003-07-16 |
| Well, now this is a suprise. Cuba is deliberately jamming satellite television news programs beamed from the United States to Iran, according to the US government-affiliated Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG). The jamming, the source of which has been located near Havana, prevents Iranians with satellite TV from receiving US broadcasts about their country at a time of growing anti-regime protests, said the BBG. "Cubaâs jamming of satellite transmissions is illegal and ... represents a major threat to satellite communication and must be stopped," BBG chairman Kenneth Tomlinson said. This is illegal under international law, for you international law junkies out there. Calling the jamming "deliberate and malicious," the BBG urged the US Government to "lodge an appropriate formal protest" against Cuba. Write it on the side of a JDAM. The BBG has also asked the international community to "censure states that have caused the interference." The nine-member board, which oversees all US-funded non-military international broadcasting, also urged providers such as Intelsat and Eutelsat to stop giving service to countries that jam satellite transmissions to Iran. The jamming was first detected on July 6, three days after the Voice of America (VOA) began broadcasting a daily 30-minute program called News and Views to Iran, it said. The BBG has allocated $US500,000 to the program which airs nightly between 9:30 and 10:00 pm Iran time. It is scheduled to run to at least September 30. Two other Persian-language VOA television programs, Next Chapter and Roundtable with You, are also being jammed, the BBG said. Television broadcasts to Iran from US-based Iranian dissidents have also been jammed by Cuba, according to Loral Skynet, the company that owns the Telstar 12 satellite beaming the broadcasts. Note that this is not a broadcast being sent into Cuba, but being transmitted into Iran from the US. "It just shows you how the Cuban government is working with the Islamic regime," said Kourosh Abbassi, spokesman for Azadi Television, one of several California-based stations broadcasting to Iran. Very interesting, I wonder how much money and/or oil is being sent to Fidel for this service. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #8 The satellite companies making a "Come to Jesus" memo to Comrade Fidel would be a good start. If he does not get the hint, then go to DOD (NOT State.....Gawd, not State) and ask for some electromagnetic or pyrotechnic help in resolving the matter. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2003-7-16 4:39:48 PM |
| #7 H.A.R.M. would be perfect, the sat jammer is radiating just like a radar antenna. You'd just have to tune the seeker to the frequency and let her rip. |
| Posted by: Steve 2003-7-16 3:57:22 PM |
| #6 Wouldn't a H.A.R.M.track the signal back to it's source? Inquiring minds whant to know. |
| Posted by: raptor 2003-7-16 3:39:00 PM |
| #5 What ever happened to those E-bombs we were going to use in Iraq? This would be the perfect place to use one. |
| Posted by: Steve 2003-7-16 2:31:58 PM |
| #4 Cuban jammer needs an EMP to scramble its innards. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2003-7-16 2:13:37 PM |
| #3 Not that easy. Transponders are only designed to receive a certain signal level. More than that overwelms them. If you read the story you see that the jamming signal is already high enough to affect other transponders. More power could shut down the entire bird. The satellite companies all work together closely, I think they will get together and tell Castro to stop the jamming or they shut off all service into Cuba. |
| Posted by: Steve 2003-7-16 2:07:53 PM |
| #2 So jam the jammer. Up the signal power of the legit broadcast until you break the jammer's lock on the transponder. |
| Posted by: mojo 2003-7-16 1:40:59 PM |
| #1 More info, I must have missed this story: Late Friday, however, three sources associated with the broadcast services confirmed that Loral Skynet, the operator of the Telstar-12 satellite used by the broadcasters, had determined the jamming was probably emanating from âthe vicinity of Havana, Cuba.â One of the sources said that Loral, working with transmitter location expert TLS Inc. of Chantilly, Va., had further fixed the location as â20 miles outside of Havana.â Cubaâs main electronic eavesdropping base, at Bejucal, is about 20 miles outside of the Cuban capital. The base, built for Cuba by the Russians in the early 1990âs, monitors and intercepts satellite communications. Iran and Cuba have had increasingly close relations over the past several years with Iran supplying Cuba with oil. Cuba has extensive jamming experience, regularly interfering with the signal of the U.S. government-financed TV Marti. The Farsi language broadcasts, by the Los Angeles-based ParsTV, Azadi Television and Appadana TV, are uplinked in the US via Telstar-5, which is over the United States. They are then turned around at the Washington International Teleport in Alexandria, Va., where they are joined by the VOA broadcast and uplinked again to Telstar-12 over the eastern Atlantic Ocean. It is the Telstar-12 uplink 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. The jamming could emanate from anywhere within the satelliteâs uplink footprint, which covers all the Eastern United States, the Caribbean and South America, say investigators. 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 canât 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. But in a letter that Loral Skynetâs Peggy Courter sent to Atlanta DTH, which manages the satellite services for Azadi, was quite clear in laying out its findings. The interference, it reported, had begun at 5:35 p.m. EDT on July 5, which was just after midnight in Tehran and shortly after the VOA began its broadcasts. After running a series of tests, wrote Courter, âSkynet concluded the interference was caused by a third partyâ and asked TLS to investigate. TLS was able to find the âprobable source of the interferenceâ on Friday afternoon, identifying it as Havana. âThe jamming appears to be linked to the anniversary of the student uprisings,â said one investigator for a company working with the broadcasters who preferred to remain anonymous. âItâs 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. âThere are ways of determining the location of the interference,â he added. âIt is complex and time-consuming. Basically, you look at minimal interference other nearby satellites are experiencing and then you triangulate.â As for the actual jamming, its simply a matter of aiming a strong signal at the uplink transponder on the satellite and overwhelming the Farsi language broadcastersâ signals. Said the investigator: âYou need a dish, some power, not too much. You put up a test pattern ... and do a sweep and find the transponder on the satellite you want to jam. It could even be smaller than the standard 6-meter dish. It could be a small dish with a lot of power.â BBCâs Media Monitoring Service, which provides capsules of various foreign TV broadcasts for subscribers, described the jamming as âa mysterious, interfering signal, rendering the broadcasts unwatchable.â |
| Posted by: Steve 2003-7-16 1:00:47 PM |